For They Shall Inherit The Earth

Several years ago, I met an awesome couple through a website I wrote on. We got to be good friends, and two years ago, they had a daughter, who is basically 100% fantastic. A couple weeks back, we all went camping with some other friends, and I think we can all agree here that the standard reaction to "let's go camping with a two year old" is "...YOU will be going camping with a two year old because hell to the no." Camping with THIS two year old, however, was great...she was better at camping and group dynamics than some adults I have been camping with. She put herself down for a nap, people. We're all sitting around, hanging out, and she just goes "Mommy, be right back," goes on over to the tent, gets in, zips back up, and taps out for two hours with her teddy bear.

If I could get some kind of in-writing guarantee that I would have children like this one, I would be gestating right now.

While we're bragging about children we have absolutely no genetic claim to, I would also like to note that this little girl refers to everyone as Miss or Mister _______, counts to TWENTY and can identify numbers of fingers (as opposed to just memorizing the sequence of numbers), does the whole alphabet, and says please and thank you. She has also taken out both of her parents, both of whom are involved in martial arts, using her miniature martial arts skills.

This little girl's parents and I have an email list with a bunch of our friends, which we use to waste time at work. We were all going back and forth about nothing in particular when an email from Mom pops up:

Okay, so my 2 year old daughter just locked me in our basement. :(

Weirdly, we continued emailing for a couple emails before someone went "wait...what? Are you emailing a plea for help? Is that what's happening here?" We then established that Mom had been freed, and got the following explanation.

Yeah, I went downstairs to rotate laundry and closed the door so she wouldn't come down after me. The door has one of those child locks on it so she can only reach into the center and push the lock. Thankfully I found a bobby pin that I use to unlock her door when she locks herself inside. Unfortunately, that wasn't working. Finally, she turned it just enough to unlock the door.

I've long since accepted that this child will be the eventual overlord of the universe, but I always assumed it would be in a GOOD way, not in the imprisonment kind of way. Alarming, to say the least. But then, just to cap off the whole thing, Dad pops in with this:

There's your rollercoaster of marriage and parenthood right
there.

Bad: There's laundry to be done.
Good: Wife's knocking it out.
Bad: Daughter locked Wife in the basement.
Good: Daughter let Wife out of the basement.
Bad: She did so by defeating the child lock meant to keep her out of the basement to begin with.

My friends are the best.

PS - Prepare to serve this little girl now.