Keep a knockin' but you can't come in

What do you get when you mix a 2-year-old's non-stop penchant for getting into things with a 1920's era door lock? Nothing but trouble! My nephew is at that age where he can't seem to be satisfied until he's fiddled with every last little item in the house, including this:

You see those two little buttons on the top? A 2-year-old fiddler's dream! Push one button the other pops out - how much fun is that?! Repeating that 20 times - even more fun! Not paying attention to the last button pushed - not so much fun. When we came back from our walk this morning we couldn't get into the house, and I knew why instantly. Fortunately, there's always the back door.

Once said nephew was down for a nap my 4-year-old niece and I decided to figure out how to get the door unlocked. "Use the key!", she said. Well, that might work if we had one. So we went with the next best thing, a screwdriver. The lock wouldn't budge. So I tried taking off the inside door knob and plate. Really? What did I think that would accomplish? So I went to the computer and started searching. My niece went to her books and started searching. Halfway through Curious George she found a solution. "Really?" I asked. "Yep!", she said. I told her we might need a few more solutions and we should both keep looking. About 10 minutes later I was feeling hopeless and my niece wanted a popsicle. So we consoled ourselves with frozen treats.

Eventually 5 o'clock rolled around and my sister arrived to pick up the kids. I asked if she had any bright ideas. "Do you have a wire coat hanger?", she asked. Yep! And with one quick push our door was once again open. Omigosh, I cannot believe I hadn't thought of that! What kind of policeman's daughter am I? Needless to say I was quite relieved. And guess who snuck right in and started pushing buttons again? Dude! You are so lucky you're so darn cute!