I was in our laundry room yesterday, doing laundry of all things, when I heard something strange. It was the sound of our garage door being lifted. It was hours until L was due home, so I was duly alarmed. As I peered out the door, I saw that not only had the door lifted, but that it was also closing. And then opening. And then closing. And then, well, you get the picture.

I immediately suspected my devious son of finding the extra remote we keep in his stroller for walks, so I rushed to his room yelling "No! Bad baby!" He gave me a bored look, for he was resting comfortably in his crib, surrounded by his cache of Elmos. I began to worry.

We have one other remote, which L usually keeps in the garage to use when he is doing yard work. After a through inspection of all the natural places in which to hide this, I was unable to locate it (the door is still opening, closing, opening, closing). I cynically wondered if some neighborhood brat had stolen it from our garage and was even now watching my frantic search for the cause of this most unusual occurrence. At this point, I called L, who was able to help me locate the missing remote (outside on the fence, of all places. Isn't that where you would look?).

Now that I had determined that the cause of our over- stimulated garage door was no child, mine or otherwise, I began to worry. The poor little door would keep going and going until it freaked itself out, then it would shut down and you couldn't get it to move, then it would start the whole thing over again. I tried unplugging it, flipping the breaker, and talking to it very nicely, all with no response (except of course, the opening, closing, opening, closing...). Finally, I just locked the back door and hoped no one would steal my blue willow dishes from the garage. Eventually, the door started behaving itself. I am without explanation.


In other news, my mom and I took Hatchling to Khol's last night, as he needs some warm clothes. He saw the wall of Elmo dolls, the Elmo pj's, the Elmo clothes, and he kept shouting "Mo!" (they're tight like that, you know). We ended up having to go the Khol's in another town so that we could purchase a whole Elmo ensemble. Oh yes, he is styling now. Grammy also got him an Elmo juke box thing, which was a Christmas present until she let him play with it in the store, and now it is a "fall" present. It's nice to be spoiled by your Grammy.