Home Invasion ... kind of

We never used to lock our doors. It was just a bad habit. We didn't even have a key to the front door for a long time. Not sure Tim's reason for it, but mine was because I am afraid to lock doors. When I am locking a door, I get freaked out about why we have to lock doors in the first place, and it gets me all scared. Backward? Yes. But that is me.

We changed our mode of operation when Avery moved in because in the heat of that situation, we needed to keep her (and us) especially safe. But I still hate locking the front door. Every time I approach the front door at night I am convinced that as I reach to lock it, someone will push it open and attack me. Ok, also keep this in perspective that I have maternity craziness adding to my fears.

But basically my worst fears came true last night. I think it scared me right out of my fear. Get this:

Last night, Tim fell asleep at 7 p.m. after a long day of watching Quinn. (You can't blame him for that.) I was up until 9 p.m. When I got into bed, of course, I could not sleep.

THEN...

After a few minutes I heard a noise. I thought it sounded like someone touching the front door knob. It really scared me, but I told myself, it is just the craziness talking.

THEN...

I heard another noise as if someone was trying to walk through our house quietly. This scared me even more because of the first noise.

THEN...

I heard a third noise. I knew that none of the noises could actually be in the house because they would have been so much louder if someone were actual in the house. But I remembered that since Tim fell asleep so early, the front door was probably unlocked. I stared to panic, and I was worried I was going to have an actual panic attack if I didn't do something. I pictured this crazy person we know trying to steel Quinn from her bed. My adrenaline was really pumping. I decided to go for.

I walked down the hall in the dark and straight to the front door. I reached for light swtiches in places where we do not have light swtiches. It was still dark when I got to the door. I could barely barely breathe. REMEMBER: THIS IS MY WORST FEAR!

I remember thinking, "Oh my gosh. I can't believe I am about to lock the door before making sure there is not someone in the house." Our door is sticky, so you have to lift the door while you lock it which means you have to stand with your whole body against the door. But did it.

I locked it, and started to run from the door as fast as I could because I was sure someone was about to try to get it.

I didn't get more than 3 feet when I just about died!! Someone started POUNDING on the door.

I jumped and screamed at the top of my lungs in the dead of night.

This caused a chain reaction, and Tim jumped out of bed with the fear of God in him. He was sort of screaming and grunting and breathing really heavy. He started running toward me. I ran to meet him in the hall. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I freaked out. It's nothing. It's nothing."

No matter what I said, he was still in King Kong mode ready to kill the home invader. He said later that when he heard my voice, he woke from a deep sleep and was 100% positive that someone was in the house and that he was going to have to kill that person. That is the energy that was running through him. You could see it in his eyes that this is what he thought and felt. It took over a minute to calm him down. (Quinn was crying in her bed by this point.)

Tim was still a bit pumped up when he swung the door open to see one of his best friends Brandon standing there on the porch scared to death because he heard all the commotion inside and didn't know how to make things right. (After all he had only knocked on a friends door at 9 o'clock at night. Harmless. Little does he know how crazy I am.)

We all took a minute to share our sides of the story, and then we had a good laugh about it over chips and salsa.

I guess Brandon had parked by the garage to drop off Tim's drum set. He walked over to the front door from the side of the house.... which caused all the little noises I heard. When he heard me lock the door, he thought it was someone unlocking the door to greet him. He was planning to just walk in and say hello. He went with the loud knock as a way to say, "Hey everyone, Uncle Brandon's here!", and was greeted by a ton of screaming. We was as scared as we were.

Quinn just seemed annoyed that she got woken up, but she did ask if "Bob, Bob" was ok when I went to tuck her back in.

Tim and I talked about what happen a lot while Brandon was here and after. I was worried he would be mad at me a little for overreacting, waking him up and scaring him so badly , but he said honestly understood and that he would not have expected me to react in any other way. He said he gets up a lot in the night to double check the locks, and if someone had knocked when he was at the door, it would have freaked him out too. On top of that, we had just talked last week about how scared I am of locking the door!

We talked about how amazing the human body is to be able to reaction in such quick ways. Obviously, my flight responce was triggered when the door knocked, and Tim's fight response came in full force. He said he can't imagine how people get mugged and not kill their mugger in the heat of the moment!!

Either way, I think the entire situation made me a bit less scared. I can't imagine going to lock the door in the night again without laughing my head off.