William's Great Escape

My ears were burning so bad; I could feel my neighbors staring at me thinking "She has just won the worst mom in the universe award". No, my neighbors weren't looking. At least I don't think they were. But in my head I imagined that all eyes were on me. I needed to run a few things upstairs into William's room and he was occupied in the living room with his bouncy ball. So, I thought I could dart upstairs really fast, do my business, and make it back down before he'd even notice. When I got to the top of the stairs he saw me and started laughing. We have a lofted living room so you can see up into the upstairs hallway, so he knew I had snuck out. He started running (toddling) toward the entryway where the stairs are, I thought to follow me upstairs. I kept calling his name saying "Are you coming to get mommy william?" as I went into his room. He would laugh every time I asked, and I could hear him climbing the stairs so I thought he was on his way. Then I couldn't hear climbing anymore. I couldn't hear anything. And as parents always say, its bad when you can't hear anything. I ran to the stairs to see if he was ok and he wasn't on the stairs. That's when I noticed the sunlight beaming inside. How is sunlight beaming inside? THE FRONT DOOR!!! How in the world is the front door open? I ran down the stairs to see William one foot in, one foot out, clinging to the door frame and laughing hysterically. In this 1-second-feels-like-an-hour moment I thought "don't startle him or make him think we're playing, he'll fall out of the door instead of in and he'll crack his head open on the concrete and i'll have to rush to the emergency room and austin is asleep and would hate to wake up to this news and I really can't handle this right now please oh please do not startle him just calmly walk over and snatch him up and bring him inside and then you can breathe and think in complete sentences again" yes, literally, I thought all of that. Luckily I did not startle him and he did not crack his head open or any of the other things that flooded my mind. He just thought we were playing. But, my one sock on one sock off baby wearing a onesie and no pants sure had no business being outside in the 40 degree weather with 30 mph winds. That is the part my neighbors must have scoffed at. I pictured them all been standing in the middle of the street thinking "look at that precious baby way too cute for his own good trying to climb out the front door. and his horrible mother is nowhere to be found. he probably is trying to escape!" If I lived on Wisteria Lane, maybe that would have transpired. Lucky for me I live near a bunch of homebodies and I don't think anyone can see my front porch from their windows. Thank goodness. But how did he get outside??? I was befuddled. Until I saw a little orange tail twitching around the corner. REAGAN. I must not have closed the door all the way, Reagan used his evil powers to get out, helped Nancy escape to safety and then left the door wide open for William. That darn cat, making me look like a bad parent. In all my worry and anger the best punishment I could come up with was to shut the front door and leave him outside. Surely he'll hate it and see the error in his ways. 10 minutes later when I couldn't handle him being outside I realized that I was more punished than he was. Damn cat.