Mad

Call me paranoid, cautious, scared, overprotective.
Call me what you want but I do not answer the door to strangers when McKay is not home.
I shush the kids, look through the peep hole and wait until they leave.

I had an incident when Sydney and Jackson were young where 2 young adamant magazine salesman ended up in my house while my kids were sleeping. It was the sickest feeling and I had to get a little crazy with them to get them out of my house.
MY house. MY safe place with MY family.

Since that incident I've become more careful. It makes me mad when persistent people who know I'm home (I'm not always able to keep the kids quiet) knock.
And knock.
And ring the doorbell.
Over and over.

GO AWAY!!

I've been known to call my brothers and friends to come slowly drive by my house to look for anything suspicious and to let those knockers know that someone has an eye out.

One time after a particularly insistent nighttime knocker my brother did a drive by for me to find my headlights were left on in the driveway.
A good passerby didn't want me to wake up to a dead battery.
Like I said, I'm a bit paranoid.

I'm even cautious
with people I know should be knocking like the pest man who comes every other month or the DirecTV tech who I've scheduled to come.
I hate letting them in the house.
MY house.

Yesterday was a normal Friday.
I got up with my early risers, threw on my sweats and did the morning shuffle-the-kids-off-to-school routine.
Reese actually slept in so he wasn't tired for his normal 9:00 am nap when I usually shower and get ready for the day. Instead I got busy with dishes and laundry and before I knew it it was 11:00 and Carter was ready for his lunch and nap.
I set him up to the island with his sandwich and string cheese, strapped Reese into his high chair and was feeding him when the knocking began.
Knock knock knock.
"Shhh Carter, just keep eating. "
Ring ring knock knock knock.
I pulled Reese out of his chair and walked to the door to observe through the peep hole.
My stomach dropped when I realized the door was still unlocked from when my sister-in-law picked the kids up for school.
Ring ring.
Knock knock knock.
For about 3 minutes.
That's a Long time to stand knocking on someone's door!
I stood there with my hand on the lock ready to quickly turn it if I saw them reach for the door knob.
I had my phone in my hand and was dialing McKay to tell him I was freaked out but hung up when I knew he'd wisely tell me "If your worried, just call the police."
FINNALLY the two young (maybe late 20's) men walked away. I turned the lock then ran to the back glass sliding door to lock it. Carter had been playing out back earlier so it was unlocked and the curtains were open.
As I went to lock it I noticed the sprinkler was on.... the one attached to the hose that the kids run through in their swimming suits. Carter must have turned it on while he was out there, little stinker.
My heart beat slowed as I stepped outside to turn off the water realizing that the knockers were just good passerbys letting me know that I was wasting a ton of water.
Oops.
I came back in the house, closed and locked the sliding door and pulled the curtains closed. Phew.
Carter finished up his lunch and we all headed upstairs.
I laid the boys down for naps and got in the shower.

Here in Las Vegas (and Henderson which is where we live) there are very strict water usage guidelines. You are only allowed to water your grass during certain hours if the day on certain days of the week.
There are people who drive around (I call them Water Police) to enforce the water usage rules and issue tickets to those who don't comply.
As I'm taking my shower I've convinced myself that the "Water Police" saw my sprinkler going and would probably have issued a warning to the sweats-wearing bed headed mom who answered the door and explained that her two year old, the little stinker, must have turned it on a few minutes ago. Now that I hadn't answered the door after they knocked and Knocked and KNOCKED they left and would surly issue a big fat ticket for leaving the sprinkler on while I wasn't even home.
Dang it!!!
How was I going to explain my way through that one...?
"No, Water Police Officer... You see I was home when you stood at my door for 5 minutes knocking... Just too paranoid to answer the door...."
Uh huh.
Dang it!!!!
So I finish up my shower and the doorbell rings once more.
All right!! They saw I turned the water off and are giving another shot at issuing a warning.
Alright!
I quickly throw some clothes on and run to the top of the stairs ready to plead my case.
Right when I reach the top step I know something is not right.
They are in my back yard fidgeting with the house. I hear someone try to open the sliding glass door.
They are trying yo come IN MY HOUSE!
More quiet noises on the house... Or maybe IN my house... Are they IN MY HOUSE?!
My initial instinct was to run back into my room and call 911.
Instantly I think of my 2 boys, sleeping in their separate rooms. I can't let the men make their way upstairs. I have to go down and let these creepers know that I am home and get them OUT of here!
I sneak down the stairs and slowly poke my head around the corner and there he is.
Some creeper thief outside the window with the screen removed prying my window open with bolt cutters.
In this moment I am MAD.
How dare he knock on my door.
Go through my gate.
Into my backyard and now destroy my window trying to get into
MY HOUSE!!!
While walking toward the window I start yelling.
Screaming.
GET OUT OF HERE!
GET OUT OF HERE!
Over and over.
Instantly he flips his head all around searching for the person who has spotted him....realizing the scream is coming from inside the house.
Then he was gone. Jumping the wall and running away.

My hands are shaking so bad that it takes me a while to get 911 on the line.
I call McKay the second I hang up with the 911 operator and two patrol cars are at my house in less than 2 minutes.
By now the creeper is long gone but the officers did their best walking around my house and trying to make me feel better.
They left me with instructions to call back if I see anything suspicious and assured me they'd patrol the area and survey the neighbors to see if they had seen the two men.

Now I'm home. Sitting on the couch in front if the window that some complete stranger had just tried to climb in through. My boys ate still in bed completely oblivious to what has just happened and I break down with the what-ifs.

The police decided the guy was just seconds away from popping the window open.

What if I was still in the shower when they rang the doorbell the second time around and I wasn't able to rush down and catch them...? They would have been IN MY HOUSE while I was IN the shower.

What if they hadn't rang the doorbell at all the second time around and just went straight on back...? They would have been IN MY HOUSE and I would have had NO IDEA!

What if Reese had taken his normal morning nap so that I would have had my usuall early shower and we would have been out of the house grocery shopping like I had originally planned to do...? They would have found the house empty like they thought. What would they have taken? What would they have destroyed?

What if?

Mad.

That's how I'm left feeling.
What kind of person could...
You know?!

So now we get to go spend money on a security screen door for our front door so that I can open the door to creepers to let them know I'm home without allowing them access into my house.

Now we get to spend money on an alarm system so that I can feel safe in my own house.

While I was laying in bed last night tossing and turning replaying the incident over and over in my mind, wishing I could have somehow called the police while the intruder was in the act so they could have caught him the only thing that allowed me to sleep was imagining that he was at his house, laying in his bed, having nightmares about the crazy psychotic screaming mom he had messed with that day.