Ninja Mama, and Other Stories

Picture from http://www.guardian.co.uk

Did you see the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes"? If you did you might remember Idgy Threadgoode's call to arms, "Towanda!!!" Well, I have one of my own. Miah and Laurel coined it one day when I caught something in midair that rightfully should have shattered on the floor when it slipped off the counter. "Ninja Mama!!" If you know our family intimately, you know that we frequently make up, or latch onto a phrase, silly game, or some such. Ninja hug! Pineapple! (thanks Psych!) Yellow Car! (Thanks Miah's classmate) Tentacle Fingers! (where laurel wiggles her always cold and clammy freakishly long fingers in your face) And then there are the endless variations of Ninja hug (where you sneak up on some poor unsuspecting person, scream ninja hug, then grab them and hug them to death) Ninja kiss, kick, smack, punch, and of course Ninja Mama (where I do something cool, that seems magical to those of us who don't know all those mom tricks we keep in our back pockets)
This morning I got a nice resounding "NINJA MAMA!" from Miah. Here's why...
Miah and I were on the way out the door to drop her off at school. At the door, I remembered that I left my debit card at my desk. My gas light had lit up on the way to Laurel's school earlier, so I had to fill up after dropping Miah off, so I ran back and grabbed it. I locked the door, and took off to catch up with Miah. Just as I slammed the locked door closed, I realized that Miah did not have the keys in her hand, as I thought she had. The look on my face must have been something, because Miah's eyes were as big as saucers when I asked, "You did grab the keys, right?" Her tiny little "no" was followed by a loud "oh, crap!" Ya. We are locked out of the house, no car keys, no cell phone, not that I could call Jay, or anyone else for that matter, for help. It's 30 degrees, and I'm wearing slippers instead of shoes because I'm just dropping Miah off. ARRRGG!!
I grabbed the door knob and tested it, because I've learned to check the situation first before freaking out, or going too far out of my way only to find out that the door hadn't seated itself in the latch all the way, and I would have been fine if I'd just checked. Nope. I'm seriously stuck. I also know that Jay makes the rounds every single night to make sure the doors and windows are shut and locked, so there will be NO happy accidents. Just in case, I walk to all the other doors, and the windows that I can reach. Nope. I looked at the card in my hand, and remembered a certain port of entry in the house that has issues....and two minutes later, I have a card through the door, hear a nice little click, and I'm in. Miah yells "Ninja Mama!" and then the dog hits me full force, thinking I'm some idiot who's going to rob the place. Thankfully she realized who I was before she actually bit me!
Just in case you aren't sure how to rescue yourself in THIS WAY, click those words to get a quick lesson. You never know when it might come in handy! From now on, I'm keeping a spare key hidden somewhere...and fixing that door!