elevator intervention

Of all the things that could scare my kids here in Egypt, I never thought it would be the elevators. Carter thinks it's cool to ride around in the middle of the demolition derby that we participate in every time we drive somewhere, but ask him to ride three floors in an elevator and he freaks out.

It all started the day after we moved here -- our first time out of the house. We live on the 3rd floor and the boys wanted to ride the elevator to the ground floor and 1/2 way down it got stuck.

I was still in our apartment, grabbing my purse when I hear this yelling and banging and I go downstairs to find Josh yelling at the boys to calm down and he would get them out. The elevator was stuck between floors so Josh had to go get the key from the guard, open the doors and then lift them down.

Our elevator is one of those old ones where you manually open and close the door, so we figure one of them bumped something and caused it to freeze up. Great, we've been in Egypt for about 15 minutes and they've already broken something major . . .

The interesting thing was seeing how being trapped like that affected each of them. Calvin expressed his anxiety through silent, wild-eyed panic, Carter claimed he wasn't scared at all, (but started kicking the door and the walls), and Caleb started crying.

So in an attempt to keep them from being scarred for life, I told them they would have to get back on the horse after the elevator was fixed. Caleb not only didn't want to ride the elevator, but he didn't want anyone else to ride it either. Every time Josh left the house, with tears in his eyes, he would ask, "Daddy, you're not going to take the elevator, are you?" Poor kid.

Carter, the tough guy, was trying to show Caleb up and said, "I'm not afraid, I'm taking the elevator." Caleb was begging him not to and Carter said, "ha ha. I'll see you at the bottom." Halfway down, it gets stuck. 

Caleb starts screaming, "get the man! Get the man!" (meaning the guard) and I can't believe the odds of it happening AGAIN. Josh goes and gets the key, lets him out, and the boys' phobia is now securely cemented.

We went to visit a friend who lives in a newish American-owned building on the 4th floor and they all balked and wanted to take the stairs. Josh and I made them take the elevator, cause gosh darn it, they aren't going to end up like me if I can help it.

Caleb started crying, Calvin looked hopeless and resigned, like we were leading him to his death, and Carter reacted like a cat being taken to the vet. As we were guiding him (and eventually wrestling him in) he went spread-eagle, grabbing onto each side of the elevator door and kicking his legs. Once we had his body inside he stretched out his scrawny chicken legs to keep the doors from closing. Add in Caleb's sobbing and Calvin's silent tears and I'm sure we looked like Parents of the Year.

After we finally got all body parts inside and got the elevator moving they all held their breath and watched the numbers tick off until we hit 4. And they all let out an audible sigh of relief when the doors opened on the correct floor.

So we've been staging elevator interventions wherever we go. At the mall we made them ride it just because it was there. They seemed a little less afraid of riding in the glass elevator because, as Calvin said, "If it got stuck, people could see you calling for help." *sigh*

We'll just keep riding and riding until it doesn't bother them anymore.

Baby steps.