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Yesterday, Dylan found the cat door that lets Ollie into the basement, where we keep his litter box. This encounter was brief, but started out as something cute, so Megan let it continue — at first.

He was sitting on the floor, poking the door, watching it swing and giggling. Then, Megan noticed that Ollie was on the other side of the door, playing too. Dylan would push the door in, Ollie would push it out. Cuteness squared.

Fast forward 11.2 seconds, Megan looks over again and sees Dylan leaning away from the cat door with one arm outstretched — apparently tugging on the door, trying to crawl in the opposite direction, with a half frustrated, half upset look on his face. When she asked if he needed help, he replied, "Unh! Unh!" and started to get a little more visibly upset.

Megan went over to help and noticed that his hand was stuck. She released him from his trap, and when he immediately reached for it again (parenting axiom #427: they always immediately reach for it again), she decided at that point that the cat door is now off limits. "That's a no," as we've taken to explaining to him.

Aside from a little redness, Dylan was no worse for the wear. We're just glad it was his hand he was putting through the door, and not his head.