7.22.11

I will preface this story with the fact that I will not be winning Mother of the Year this year, unless it's in the category of "Biggest Hyperventilating Freakout" or "The Dumb Mom Award." 


I will also preface this with, everyone is okay, and I'm already starting to laugh about it, five hours later.


I know Will isn't the first kid to do this, but...he locked himself in my car this morning.


It was 8 a.m., already 85 degrees, and I had to take him to the sitter so I could go teach a class. The sitter lives 8 houses away, and so as I've done a few times this summer, I let him climb into the front seat (here we go with the "You Idiot Dumb Mom Award").


I placed my phone in the console, my keys on my seat, shut the door and walked to the other side. 


In that brief 4 seconds, Will played with his favorite button, and it didn't take but a fraction of a second to realize the extreme panic of the situation.


Here's the greatest two things in the world about Will: He didn't panic, and he did exactly what I told him to do, two weeks shy of turning Terribly Two.


He pressed the unlock button as I instructed him to, only I learned something new about my car: that button doesn't work from the inside unless the car is on.


Cue tears.


I run across the street to my sweet old lady neighbor. She panics with me and says, "Call 911!" 


I'll tell all of the blog world this story, but I don't want to be on the freaking news. 


So she tells me to run across the street to my next door neighbor, Jim. "Get Jim!" 


Jim...well, what to say about Jim. The guy is retired. When his camper isn't on cement blocks in his driveway, he has it parked at a campsite so he can go fish, and drink beer. He starts drinking beer at 10 a.m. and keeps going until he passes out. In the winter, he plows my driveway--with a plow on his four wheeler. But he owns every tool known to man, and at this point, he was my only option.


And in case you're asking these questions: No, there is no extra key to my car. Because it was $150 and we didn't see a need (but Greg purchased one at 8:30 this morning). No, we don't have AAA (but Greg signed us up at 8:30 this morning). No, I couldn't call anyone, my phone was in the car. No, I couldn't get into my house because it was locked, and we don't have a house phone anyway.


So Jim, in his laid-back manner, laughed at me, crying on his doorstep. He walked with me back to my car, where we talked to Will (who is still cool as a cucumber). I manage to calm myself down enough to ask Will to put the key in the ignition (which he did fabulously), but he wasn't strong enough to turn it on (which is okay, because I don't want my two-year-old to know how to start my car). I then realized that the unlock button is on the key, and since Will pushes all of those buttons (including the alarm) at any given time in houses and parking lots, surely he could do it now. 


Only when we said "push the button on the key" he wanted to push all the buttons on the console. 


Then he climbed into the driver seat and pretended to drive.


I mean really, he thought this was pretty cool.


I did not. 


I started crying even harder. Jim laughed at my hysterics (which just made me mad). I asked my sweet old lady neighbor to call a locksmith. Apparently they told her to call 911. So she was also now hyperventilating on the phone with 911, and I was crying so hard I couldn't even stand up, Jim got Will to push the unlock button on the key, and his hand was ready as he pulled the door open immediately. 


I stopped crying.


No, no I didn't. I cried all the way to yoga. I composed myself long enough to order coffee at Starbucks (with sunglasses on). I needed tequila, but I settled for caffeine. 


I didn't stick around long enough to see if the entire City of Cincinnati Emergency Department would show up, but I was told they didn't. Thank goodness. And the class I taught 30 minutes later was distracted but as effective as it could be, I suppose.


Jim gets a big case of Bud Light tonight.


Counting my blessings this evening, and insanely glad it's Yogamama night. Could not have picked a better day to commiserate with other moms.