Yesterday as I was getting things ready for a bridal shower that I was throwing for my sister, Amanda, I had to run to the grocery store to get some things for it. I strapped Heber in his car seat and Hannah crawled to the back row of seats. I thought "No biggy, I'll run inside and get what ever it was and then come back and strap her in." I came back and tried to open the door, but it was locked. They where all locked. Hannah had locked the doors and the keys were in the car!I panicked, horror stories of children locked in cars probably were in the back of my mind. I called Talmage and told him what was going on. I tried to coax Hannah into unlocking the door. She would put her finger on the button but not push it. I told her to open the door and she pulled on the handle, but not hard enough. When I would point to something she would just point to my finger on the window. All the while she wasn't too terrible interested.
After 15 minutes or so of trying to work with her I said a prayer. A lecture Talmage had in school on dealing with stress came to my mind. Basically if someone is under stressed or over stress their productivity weakens. I just knew that I had to wait for the right time where she was a little worried but not overwhelmed. I went back inside and started deep cleaning, something I needed to do for that night anyways.
I went and checked on them a couple times, trying to see if she would cooperate. She was more interested in
- a permanent marker (how does she always find those!)
- gum, she ate one and a half packets of gum
- crackers, which she also feed to Heber
- dumping my purse and wallet and stringing the contents all over the van
Heber was a good sport about all of it. I could tell he didn't want to be in his car seat and he whined when he saw me, but he handled it well.
Finally, after an hour and a half I got her to push the unlock button! I opened the door so fast and caught her as she was falling out of the van. I hugged her and told her that she did a good job.
Moral of the story, patience goes a long ways with kids. Or just have a spare key around, it will come in handy.
Oh what good little kids they are! An hour and a half entertaining themselves?! Sweet Hannah and patient Heber. That's funny she ate 1 1/2 packs of gum.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to lie, I'm a little surprised that you decided to clean instead of calling the fire department, or the cops. It was 80 in Phoenix yesterday, and the temperature in a closed car can get to be over 100 degrees. You're lucky it turned out so well.
ReplyDeleteWell while you're in an honest mood of not lying, how about telling your name?
ReplyDeleteBecause the idiot fire department would send 10 fire trucks blazing down the road, 5 ambulances, and 12 cop cars just to pick the lock. And then they would bill Talmages insurance company 50 thousand dollars. If they wanted to call someone just call a locksmith.
ReplyDeleteoooooooh RUFIO! RUFIO! RUU-FEEE_OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
ReplyDelete