Locked In

September 28, 2006 will forever be immortalized as the day I locked Rachael in the car. In the Florida heat. It's a terribly long story, but I must tell it so that I can try to learn from my mistakes.

I took a neighbor of mine (Darla) with me to Bible Study this morning. We needed to leave early because Eric wasn't able to work from home today, which is to say that I had to pick Seth up from Pre-K at 11:30. So we left Bible Study at 11:15...actually 11:17 because the lecture was really good and I forgot to watch the time.

So we head out to the car. It was my mother's Cadillac that I had to borrow because my van was in the shop having the headliner redone. So I use the key fob to unlock the doors so that Darla can get in a situated and popped the trunk so I could put some of my stuff in there. (Life is easier in a minivan that in a Cadillac.) When I popped the trunk, I accidentally hit the lock button on the key fob, so although Rachael's door was opened by this time, the rest of the doors were locked. I slid the keys down into the driver's seat while I got her strapped into the car seat. With her safely strapped into the car seat, I shut the door. It was about three centimeters from being closed when I realized what was going to happen next. I didn't ever really panic...I think simply because that's not my nature.

Had I been my friend Twila, I would have picked up the nearest rock and rectified the situation; however, I am not. And it was my mother's car. Incredibly poor form should I choose that avenue. Fortunately, Darla had not put her stuff in the trunk. She still had ahold of her purse and Bible, so she let me use her cell phone to call 911 right away. Good thing we didn't dawdle because I was on the phone with various dispatchers for 10+ minutes.

I think I first got routed the Hillborough County because the nearest cell tower was probably in Hillsborough County. I was physically located in Pasco County. ON COUNTY LINE ROAD....so I kept getting tossed back and forth. TICK-TICK-TICK. With every passing minute, my daughter is getting hotter and hotter! So I was finally routed to a lovely dispatcher in POLK county, which is about 50 miles to the east! But the dispatcher there wasn't letting me go until she was sure I was taken care of. I started getting a little panicky when she asked me if I was in Lakeland or Mulberry. (There is another County Line Road that separates Polk County and some other county.) But she wasn't going to let me off the line until she had someone on the way.

By the time I got off the phone with 911 (very frustrated), a nice lady from my Bible Study (still don't know her name) had stopped and offered to use her AAA card and call for a locksmith because she had witnessed something similar in the past and said that the only thing that Fire/Rescue would do is break the window. So we called AAA and had someone dispatched. After some very tedious questions, I informed the AAA dispatcher that my infant daughter was beginning to roast in the car and could she please hurry things along. That worked and someone was on the way within minutes. (If only the fire truck had been dispatched as quickly!) Upon hanging up with AAA, I turned to the woman whose membership I was "borrowing" and asked her if she had time to hang around until they got there. She said, "Of course."

While I was still on the phone with AAA, my friend Janeen rolls up in her minivan and says, "Julie! What's going on?" in a very laid-back manner all her own. It was so laid-back it sort of shocked me back to reality. It was really a bizarre moment in time. She asked if there was anything she could do to help and I asked her if she would go pick up Seth from Pre-K. Of course, she had no problem with that, except that she's not on the pick-up list, so I had to call Eric and have him call the school because I didn't have my cell phone with the number for the school.

So I get Eric on the phone. (I have no idea how many of Darla's minutes I used.) I was very direct and tried to be brief because I knew he had a training workshop, going on. So I started off with something like, "There's a bit of an emergency. Do you have time to listen to me?" I don't think I even told him who it was, not realizing that I was calling from a completely foreign number. Of course, he said he could listen, so I told him Rachael was locked in the car and that Janine was going to have to go get Seth, could he call the school and tell them to release him to her? By that time the fire truck had arrived and he could probably hear the engine in the background. So there he was with that thrown squarely in his lap and not a doggone thing he could do about it. Except call the school. Which he did.

So fire rescue gets there and guess what....they can't do anything but break the window. So I explained to them that it wasn't my car and I'd like to hold off and see if the locksmith could get in before my little girl got too hot. So they said they'd wait for a while, but if she got too hot they'd go ahead and get her out. Fair enough.

It wasn't too long before the locksmith called Darla's cell phone and asked for directions to the church. He was about 15 minutes away, so all we could do was wait. By this time, Rachael was awake from her short nap and was starting to look a little pink in the cheeks.

Firefighters and men of action. They didn't really want to wait around, so they managed to produce some wooden wedges, a rubber mallet, and a long, slender stick. They tried the front passenger door and determined that because of the position of the unlock button on the side of the door panel, they couldn't quite hit the unlock button hard enough to open the doors. So they looked things over for a minute and then went and got some medical tape. Meanwhile, women were searching the church up one side and down the other for a wire hanger.

At some point, I called my parents up in Maine and my step-dad answered the phone. I told him his grandaughter was locked in the car and let him know that getting her out safely may necessitate some damage to the car. He told me that I needed to start using my head for something other than a hatrack (or something to that effect...I don't even remember). I didn't really need that kind of input right then, so I hung up. I'm still quite perturbed at that. But I should expect this by now. He's not known for being the most compassionate of people.

It was about this time that a police officer who would look quite at home in a Chicago donut shop arrived looking very disheveled and, quite frankly, slow--mentally and physically. He was pasty white with a prominent beer-belly hanging over his standard-issue belt. I wondered how he could possibly pass the periodic physical exams. He struck me as the type of guy that they were trying to figure how to get rid of but who never did anything bad enough that they could warrant firing him. The only thing I heard him say was a very slow "Nope" when the Fire Rescue guys asked him if he happened to have a wire hanger.

So, what do firemen do when absent a wire hanger? They start thinking like MacGyver. Medical tape comes to mind first thing. And something stable, but bendable. I don't even know what it was...maybe a wire from a portable defibrulator. Who knows! Who cares? Because those firemen and their wooden wedges and their rubber mallet and their taped together MacGyver contraption managed to hook the keys from the front seat and extract my precious daughter, who was now crying and had been for about ten minutes and was quite red in the face. I couldn't get her up out of that seat fast enough.

I remember thanking the firefighters and thinking how I would love for my little Sethy to grow up to be a firefighter. Except for that whole walking-into-a-burning-building-thing.

It ended up being Pasco County to come to the rescue. They pulled the fire truck in, horns a-blazin' and saved the day! Praise God for that! So I called Eric so that he wouldn't have to worry any longer.

And this sounds like it would be the end of the story. But don't forget Seth! Janeen wasn't back with him yet. By this time it was 20 minutes after his school dismissed and I was just praying that they would release him to her. So I dug my cell phone out of the trunk and was hoping that I still had Janeen's number in there. Thank God she hadn't changed her cell phone number is the two years it's been since we've really been able to hang out! So I dial the number. I got voice mail. I think the reason she didn't answer is because she was in the drive-thru at McDonald's getting him some lunch.

Turns out he was scared out of his mind at being picked up from school by a stranger and Janeen figured a Happy Meal would ease his tension and ingratiate herself to him a little. I don't think it worked, but he loves the toy!

By the time I poked my head into Janeen's back seat, he was just as pale as could be and looked as if he were about to be offered up as a human sacrifice. He was petrified and I felt simply awful. Had I known that the difference in having Janeen pick him up and getting him myself after the drama had passed was only 10 or 15 minutes, I would have just called the school and told them to hang onto him until I got there.

Oh well. What's done is done and it has given me the impetus to institute code words for people who may need to pick up my children if they don't know them. (A good thing for everyone who hasn't already done so.)

All this and Darla was only late for her 12:30 appointment by about 10 minutes or so. I felt so bad. She had someone coming to appraise her house. It's just having the finishing touches put on it and she had to call one of the contractors in the neighborhood who still has a key to her house to let the appraiser in. I was so sad I messed things up for her.

I went home and avoided a nervous breakdown by drinking a big cup of grape juice and pretending it was wine. Then I got a migraine for a while and then I was just plain tired. My brain didn't work right for the rest of the day.

And now...

I must do laundry.

Child Neglect! and Life Goes On...

I'm guilty! Rachael fell asleep STANDING UP in her excersaucer today. Truth be told, I was sitting in a chair less than three feet away from her. I noticed she had gotten quiet, but I thought it was because she might have been listening to Blue's Clues (her favorite show), which Seth was watching in the other room. I looked over and doggonit if the girl wasn't asleep standing up! So I snapped a picture before I put her in the bed. She's such a doll!

We haven't found a routine yet. The new school year started a month ago and we're still not into the swing of things. The boys wake up at different times each day, but I dare not wake them before they're ready to get up because they're terribly grumpy when I do that. Occassionally, I have to wake Seth up just to get him dressed and out the door so he can get to school, but we really haven't found a good groove. Part of it has to do with the fact that we're usually right at 10:00 getting home from church on Wednesdays and on Thursdays, I have to wake up and get going for Bible Study which starts at 9:30. But that only accounts for one day out of the five. I can't seem to pull a rhythm together to save my life!

So I've told myself I'm going to start jogging in the mornings and that will get me out of bed at the same time every day. As soon as the blisters on the backs of my ankles heal up a little, I'm going to give it a go and see if it helps with the routine. (I've jogged two days so far and you should see the size of the blisters!)

Seth absolutely hates Pre-K...not in the strictest sense of the word hate, but he puts up a pretty good fit every morning before leaving. He's fine once he gets there. I think it's because he has no use for any of the people there. He wants to hang with older kids and it's just not his cup of tea. He's such a sweet little loner.

I didn't vote for voluntary Pre-K, but I'm sending Seth because of the interpersonal aspect of it since it got voted through without my approval. I think it's a 'nice-to-have' that doesn't merit the millions of dollars that is spent on it. I think that children are institutionalized at far too young an age in America and that they need more time in a familial environment to become individuals before they are required to stifle their nature in a school environment. The only reason I have Seth in Pre-K is because he doesn't relate well to other children his age and, as an involved parent, I can see that it would be a huge problem if we were to start him off with a full day (6+ hours) of Kindergarten next year. Since Pre-K is a half-day, I knew we would have problems (and we are), but I think they're reduced because of the shorter school day. If Kindergarten we only a half-day, I wouldn't have him in Pre-K at all.

Ethan is busy, busy, busy with school, Cub Scouts, and church. Cub Scouts has us all pretty busy. He has an scouting engagement every Saturday this month except one. The good thing about Scouts, though, is that he doesn't have to go to every single thing. But he enjoys what they do, so we go to 98% of them. He got bumped up to third grade math and he's reading on a sixth grade level. Not bad for a second-grader who didn't go to preschool at all.

Must run and get some more laundry done. You wouldn't believe how much dirty laundry a family of five generates. It seems like more than 20% more than a family of four, but it's probably not.

Adieu...