Lock Your Kid in the Car in Three Easy Steps


We participate in a wonderful play group that meets on Wednesdays.  We've been at it since our now 3-4 year olds were crawlers and many of us are now on our second or third child creating a new round of rug rats to keep the group going when the soon to be big kids start school.

Today when we arrived at the hostesses's lovely home, we learned how to lock a child in the car in three easy steps.

Step One:  Throw your keys in your backpack while pulling your baby out of his car seat.

Step Two:  Realize you're standing in an ant bed, run stomping and screaming to knock those evil mothers off of you, and decide to move the car. (Pat yourself on the back for having the foresight to move the car to avoid the ants on the way out.)

Step Three: Ask your older son, still strapped into his car seat, to hold the backpack while you move the car up a bit and close his door.

See?  Wasn't that Easy?!  Now he's all locked up all safe and sound.

WAIT!  My son is LOCKED IN THE CAR!  Crap!  What do I do, what do I do, EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE.

Now, other moms were pulling up so I managed to mask my instant and complete PANIC as well as keep my expletives to myself but I'm telling you, I was feeling spinny and crazed and worried.  If I were on my own or just with The Man I can PROMISE you I would be like one of those cartoon characters running wildly in circles flailing her arms in the air above her head.

Fortunately for all of us, the moment it happened my very level headed and calm friend Kate approached with her son.  She exuded "this is all going to be okay" and I somehow believed her.

She asked where the keys were and the light went off.  They are in the backpack.  Which is on my son's lap.  Holy crap, we have a way out of this that does not involve me taking a tire iron the window.

I very calmly, not to incite panic in my threenager, told Boy Wonder where the keys were and instructed him to reach in and grab them.  He was trying, but missing, and I was trying to see him but the stupid fucking sunscreen (why is that there?! it's not that damn sunny?! I'm going to rip that thing off and toss it as soon as I get a chance…) was making it very difficult but I carried on telling him to reach really deep and grab the keys.

And he got em!  FUCK.YES!

"Push the unlock button.  The one that says "UN."  (Thank gawd this kid knows his alphabet and is obsessed with words.)  "Push it really hard.  Push it.  The one that says Unlock.  Oh hell, push all of them."  (Do we really care if he sets the alarm off right now?!)

And he did it.  FUCK.YES!

I opened the front door really fast in case he mashed down the lock button and reset this parenting fail back to the beginning and freed him to the sound of cheers from the growing crowd of moms and preschoolers.  Boy Wonder flashed his winning smile and proclaimed, "I did it!"

Yes you did, my little love.  Yes.You.Did!

That was some seriously scary shit, but it went as well as it could have possible gone.  If it had been a summer afternoon instead of a spring morning, it could have gotten really dangerous really quickly, for real.

Someone was looking out for us today and taught Mama a lesson I won't soon forget: Let your kids play with your keys as much as they want so next time you do something this stupid, they have a hope of, yet again, saving themselves.

Photo Credit Quick Meme.

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