of embarrassment and tears

I am going to share this story with you because it happened and it was a big part of my day/year/life. But it is a little embarrassing. I don't think I did anything really dumb, but I could have been more careful and cautious. Don't worry, I know now.

My car has been dying while driving for a week now. It dies for a few seconds and then picks back up again. A few times it actually dies and it takes awhile to restart. Basically, Quinn and I decided I shouldn't drive it until it goes into the shop (on Monday). So this morning Abram and I drove Quinn to work and then we went to Chic-fil-A for breakfast. We ate, had fun, blah, blah, blah... and then we went out to the car. I unlocked the passenger door with the key and it opened. I threw my bag and the keys in the front seat. It's a two door. I'm pregnant. I had a 23 pound toddler to put in the back seat. I needed free hands and arms. So I climbed in the back with Abram, strapped him in, shut the door and headed around to the driver's side.

Now, in my car, when I unlock the door from the outside on the passenger side, it unlocks all the doors. But even if this didn't happen in Quinn's car (which I established when I tried to open the driver's side and it was locked), the passenger side should be unlocked since I unlocked it with the key and it had opened, right? Wrong. It was locked. Apparently there is some malfunction with the passenger door handle and lock. I didn't know this. If I had, I would have kept the keys with me. But I didn't. They were locked inside the car, along with my phone, and my 16 month old who was sitting directly in the sun.

I said a prayer to calm myself down and to see if maybe I just needed to pull and little harder and the door would open. It did calm me down, but the door didn't open. So I rushed inside Chic-fil-A to ask to borrow their phone.

To spare you a play by play, here are the bullet points of the rest:
-Quinn and I only have one key for each car (we are going to change that soon)
-He didn't answer his phone anyway (it's often on silent, but especially since we are getting to the end with Selah, he is going to change that soon)
-I was about to call AAA on Chic-fil-A's phone and they suggested I call Austin 311.
-Austin 311 transferred me to 911 - since there was a child locked in the car, it constituted an emergency.
-A fire truck and 4 nice firemen came to Chic-fil-A to rescue us (Abram was happy and waving at people and making the siren noise for the whole 10 minutes or so).
-I drove away and started crying - as I hadn't cried the whole time and I think I was a little in shock.

It may not seem like a huge deal in the retelling of it, but in the moment that your child is locked in a car and you are the one who locked him in there, it's a bit overwhelming. Also being 8 months pregnant makes all emotions amplified. Anyway, I will be keeping the keys with me at all moments while driving that car. It's a little embarrassing that I even allowed for the possibility of something like that happening by not keeping the keys with me. But I wasn't aware of the malfunction in the door/lock and so I guess it's not too far fetched that it would happen.

To end a scary story blog post in a more happy way, here are some pictures and videos from yesterday of the Bug:

Entertaining himself while I shopped for comfy pants:

(Found some comfy shorts, but they aren't really wear out of the house shorts... oh well. They are comfy.)

Exploring the backyard while I sat in a chair on the patio:

This is what his Robeez look like after exploring the (damp) backyard:

That is permanent :)

Thanks for listening to my story. Have a wonderful Friday, hopefully sans firetrucks.