Lately she has taken to insisting on buckling herself into her carseat. Which she cannot do. Which means that almost every car trip begins with, "ME BUCKLE ME! ME BUCKLE ME!" And then she tries to buckle herself for many frustrating minutes, after which she desolves into tears and I buckle her.
Last week, her obsession was not with buckling herself in, but instead with locking and unlocking doors. Do you see where this is going? Everytime we went to the car she would yell, "I LOCK IT!" And I would let her push the button on the key fob and unlock the door. So, we were leaving her pediatrician's office (2 year check up) and she wanted to Lock It. I put her in her seat and let her play with the key fob while I buckled her in. Then, I reached to the front, turned on the car and the air and jumped out the back to hop in the front.
But I slammed the back door shut. And it locked. And the front door was locked. And I was locked out. And the care was running.
My cell phone was locked in the car, along with Clare and the keys. Amazingly, I did not FREAK OUT, but instead calmly asked a woman in a nearby car if I could use her phone. She called the police and they came out. I was due to pick up Charlie in 20 minutes, so I also called Matt. Long story short, the cops came and could only break a window, so Matt drove the twenty minutes to unlock the door after calling Charlie's preschool to tell them the predicament we were in.
Clare did not cry for 15 of the 30 minutes she was locked in the car for - but she made up for it in those last fifteen. She was furious at me, yelling, "Open DOOR!" and "I WANT MY MOMMY!" When I explained that I could not unlock the door, she yelled, "KEYS RIGHT THERE!" pointing furiously at the ignition.
When Matt rescued her, she clamored angrily for me and nursed for the next 20 minutes. But the psychological impact seems slight so far. Needless to say I do not let her play with the keys anymore and I never let all doors be closed at once with only Clare in the car...
0 comments:
Post a Comment