Negligence

I was reading in my Parenting magazine a couple weeks ago an article about what to do if you accidentally locked your child into your car. As I read it, I distinctly remember thinking, "What kind of parent would lock their child in the car? That's just negligence!" Well, it turns out that I'm that negligent mother.

However, in my defense, I didn't lock Jake in the car. Technically, he locked me out! It all went down this afternoon at the local Hy-vee grocery store. I put Jake into his seat then gave him the keys to play with to keep him busy while I was putting the bags of groceries into the car. I finished putting all the groceries in and slammed the door shut. Unbeknownst to me, Jake had pressed the lock button on the keyring, so when I shut the door, I also locked Jake inside!

So there I was, standing out in the freezing cold with my baby trapped inside the car. I could see his little fingers right on the "unlock" button, and I kept saying, "Press it, press it!" and he looked at me, smiled, and then dropped the keys. I called Joseph on my cell phone to see if he could somehow get over to the grocery store with his set of keys and unlock the door. We called one of our good friends (thanks Taysia!) to go pick him up, but before she got there I saw two police cars and an ambulance drive up to the store and I hurried and asked the cop if anyone could help me get the door open. He was there because of a medical emergency (which I was horrified to find out later was someone who had slipped inside the store and her baby hit her head and had been knocked unconscious) so that obviously took precedence over my minor situation. When he was done and the ambulance had left, he helped me get the car open. Jake was having a ball the whole time. I wish I had pictures because he was just smiling and playing around in his seat. He had absolutely no idea what was going on. We're all safe and sound, and I've learned my lesson. I will never again give Jake the keys to play with unless I am inside the car with him!!