Daddy to the Rescue

Yesterday morning I had a doctor appointment. I headed out to the car forty-five minutes before it started so that I would have plenty of time to get Asher in the car, drop him off at a friend's house, and arrive at the clinic early. I turned on the car to get the defrosters warmed up and then put Asher in the driver's seat so that he could "drive" while I scraped the windows. When I was done scraping, I went back to move Asher, only to discover that he had locked the doors. And, since I had turned the car on, the keys were inside. After a few fruitless minutes of trying to get Asher to unlock the doors, I gave up and called Hugh who had the other set of keys with him at work. (Thank goodness my phone was in my pocket, and not in the diaper bag which was, of course, in the car.)

Hugh had gotten a ride to work with a friend since I needed the car to get to my appointment. He called the friend, who suggested that he check to see if a locksmith could get to me faster for a reasonable fare. They concluded that one could not, so this generous friend lent Hugh his car so that he could come and let my baby out.

That might not seem like a lot of time, but when all was said and done, Asher spent forty minutes stuck inside that car, which he seemed to think was about the same as eternity. During that time, I alternately attempted to soothe my screaming toddler and tried to convince him to unlock the door (both utterly futile) in between calling the clinic to reschedule my appointment and calling my babysitter to let her know that we would no longer be coming.

When we finally got Asher out, he calmed down for three seconds while Hugh was hugging him, and then immediately began screaming for Daddy as soon as Hugh headed back to work. It must have seemed to the poor kid like mean Mommy was right there the whole time and wouldn't let him out. Hopefully his memory still isn't so great. I thought of taking him somewhere fun to help him feel better, like a friend's house or the library, but I decided that the last thing he probably wanted to do was spend one more second in the car. So, we went inside and played with Playdoh and read books until all was right in the world.