Nightmare in the Driveway

Ok so here's how an everyday task can go WAY wrong! It's taken me a bit to get to where I can talk about this in any kind of comical manner so forgive me. But here goes....

So picked up the kids from Mother's Day Out on Tuesday and came home. Pulled in the driveway, stopped at the end to get out and get the mail. This is a normal occurance and sometimes I shut the van door and sometimes I don't.....well this time I DID. Went to get back in the van to drive up to the house and the van was LOCKED!! Now not sure if it locked on its own or of course if I hit the button getting out, I'm thinking the latter since it has never locked on it's own before. BUT IT WAS LOCKED!!!!!!!

So I had just locked these kids.....

Into this van.....

All to pick up this mail...

And why didn't I keep driving on up to the house, park the van, take the keys out and THEN walk to get the mail at the end of the driveway????? {sound of crickets} ???????

It would only happen to me! I know you are thinking well heck you are in the driveway at YOUR house what is the big deal! Big deal was I had no extra key to the van except in the house AND no extra key to the house anywhere OUTSIDE the house because we just realized all the ones we recently had made are DUDS! So THAT is the BIG deal.

After making my way all around the car to no avail for an open door and pleading with Jake if he could just "press the red button" to get out of his carseat. It was just stressing him out and he couldn't press hard enough (I know prob a good thing but not then!). After all of that a neighbor comes over to let me use her phone because my cell phone was in the CAR!! Anyway, called for James, no luck--out working and more than 45 minutes away anyway-- then called for my mom--oh yeah---she lives next door--woo hoo I am in luck she is almost home---like one minute away! YAY we are saved--No WAIT--she doesn't have a key to my car or my house either!!!!!! #$%@!

Ok I'm trying to be somewhat brief--we go all around the house and finally we {and when I say we I mean my mom} took off the storm window to one of the back windows because I remembered we had a crack in that window and no big deal to go ahead and break it--it needs replacing anyway. We did that got the window open, I climbed the ladder crawled in onto a chair all the while scraping my leg---grabbed the extra keyless entry and RAN to the van to GET THEM OUT!!

So by this point my precious babies were trying to figure out why the neighbors were circling the car for 30 minutes!!!!!! while they were still inside to make sure they were ok and Mommy kept coming to them promising them she would get them out soon. It ended up being a little much for them because by then instead of happy go lucky--"we're in the car with the car running and air going (it was semi hot that day) we just had a snack on the way home and we have our sippy cups in our laps and a plethera of books at our disposal, we're fine"........ to this........

We didn't call a locksmith by the way for those asking that question right now because it would have taken just as long if not longer and we figured the break in to the house theory just about 15 minutes into the whole matter so....

Kids are fine they don't seem traumatized they were running around the toyroom playing with Net Net immediately after all the while mommy was sitting in a trance on the couch at what just happened!! We have stopped to get the mail since--though I ALWAYS leave the door open now or if I am getting out for anything and shutting the door which is rare I have the keyless entry with me!

So that was the nightmare at the end of my driveway. May it never happen to you or me again anywhere!!