You've seen this picture before but look deeply into those eyes. Yup, her brain is always whirling even if Grandma's isn't. And I'm not waking her up from her nap to get a different picture for this blog. Sometimes, it's best to let sleeping babies lie. This is our adventure from yesterday.No one was home upstairs yesterday when I carried a large package in one arm and my youngest grand daughter in the other. Yup, the brain flew the coop. Took a momentary vacation. Call it what you want but it was a dumb move because I knew better than to hand my grand daughter the car keys. The only available set as my favorite ones with the deer horn tines had come up missing. Or should I say I was just powerfully confused for the last couple days where I'd placed them. It turns out they were hidden in the space between the top two cushions on the couch. This of course wasn't discovered during my frantic search for them during my time of crisis but later when I was looking for the television controls to put them away in the drawer.
Yup, vacation was over when I heard the click of the car doors locking our twenty-one month old inside the car and I out. But wait a minute, I'm getting ahead in my story. I'd better start from the beginning.
I was going to go to the post office to mail a package for my hubby before picking up the middle grand daughter from pre-school. Our youngest was fussing trying to get a hold of the set of keys in my hand and being burdened down with a package in the other arm (worth over five thousand dollars), I thought my husband would throttle me if I dropped it before we were paid. So to pacify the squirming daughter, I shifted a little handing her the keys. Then upon reaching the car, I put the box on the hood or bonnet for you Brits, before placing our grand daughter in her car seat, keys still in hand. All would have been well but...our driveway is on a steep slant. The car has a weak stay open latch and I obviously hadn't opened it sufficiently to reach that point or it was in one of its moods but anyway, the car door slammed shut. Our grand daughter immediately pushed the lock button on the key set. The timing couldn't have been more perfect had it been orchestrated.
Oh crap!! Yes, that is my nasty swear word. It doesn't come out often and I did whisper it under my breath lest my grand daughter hear it but I was up a crick without a paddle. It wasn't like with our two oldest grand daughters who could unbuckle themselves and open the lock or knew how the car control worked.
So in my sweetest grandma voice, I encouraged, "Come on, push the button." A huge smile crossed her face. You've got to understand that she's usually in trouble for pushing that button and causing the horn to beep to understand her pure elation at that request, let alone my repeated encouragement to do so again and again only it held a different twist than what she was understanding, "Come on push another button sweetheart." After pushing the same button a few more times she sensed she wasn't doing it quite the way I had in mind and offered the keys to me. Hand extended toward the window, the key ring just barely on the tips of her fingers.
"No sweetheart put them in your lap." I said trying to stifle the panic that rose into my voice while I tried to calmly pantomime placing keys in my own lap. Meanwhile, I was sending more frantic prayers heavenward for if she dropped them, then there was no chance of her hitting the correct button. Whew, my heart slowed and I breathed a sigh of relief when she immediately complied. Happy at making me so pleased, she then went merrily back to pushing the honk the horn button ignoring the two other buttons on the same control despite my trying to show her by pretending I had a control in my hand and was pushing a different spot.
Finally giving up, I went into the house to search for the keys checking in the dirty clothes - inside my pants pockets, moving things on my cluttered kitchen counter tops - that I hadn't gotten to yet that morning, and scanned the tops of dressers, anywhere I thought I might of place them but alas, nothing. Meanwhile, every few seconds I could hear the car horn honking a happy tune, "She's still locked inside."
I realize an option was to call a lock smith. It just wasn't a good one. The nearest one is forty miles away and that means over a hundred dollars. And that would leave our grand daughter in the car a lo...ng time. The dollar signs were whirling in my head. I thought of the fact I'd just spent three hundred dollars replacing the cracked front window that started as a small rock placed star. Then the combination of cold outside air and a defrost blazing against the window to keep it clear and the star began running at high speeds across the glass. In fact, there were two of them. Replacing the window was a part of my to do list before winter arrives once more. If I broke one on purpose, I'd have the hassle and expense of replacing it also when my list of to do's was still long and costly. If I called the locksmith, that still left our middle grand daughter sitting at the school while she waited, and waited, for grandma.
So once more I stood squatted down listening to the horn honk while I tried to convince my grand daughter to push a different key. Not that she hadn't but it was the trunk button, not the unlock button. It took only a few futile seconds before I realized our grand daughter had found the most exciting button and wasn't about to abandon it any time soon. That's when I crawled into the trunk knowing there was an opening into the back seat so you could haul things too long to fit in the trunk alone. I'd never seen it, or used it, but surprisingly it was easly to find and open. Cup holders for the passangers in the back seat popped out. Ones I never knew existed. LOL I'd have to investigate that another day. But time was ticking until we were due to pick up the middle grand daughter.
While scrunched against the front, I contorted my arm around toward our grand daughter's car seat. I couldn't see her but I coaxed, "Hand the keys to Grandma please." Praying that she didn't decide to keep them or worse yet drop them while trying to give them to me.
Oh the relief when I felt the hard metal of the carabiner touch my hand. Whew!!! "Thank you, Thank you Lord"
The package was mailed, after picking up the middle grand daughter on time, Yeah!!! And all ended well and inexpensively. What a blessing.
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