Maybe the Van Wasn’t Such A Good Idea
Tina's Blog July 26th, 2007
(This picture was taken the day we picked up the van from my parent's house. The pillows were there in hopes they would nap on the way home. It does make me wonder if thumb sucking is genetic. 
)
Yesterday was Alex's 18 month's check up (he's meeting all milestones, got 2 shots, and is still in the 20% for weight). We HAD to take the van. The boys LOVE the van. When James leaves in the morning now, he's told by Will "Daddy, you have to take the car!" If I say "Boys, lets go for a van ride!" (not CAR RIDE, I must say van or there is fussing about why we are not taking the van), both boys come running.
After the appointment, we headed back to the van. As usual I opened up the side door, got the boys in, put my purse in the front, and started to go about getting the kids into the car seats. This van comes with installed car seats that fold out of the seat. So far, since we've only been using the van around town, we've just used those. Will always sits on the far side, the straps are set for him. While I was strapping him in, Alex ran up to the front seat area and was having fun playing with buttons. I got him back, put him in his seat, closed the door and went to the drivers seat. To find the door locked. Somehow it hadn't registered that when Alex was playing with the door lock button (flipping it up and down, up and down) the doors would be locked. And my purse, my keys, my phone–all in the front seat.
I stood there, in shock. I had just locked my boys in the van. Will opened the side window wanted to know what was wrong. When I told him all the doors were locked, he told me the side door was open, try that. Um, nope sorry. But I tried it, just in case. I was at a loss of what to do for a moment. I thought if Will could unstrap himself, he could unlock the doors! So I tried to talk him through that. His booster seat, in the car, he can unbuckle. He is able to unbuckle the clips on the top part of the car seat in the van. But he hasn't been able to hit the red button and unbuckle the lower clips. These fall right at the crotch. So I was trying to get him to press hard on the button to see if he could unbuckle it. He started to cry about it hurting. I (yelling through the window) was saying things like "Use two thumbs!", "Can you try four fingers?", "How about using Rusty's paw?"–hoping that wouldn't hurt his fingers. Then I realized where the clip was located. I spoke loudly (thinking at the same time "I can't believe I'm about to say this!") "Does it hurt your fingers or your p*n*s?" (I have no problem using the word, I just don't want to encourage the searches that would result from putting the word in this post). He sobbed back "My p*n*s", and I was back to trying to find a new way to get my kids out of the hot van.
I had the sudden reminder that James' office is just down the street from the Doctor's office. And he had the car! He could bring me the spare key! So I ran inside, back upstairs, to the Doctor's office, to call James and ask him to bring the car. And about 10 minutes later, our hero arrived.
Lessons learned?
1) No more pushing buttons for Alex.
2) Keys always stay in my pockets now.
3) We need to move the booster seat over from the car to protect my son's most sensitive organ.
