James teaching O to feed the ducks.
My ever-so-handsome hubby, and my son... eating the bread we brought for ducks.
Eliza's idea of fun at the park. So we decided to go to Town Lake Monday morning at about 10 o'clock to feed some ducks, walk around, and play on the playground. We did all of those things and after about an hour and a half Owen started asking for lunch. I should've packed us a picnic, but oh well. So, we headed to the van to load up the kiddos and go home.
We'd noticed on Sunday that the locks on the van had been acting weird. It wouldn't unlock when we'd pull the key out of the ignition, and sometimes some doors would be randomly locked while others wouldn't. It had just been a mild inconvenience.
Anyway, James unlocked the van, strapped Owen into his carseat, then reached forward, put the keys in the ignition and got the AC running. I was at the back of the van with Eliza's stroller (which had the diaper bag, camera, drinks, etc. loaded on it) and her in the mei tai. As I was untying her James closed Owen's door and came around the back to help me load the stroller, etc. When he got around and tried to open the lift gate though, it was locked... even though we'd just unlocked all the doors. So, he went to another door only to discover- 4 tries later- they were all locked... and Owen was inside... along with my purse and phone... while James' phone was dying in his pocket. There was no way we could've locked it... the keys were in the ignition.
A friend from church is our insurance agent, and we get free roadside assistance through Nationwide, so we called a mutual friend to get his home number [thanks Bruce] to call and ask for the roadside assistance number... which was in the van. He gave us the 800# and after going through the automated menu and FINALLY getting to talk to someone we let them know our phone was dying, where we were and what had happened. Apparently not having an address in a situation like that is not so good. Trying to get them to understand that we were in the parking lot of a public park, by a playground, across from a high school, etc. was not so simple. Anyway they said they had dispatched an auto-rescue guy to come help us.
It had been about 15 minutes at this point and Owen was starting to freak out. He did pretty good until then but when he realized that we weren't coming inside he got really sad. He just started crying, pointing at his door, and saying "ooooopeeeen..." We felt horrible.
About ten minutes later my phone rang and it was the auto-rescue guy calling to figure out exactly where we were. He began with "There's some confusion about your address ma'am... I have that you're at 1400..." I interrupted and said, "I have no idea what the actual address is if there even is one. We're at Town Lake, Wilson Creek Park, in a parking lot, by a playground, just across from McKinney High School..." and at that very moment the phone died.
About 7 or 8 minutes later the guy pulled up in his truck and got to work. He had clearly been having a leisurely holiday at home (he was in pajama pants and a t-shirt), and hurried when he heard there was a small child in the car. The first thing he said was, "There's a baby locked inside?!" We said yes... but that the car was running. So, he proceeded to wrench the door open a bit using what looked remarkably similar to blood pressure cuffs, then stuck a long stick in the slightly ajar door and rolled the window down. He was officially the nicest guy ever and even Owen said "nank you" to him.
As soon as he stepped away I opened Owen's door, unbuckled him, and grabbed him out. Get this-
He was FREEZING from the AC blowing on him for 40 minutes. His skin was so cold to the touch. Poor little guy.
Anyway, all in all everyone was rescued, Nationwide insurance is tha-bomb, as is our agent Mark Braly (if you're looking for insurance give him a call), our van has a poltergeist, and we went home, ate lunch,and watched The Sound of Music.
I spent the day Praising God for 4 things:
- That the van WAS running while O was locked inside in the heat of the day.
- That Eliza was NOT inside (she hates her carseat and likely would've screamed for 40 minutes straight, though James thinks he would've just broken a window if she had been inside as well).
- That our phone had JUST enough battery to communicate to people where we were.
- That the whole fiasco didn't cost us a dime... yet (we've gotta get the poltergeist exorcised).
Hope your Labor Day was fiasco free!
ahh so excited to hear this happened to someone else! except my locks weren't working right because someone had tried to break in to my truck the day before, and it was 100 degrees outside, both the boys were locked in w/ no a/c, and I had to call the fire department to get them out!
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