Here’s a fun fact:   As children grow they develop fine  motor skills.

One evening my then three-year-old discovered, to my horror, how to unbuckle his car seat.  He’d unbuckled it and gotten out himself.   And he knew what he was doing.   He was so proud.

So I did what everybody does, I told him, scolded him really:

“Do not ever unbuckle your car seat.  It is not safe.   Do you understand me?   You will get a time-out for that!  It is very, very, very  important.  Do you understand? ”

Him:  “Yes.”

Me:  “Are you sure?”

Him:  “Yes, Momma.”  He still called me Momma then.

He could tell when Momma wasn’t messing around.  I was using my stern voice, my serious face and my angry eyes.  Mission accomplished.

But my little Houdini is not my only kid.   I had had  five kids in all.  The three-year-old was just the oldest.  Twin girls, twice, came after.   Yes, They are Twins, Yes, they are Twins, Too.   Consequently, we didn’t get out much.  Taking a preschooler, two toddlers and two infants to any store — well,  this was not an outing that a person takes lightly.   So sometimes  when I had to run errands and my mother was with me we would buckle the kids in the car and my mom would stay with them while I would run in and out of stores.  It got us out of the house, sometimes the kids would get their naps using this method, and it gave me a little  break.

The very next day after the car seat unbuckling incident and lecture,  my mom and I decided to load the kids and run some errands.   We pulled into the local pharmacy and I ran in.   As per usual,  my Mom stayed with them in the car.  I was gone only a few minutes.

When I came out, my mom was standing outside of the car, all five  kids were still strapped in — inside.

Huh.

The doors were closed.

Huh.

“This can’t be good,” I thought.

My mother was distraught.  Almost in tears.

“I can’t get in.”   She said.  “The babies started to cry and I got out to calm them down.  I — I — I —  closed the door . . . and now it’s  locked.”

We, the adults, were locked out.  The children were locked in.   Turns out I was right.   This wasn’t good.   The keys were in the car.

I tried not to panic.   After all, the  car was running and the air conditioning was on, so they wouldn’t cook in there  . . . but still,  it’s not good to leave five children alone in a car and I didn’t know how much gas I had.

Options:  I could run home and get an extra set of keys.    But that would take too long,  and my mother was losing it.  I didn’t want to leave her alone with the kids.  My husband was never really available during the day and worked too far away, anyway.   I could call my Dad to do it, but he’s hard to get a hold of  . . . so  . . . I guess I’d have to call the police to break into the car.    This was not a proud moment.  “Why?  Why, do I ever leave the house?” I wondered.

Well, hello there, Mr. Panic.

Then I remembered —  my son —  the big boy, the one who has motor skills!!!    The boy can get out of his car seat and  unlock the door!!!  He has the ability.  He has the manual dexterity.    I’ve seen him do it —  just yesterday.    “It was worth a try,”  I thought.

And so . . . one day after having scolded the boy for unbuckling his car seat and making him promise never to do it again —

I begged,  “Honey,” I spoke kindly but loudly through the closed window, “Momma wants you to UNBUCKLE  YOUR CAR SEAT and UNLOCK the door!”

He looked away from me.  “Clearly,”  his three-year-old mind must have reasoned, “This is some sort of test and I’m not going to fall for it, nope nope.”

I cooed, “No Honey, it’s okay, it’s okay, really, Momma says it’s okay, PLEASE  get out and let us in.  Please, you won’t be in trouble!!!!  I promise!!!!”

I saw him roll his eyes toward the ceiling, away from me.  His hands stayed at his sides.  He was more still than any three-year-old could possibly be.  It was impressive, really.

My mother was crying by this time and apologizing, she felt really, really badly.  But  I had to get to the kids.

Me to my statue-like son, “Honey, please.  Please!!!!!!  It’s okay, I promise.   Get out of your car seat.  Momma needs you to get out of your car seat!  PLEASE!!!”

This child would not even acknowledge that I was talking to him.  Again, it was impressive.  And comical.   I had literally just made him promise never to get himself out of his car seat and here I was begging him to do just that.   It was like a sitcom.

“Pleeeeeeease!!!!   Momma says it’s okay.”   But that boy was NOT going to fall for my obvious trickery.  “Momma said no,”  he must have thought, “Momma said no.”  

We had started to draw a crowd.  I was beginning to tear up, too.   The girls were useless, too young to manipulate their car seats, arms to short to reach the locks.  And . . .  they’d started to cry again.

This was not good.

In the end, my obedient son never unbuckled his car seat.   Some nice gentleman drove me home (I wasn’t far, and thankfully I’d left the house unlocked).  I got my spare  keys and everybody was fine.

—-  Except my mother.   It took her a long time to recover.

We didn’t go out for a while after that and when we did, no matter what the kids were doing, my mother never got out of the car again.

Just Me With . . . five car seats, a mom, and a son who had learned his lesson,  damn it.