Catching my breath.

The past month has definitely felt like a whirlwind around here.

Lots of traveling + my last day at the office + a good deal of work on the house. Add into that some computer crashing (one of my hard drives and Jonathan's laptop - both Dells), cleaning out my office at work and home, and sending off my Canon 5d for service.

Oh, and a very good lesson in humility (for me).

That lesson in humility?

It almost escaped the blog. Made it to Facebook.

It involves these two.


A few weeks ago, Jonathan and I had been strongly not agreeing on timelines - mainly, how long it takes to leave the house with all of us. Thomas and I have a pretty good flow where we are rarely late anywhere (especially since I need to budget time for the half hour to hour drive everywhere, with the possibility of traffic). But when it's the three of us...something changes. I don't know what it is, but it's always tough for the three of us to leave on time together.

Come Monday morning, I had to take Maggie into the vet with the Wee Ski in tow. Jonathan remembered to take my car, and I had his 4runner. It was the first time taking Maggie to the vet with the baby outside the womb (somehow it seemed much easier lifting her at 8 months pregnant). We got the dog, the kid, and the truck on the road with 15 minutes to spare. I called Jonathan to let him know that we were good to go, and I would even be early. A bit smugly, if you will.

I pulled up to the vet and made my plan of attack (don't knock it until you've tried to maneuver a 95 pound dog + 7 month old child into the vet). First, unlock the doors. Put the sling on. Drop Thomas into the sling. Grab the leash. Open the back, leash Maggie up. Grab the diaper bag w/keys and wallet off the front seat, lock the doors, and head in. No problem.

That is, until I unlocked the doors to the car and hopped out.

I took for granted the incredible feature on the Camry that makes it virtually impossible to lock your keys in the car - since it senses them still within the confines of the car and doesn't allow you to lock them in.

The 4runner does not have that feature. When I thought I was unlocking the doors, I was actually locking them.

Not only were the keys locked inside the diaper bag, but the baby and dog were inside too. With my cell phone.

So much for being on time.

I panicked for a moment, double checked all the doors, and ran inside to call Jonathan. He immediately called out to the farm and Uncle Johnie ran down to the house to get the backup set of keys.

Thomas and I began the world's longest game of peekaboo. Maggie paced in the back of the car. I stood next to the car, talking to Thomas through the window. Since the windows are darkly tinted, I'm sure I looked a little off-kilter talking to myself in the car windows. For nearly a half hour.

Uncle Johnie showed up - with the keys to the Camry, thinking I had my car. He immediately turned around to run home to find the other set (our backup backup set to the 4runner). I'll admit, I didn't start to really panic until the last 5 or 10 minutes before he returned - as the clock ticked over to an hour in the car. Thank God it was cool.

When Maggie decided she was done, and started panting...all the windows fogged up and not only couldn't I see either one of them, they couldn't see me. And Thomas went into full meltdown mode...and then fell asleep.

It was not a pretty sight.

I was the crazy woman pounding on the windows of the car to keep him awake, wishing Maggie knew how to wipe down windows, and debating on which window I would break. Had it been warm that morning, one of those windows would have broken out much earlier.

Everyone at the vet reminded me that it's happened to the best of them. But it was one of those moments that I cursed myself for my pride, especially since I had been so smug that morning.

And Uncle Johnie, my saving grace, pulled in just before I checked into the nuthouse, to let Mags and the Wee Ski out.

I guess that was a little reminder from the Big Guy to knock my perspective back into orbit.

Thanks, God.

Duly noted.