Woke this morning from a dream filled sleep brought on by watching Marion, again for the previous two nights – very good and very disturbing. I almost wished I had not started watching it last night but had to carry on to see how it ended! 😉
So first thing I spent too long chatting to Jenny on the phone so ended up just having time to get me and Tarly dressed before dashing out to Tumble Tots. Dad had arrived in the middle of all this and so I left him, Ady and Davies quite happily doing bloke stuff.
Tarly did so well at Tumble Tots today – the best she’s ever done. Not sure whether it was a morning session agreeing with her more than an after lunch one, the lure of Davies doing stuff like colouring and reading books in the next room being more attractive than doing TT or whether she has just had enough of a break from it over the summer to start enjoying it now she’s slightly older. Whatever – she sat down when she was told, thrived on getting so much positive attention from me, charmed the helpers and was generally delightful. On top of that she stood out as one of the more able of the group in terms of her physical ability. She is really very agile and adores all the climbing, forward rolls, running, jumping and clambering which goes on there. 🙂
So we left, with me telling her again how proud I was of her and what a good time we’d had. We’d come in Ady’s car which we tend to use whenever possible as it is considered a perk which he gets heavily taxed on as he has a petrol card to fill it whenever for his own use too.
Since having children I have always unlocked the car then chucked the keys on the drivers seat while I faff about with car seats and selt belts so I did just that while I got her settled into her car seat. I vaguely registered a click as the door bumped back into my bum but thought nothing of it as I merrily slammed her door shut and walked round to the driver door which would not open.
I ran round the car trying every door and the boot and of course none of them opened. I tried to persuade Tarly to do the opposite of everything I have ever taught her and either undo her car selt restrainer or slip her arms out to try and reach the door handle. She looked very doubtful, tried, failed and started to get upset.
I rang Ady to tell him what I’d done, get him to send Dad out to me and get the details of our RAC membership for me to ring.
Meanwhile I stood in the very hot sun alternately trying to get Tarly to undo her seatbelt and then calming her down from getting upset.
At some point a man appeared from one of the nearby factory units (TT is on an industrial estate) with a parasol to hold over the car, I was offered a cup of tea, use of a phone, someone to hose the car down to keep it cool, suggestions to throw a brick through the window, get her to undo the doors, call the police, get a spare key and so on.
My Dad arrived just as I started to gather a real audience from all the surrounding units and Tarly started to visibly perspire and get quite distressed. I had already rung the RAC who said they had me as an emergency priority call but it could take up to 45 minutes so I gave in and rang the police. The woman on the phone said they would only smash a window but at that point I was starting to panic slightly myself.
Ady was at the other end of the phone stressing about his car, Tarly was doing OK but clearly not in the ideal situation and I started to wonder how long it would be before she announced she needed the toilet or a drink or something else I couldn’t provide.
That seemed to galvanise the crowd and suddenly I had four men in boiler suits plus my dad wielding an assortment of lengths of wire, crowbars and other assorted car theft accessories. Just as the police pulled up they managed to get into the car and hook the keys out!
I cancelled the RAC, told Ady we were ok and profusely thanked all my heros while cuddling my brave little girl very hard and apologising for getting her locked in.
The crowd melted away til it was just, me, Dad and the policeman. Despite not actually getting involved in the getting back into the car he said he needed to file paperwork so me and Tarly went and sat in the squad car while he took a few details from me.
Distressingly I had only been looking at Tarly earlier at TT in her little T shirt and shorts and thinking what a battered child she looks at the moment. She has two scratches on her face which she has been picking at, a big bruise round her eye where she ran into the sofa, bruises up and down both legs as usual and a blister on one foot from wearing her shoes with no socks the other day which bears more than a passing resemblance to a cigarette burn 🙁
So having made my usual throwaway comment to the copper about how it had happened because I was a neglectful and awful mother, he threw me a little by explaining that he needed to file paperwork as although he could tell I was clearly not a mother who was in the habit of abandoning her child locked in a car on an industrial estate he needed to ensure it was all present and correct. I was so thrown by everything else that I sat there in his car with Tarly cuddled on my lap pointing at all the cop car type gizmos and gave him my name and date of birth, address, Ady’s full name and date of birth, Scarlett’s details and he had just asked whether I had any more children and was probably about to get Davies’ details too when one of the boilersuit clad heros came with a glass of sugar free lemon squash for Tarly so he was distracted (thank fuck D was not with me actually although I am sure he would have managed to get the car open if he’d been inside if he’d have been locked out with me we’d have had the whole ‘and why aren’t you at school today then young man’ type thing too…
I’m assuming that will be the last I’ll hear of that as I think the only other time I have given my details to the police was at the BB gun shooting incident earlier this year – so gangland playpark shooting warfare and locking my child in cars then inciting middle aged men to break in to it aside I would hope I am not flagged up anywhere as a Bad Mother 🙁
Dad then left and the last of my audience shut their office windows and ‘returned to their lives citizens’ and home we came. Tarly appears really rather unflustered by the whole incident. We termed it her Big Adventure and she said it was a little bit scary and I was a silly Mummy for locking her in the car and not being able to open the doors but I have somehow reached novelty status for such an exciting morning with her, so that’s interesting.
Home for a brief time so Tarly could tell Davies all about her adventure – Ady could stress about his car (grr!) and I could pack up some lunch for the children and some bits for home ed group before heading out again.
Group passed in a bit of a haze TBH – there were four new families and I made a real effort to talk to them all but suspect I came across as rather distant. Davies played with a boy who I was not altogether sure about as he was a bit handy about shoving the smaller ones about but I was reassured by D that he was quite happy and not being pushed into anything he was not happy with. I did a bit of catching up with people I’ve not seen all summer, a bit of chatting to new people, made tea and then ran off early to complete the final leg of bedlam Wednesday!
Dropped Tarly off home with Ady and then headed off with Davies for his TT2 session. He has gone up to the third level called Gym Bobs which is for 5-7 year olds and is fairly structured. I enjoyed sitting for an hour reading a magazine with ocassional peeping at him through the window and a bit of chatting with the other mothers who normally ignore me as I am tied up with Tarly. I was pleased to see at least 4 other Tarly aged children in the waiting room so hopefully she will have plenty of company when she has to come with us again. I had a bit of a chat with the leader who was full of how well Tarly had done this morning too 🙂 and said Davies had managed fine. He tends to be slightly disruptive in that environment but as she said he is unlike all the others who are either already used to or getting used to the school type environment of having one adult ‘in charge’ of a group of children and them having to listen to and pay attention to the adult without questioning or interupting 😉 Actually for the sum total of one hour a week I think it might do him good!
Got home to a rather big Book People order so we opened that, shared it out and did some of the stuff in there – read them Hansel and Gretel which I was amazed to realise the other day was a story that Davies had never heard when I made some reference to it. Tarly was delighted with a Dragon book with flaps to lift, which Davies later spent time looking at too. Davies started working his way through a cat in the hat sticker book and Tarly and I did a jigsaw sticker book together. I put away a couple of activity books to take on holiday for boredom relief moments and travelling.
Ady bathed them and used my massage bubble jet mat with bubble bath in so created a sort of Ibiza foam pool party for them which they loved 🙂
Davies has struggled to get to sleep tonight and even came downstairs for a while and watched some of Super Nanny with us and tried some curry – not a habit I want him to get into too often (the coming down, the watching Super Nanny or the eating curry!) but quite nice every so often.
I have a couple of CVs I really should get done tonight as I am pretty busy tomorrow and have promised to bake cakes in the morning before we head over to Ali’s so won’t really get a chance in the morning. Off to do them…
Eek, exciting morning indeed. What a star is Tarly!
That sounds a bit distressing all round. I once did it in reverse, in the two cars had parked so close to me at an angle, that they had blocked both the front doors of the car. I climbed into the back door, with a view to seeing if I would be able to let the handbrake off and roll the car back a bit. I’d shut the door behind me, and then decided that the buggy was too near the back of the car, I went to get out to move her, and then found the child locks were on. Hannah was about two at the time, and I spent about 30 mins pleading with her through the back window to undo her buggy harness, and open the back door from the outside. She just set up a “want mummy” wail. It was absolutly hellish, and by the time a passer-by arrived I was practically hysterical, and though he was actualy very kind, when I saw him coming, he looked like a fiesta man who would take the opportunity to steal child rather than release mother. Shudder. Glad it all ended well. I wouldn’t think you’d hear from the police again, though, and I’m susprised they even wanted bothered with the paperwork. Probably more worried that car had been stolen. I always feel vulnerable about HE in those situations though. I was mortified when we took Hannah to A+E with her overdose last month, as they clearly struggled with the fact that she was FILTHY (I mean she’s been gone for a week, and her new soap was still in the wrapper!), covered in bruises (well it was an adventure camp), and had been overdosing on medication for a week before I was arsed to take her to hosptial, and THEN she didn’t go to school.
Nightmare car incident. One thing Steve has taught me, when leaving keys in a car, always open a window first – cars on the forecourt have a habit of mysteriously locking themselves.
Glad it got sorted before too long – did they damage the car at all getting in? And is Tarly traumatised, or is she ok?
We watched Marian here too, that was really weird, very disturbing!
Shriek – that sounds like the sort of thing that happens to me! Poor you both 🙁
I’ve done that before when Marcus must’ve been about Tarly’s age. probably blogged it too iirc 😉 Very stressful!
Never chuck the keys on the car seat now! Although in the skoda with the lack of central locking I don’t need to worry so much!
((hugs)) all round, sounds scary for you so well done for hyping it into an adventure! We don’t have central locking on the Landie either so not so bad but I do have a habit of opening all the doors at the same time so at least one is open! Although I don’t even drive so I guess that doesn’t really count. Fingers crossed nothing happens with the police either, I guess at worst it would just sit on a file waiting to be added to!
I’ve heard too many stories along these lines, and *always* make sure that when children are in the car, the key is safely on my person! As I am sure you will too, from now on! Anyway, it’ll be a good story to tell on her wedding day, or something. Happy Anniversary for tomorrow, BTW.
Why didn’t you SAY something? I wondered what was up.