Fire Alarms and the Boy in the Car

Alternatively titled: "Another Example of My Parenting Prowess"

The boys' Wednesday school (therapy) session started out pleasantly. Shawn was putting a puzzle together with his teacher inside the classroom, while Jason was outside doing some exercises with his teacher. All in all, I was pleased that things were going well. It was going to be a good day at school. Yea!

Ten minutes in, the fire alarm started blaring. The strobe lights flashed and the intense wail of the alarm itself startled us all.

When it started, I was outside with Jason. He was not happy about the noise, but he was at first more confused as to what it was than anything else. I left Jason with his teacher, Mayra, and went in to grab Shawn.

Shawn, however, was a mess. Unfortunately, he was sitting right below the alarm when it sounded. He immediately freaked and started screaming and crying. His teacher was trying to get him out of his chair and had just lifted him into her arms, but Shawn was having none of that. He was fighting her to let him go when I got there. I grabbed him and my purse and we evacuated outside to be with Jason and his teacher.

Now, in case you didn't know it, the boys have an aversion to loud noises, which we believe is another remnant from their days in the NICU. (All those beeps, alarms, and machine noises are bound to leave their mark on anyone.) The vacuum cleaner can cause hysterics. Shoot, the sound of the electric mixer is sometimes enough to work them up to a frenzy. You can imagine what the sound of a fire alarm did to my boys.

By the time we made it to Jason, he was also a scared, crying mess. We made our way to a picnic bench at the far end of the playground. A few others from the building had made their way outside, too. We stood around and waited.

And waited.

The alarm continued to blast and the strobe lights flashed for ten full minutes.

Did I mention that my boys don't care for loud noises?

Listening to that alarm was brutal for them and me. Poor guys.

Finally, they were able to shut the alarm off. They tried everything to stop the lights but could not get them to turn off. We continued to wait.

At this point, I had decided it was time for us to go home. The boys were upset (and my head was killing me). I didn't think they'd do much at school after this fiasco anyway. The teachers decided they didn't want to risk taking students back into the room with the lights still flashing because of the seizure risks, so it was a done deal.

I carried Shawn out the back gate and made my way around to the car. Mayra carried Jason out behind me. At the car, I put the car keys into the door cup holder while I put Shawn into his seat on the passenger side. I shut the door and turned around to get Jason.

I almost died when I heard the car horn beep. I whipped around to see Shawn, inside the car, holding the keys in his hand while he happily pushed the "lock" button over and over again so he could hear the horn.

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap!

I tried to coax Shawn into pushing the "open" button on the car keys. He would, but he wasn't pushing it hard/long enough to get it to open the doors. He'd push, I'd run over to the driver's door (takes only one push to open the driver's door, two pushes to open all the doors), and try to open it. Nothing.

My head started to think about how long he could sit in that hot car before he passed out while we waited for Isaac to drive home from work in Camarillo during rush hour.

I contemplated which window would be the cheapest to replace if I had to break one.

I wondered if I could get the teacher to give me her car so I could drive home and look for another key. I had to nix that thought because my house key was on the key chain in Shawn's hand AND the only other key was with Isaac.

I kicked myself a few times for being careless enough to leave the keys in the car in the first place.

Finally, I convinced Shawn to try to push another button. As soon as he pushed it, I heard the click. I ran to the back and exhaled when I saw that he did indeed open the back window of the car.

Hallelujah! Of course he only opened the top window and not the door hatch, but I was taking whatever I could get!

I crawled in through the window (a harder feat than I thought), pulled myself about halfway in, and reached for the keys. I unlocked the doors so Jason's teacher could put him into the car.

I, however, was still half in/half out of the car window. I couldn't get myself back out the window and there wasn't enough room to pull myself all the way into the car.

I was quite the sight, I'm sure, with my outstretched legs sticking out the window. It didn't help that I heard Mayra chuckling to herself after she saw me.

Sigh.

After hours a few seconds, I finally escaped.

I gathered up my bruised ego, finished putting my boys into the car, and headed for home.

Like I said, this is just another example of my parenting prowess. Ahem.