In Control

I may not remember my exact thoughts as I woke that morning and hit the snooze on the annoying alarm clock for the third time. What it came down to was that I was very aware that the morning wasn’t getting off to the best start. I may as well admit it now; I am not a morning person. Some people jump right out of bed when the alarm goes off with smiles and energy. That’s not me. Even worse are those who wake up before the alarm goes off and lay in bed just waiting for it. Ugh! I don’t understand it and will never be able to be either of those people.

With all that said I have to mention that my husband, my 2 year old son Joaquin and I had found a morning routine that worked for us. Each morning was the same. My husband would leave by 5:00 a.m. and I would hit the snooze button on my alarm and finally get up at 5:20 a.m. O.k. more often than not I would get up at 5:30. Did I mention I’m not a morning person? I would rush to get dressed, do my hair and make up. I’d hurry down stairs to get a cup of coffee. This is where my husband’s part of the morning routine would come in. He made the coffee before he left. By 6:30 I was trying to wake up Joaquin. This was my favorite part on most mornings. I would sit on his bed and lean over to give him kisses and rub his back. He would grin up at me with those tiny shining white teeth before he even opened his eyes. They were beautiful dark brown eyes that included long eyelashes. Identical to his Dads. They were the same eyes that I had fallen in love with years before Joaquin was even born. I suspected then that Joaquin would be a morning person. Then our usual game was that Joaquin would crawl onto my lap, wrapping his arms around my neck. I would pretend to attempt getting up with him and fall back onto the bed exasperated telling him it was too hard and he was too heavy. He giggled and giggled as we repeated that three or four times. Finally I would get him into the restroom where I cleaned him up and prepped for getting out the door and to his Grandma’s for breakfast. We felt very fortunate to have my mom babysitting Joaquin since I returned to work. This made life much easier and less worrisome. Most days went fine. Some days did not. If Joaquin had a rough nights sleep or started to play in his room before we left and didn’t want to go when we needed to leave we would sometimes each get a little agitated.

On this particular day neither of us slept well the night before. We had arrived home a little later than normal, due to some evening appointments and dinner out. Joaquin wasn’t asleep yet when we picked him up from Grandma and we were all behind our usual schedule. The next morning when it came time to finish the game of falling back onto the bed, Joaquin wanted to continue playing and we were already running late. My fault, I guess you could say I kept falling back into bed. I finally was able to get him dressed through a temper-tantrum and we moved on by my galloping us down the stairs. I sat Joaquin on the couch and reached for his shoes which were not there. A search for his shoes began. After several moments wasted in doing that I remembered that we had left them in the car with a bag of clothes the night before and Joaquin had worn his footed pajamas home. I carried my purse, my jacket, Joaquin’s bag of essentials and Joaquin out the front door.

Joaquin was complaining now because he wanted to walk like a big boy and I wouldn’t let him do so without shoes on. With all his wiggling and complaining he was sliding down off my hip but I was determined not to let him down. For that brief moment I was thankful that I had some of my pregnancy weight left on me and my hips were wider than they once were. Only for that brief moment. I struggled and we finally made it to the open garage in the back of our town home which was grouped as a four-plex. I unlocked the Ford Mustang Gia, manually as was the way back then and opened the back door on the passenger’s side to place Joaquin in the car seat. Joaquin was not his usual happy self by this time and stiffened up and refused to sit in his car seat. I flung the bag, purse and everything else in my hands onto the floor of the back seat and told Joaquin in my firmest Mommy voice that he needed to sit down and sit still. Joaquin’s head drooped and he covered his eyes, not wanting to look at me, as I fastened him into the car seat.

Proud of myself that I had stood my ground and made this tough two year old understand who was in charge, I locked and closed the car door, as was my usual habit. As I went around to get into the drivers seat I realized I had left the keys inside the car. When the situation slowly sunk in five seconds later I was doing my best not to panic. I walked back around to the passenger’s side of the car and witnessed Joaquin twisting and turning to see where I had gone since I hadn’t gotten in at my usual speed. When he saw me looking at him he hid his face once again in his little hands.

It was just after 7:00 a.m. and I didn’t know anyone well enough to go knocking on their door at that hour. I fought back the tears and glanced around nonchalantly. Not sure if I hoped someone noticed and would soon offer to help or if I was afraid that anyone noticing would think I was a horrible mother. I looked into the car and saw Joaquin scowling up at me with a bit of a question as to why I was standing outside the car with an odd grin on my face. I didn’t want to panic him.

I finally called to him “Joaquin, can you help Mommy?”

At first he looked away and covered his eyes again.

As I stared into the car at the back of my sons head I whispered “Joaquin, I need you to crawl out of your car seat and come up front.”

He looked up at me with a question on his face.

“Get up and come up here” I instructed Joaquin as I pointed to the front seat.

I could only imagine that he had thought he had won some part of the battle and he began to smile.

"Can you be a big boy and crawl out of the seat? I asked trying to talk softly and calmly.

Joaquin began to squirm until he worked his way through the straps and began to pull himself up over the front pad of the car seat. Joaquin looked at me to double check that this is what I wanted him to do.

“Big boy” I told him. “Now come up here, ok?” Joaquin grinned and followed my funny instructions. He crawled over the front seat and was standing on the passenger’s side of the car making funny faces through the window at me.

“Joaquin, pull up this here” as I pointed to the lock at the top of the door panel “and unlock the door”.

He looked at me a little puzzled and put his finger on the lock. “Yes, that babe pull it up so I can open the door ok” I said as I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed us. No one in sight. I breathed a sigh of relief as I began to feel that this would be ok and go unnoticed.

Joaquin tried pulling at the lock and his little pudgy fingers slid up the silver lock.

“To hard” Joaquin said. It was then that I realized that the lock didn’t have a lip or anything for him to grasp well.

“Oh, sweetie, be like He-man and show Mommy how strong you are, try again.”

Joaquin tried again, and looked disappointed that he wasn’t able to help me. “To Hard”, Joaquin said a little louder.

I couldn’t help myself, I began to cry. When Joaquin began to get a look of concern on his face and pout I told him it was ok and not to cry. I smiled my best fake smile and made a funny face at him. Fearful my son would panic if I left his side I pulled myself together and tried to imagine who and how I could find someone to help me.

Joaquin was saying something that I didn’t really pay attention to. I didn’t know what to do, I was locked out of the car with my toddler son inside and I was locked out of the townhouse.

As Joaquin crawled down to a sitting position he looked up at me and said “Mommy, roll down the window?"

“No, I answered just try and pull this up again." Yeah, that’s right. That is honestly what I said. Once again I feel the need to mention that I wasn’t a morning person?” Quickly I said “yes, yes, babe, roll down the window. Joaquin smiled at me and began the serious task of struggling with the knob that rolled down the window as was the way back then. I glanced around to see if anyone had heard us. In a few more seconds I was reaching in the car and pulling my brave, clever, witty son to me.

“I did it Mommy, I did it” Joaquin exclaimed. "Big boy" I told him.

I cried, laughed and hugged my son close to me and once again looked around to see if anyone had witnessed our antic. No one appeared to have seen anything. This was not the case five years later when I locked Joaquin’s brother Anthony in our Blazer at the age of two in front of a liquor store, mid afternoon in September, but that’s another story.