W-O-R-S-T mommy ever!

As if this week hasn't been traumatic enough for Joey with school starting, yesterday mommy put the cherry on top by accidentally locking Joey in the car in a shopping center parking lot. Before you freak out, you should know that Joey is completely fine (physically - who knows about his mental state???) and that luckily I had the car running with the A/C on full blast so the heat wasn't an issue either. Long story short, we'd just had lunch with our friends Kelly and her son Cristian, we said our goodbyes and I buckled Joey into his carseat. I had the car keys in hand and Joey managed to click on one of the buttons - apparently it was the lock button. I shut Joey's door and from the front passenger seat (the door was open b/c I'd put the diaper bag in that seat), started the ignition and turned on the A/C to cool off the car. I then closed that door and went around to the driver side door, pulled on the handle and realized I had locked myself out. At which time I went into full-on panic mode. Thankfully Kelly and Cristian were still getting settled into their car so I quickly waved them over to help. Kelly called 311 (my cell phone was in the diaper bag which was in the car) and they dispatched a fire truck to come unlock the car. I have to give props to emergency services - they sent over a full-on fire truck with the sirens blaring and when they pulled to a stop in front of Texadelphia, out jumped at least 5 firefighters. It was a little embarrassing, but also comforting to know that this type of help is readily available to dumb mommies like me. Anyways, they quickly unlocked the car door and I was able to give Joey a big I'm sorry hug before getting into the car (one of the firemen made some comment about holding the driver side door open for me just in case...ha ha ha) and driving home. Joey was a complete trooper while trapped inside the car. It was funny to him for the first 5 minutes when Kelly, Cristian and I were smiling and making faces at him from the outside. But for the last 5-10 minutes, I think he started wondering why we were all standing outside and he was inside the car alone. Even though Joey probably never knew what the heck was going on, I would like to issue a public apology to my baby and promise that this will never, ever happen again to him (and hopefully never to his little bro either). Plus if mommy's guilt builds up too much over the weekend, he might find a huge new train set waiting for him at home after school on Monday...