in a "jam"

Last week, I ventured off to Walmart, with the three littles in tow.

Walmart with three small children is always an adventure, but it has to be done, so we make the best of it.

On this particular outing, as I was getting Molly out of her car seat when we arrived at the store, William was playing with the door of the car.

Somehow, in a way only a child can do, he flipped the locking mechanism, and completely jammed it.  It was sticking out of the door in a way the completely prevented the door from shutting.

I worked on it for about 10 minutes, in a busy parking lot, while trying to keep the kids from running in front of cars, chasing birds, going through my purse, and so on.  It was quite the scene for sure.

I was not able to fix the door, so I gathered up the kids, did my best to make the door look like it was closed, and did a very fast shopping trip, praying the no one would steal our car. The perks of living in a small town. :)

Once we finished shopping, to my relief, the car was still there.  The next dilemma was figuring out if we should sit there waiting for Ben to drive 45 minutes to help us, call a car shop that would be crazy expensive, or try to make the 3 mile trip home with a door that won't shut.

The kids were tired and hungry, so they basically answered the question for me.  We had to get home.  I tried to find some way to tie the door shut, but nothing was working, so I buckled the kids in their seats, and asked William to hold the door shut while I drove us SLOWLY home.

William was completely freaking out, and screaming that we were all doing to be sucked out of the car and die. 

I talked to him for a while, and told him that I trusted his super strong muscles to be able to hold the door shut, which would make him a hero that saved his family from being sucked into outer space for the rest of our lives.

He wiped away his tears, puffed out his chest, and accepted the challenge.

We drove home going less than 5 miles per hour like this...

William is holding the door shut.

We crawled into our garage, and arrived home safely.  William was extremely proud of himself, and although I was frustrated that he broke the door in the first place, I was proud of him too.

Ben got home later that day, and fixed the door within 5 minutes.  What the????

Never a dull moment.

Rock on.