How do you...

How do you talk your 18 month old through unlocking the car so you can rescue him ... calmly?

Saturday we were in a hurry to get out of the house.  I must 1st say that:

1. I was alone with the kids....again.
2. I never leave my keys in my car
3. The car seats are usually always in the car

So for some reason I left my keys in the car Friday night and the car seats weren't in because my car was at the shop and I had to borrow my mom's for work.  I walked out the door Saturday morning with 30+ pound Waylon in one arm, my purse and diaper bag in the other and some how guiding Wyatt with my body.  I sat Waylon in the front passenger seat and shut the door so he wouldn't fall out while I went to get the car seats to put them back in.  I walked about 2 steps to get the seats and 2 steps back to the car.  I reached for the door handle and it was locked.  Waylon was standing in the seat looking at me with the biggest smile, so proud of himself for pushing buttons on the door handle.  Wyatt was standing outside of the car at my side. 

I didn't realize at first that the keys were even in there.  I thought, where is my purse? Answer - on the floor board under Waylon.  Crap.  But, the keys weren't in there either.  There they were dangling from the ignition.  I wanted to freak out, but something was holding me from it.  I wanted to think that I was really screwed and this was going to take hours and possibly some outside help, but something was holding me from it. 

I just stood there for a second and thought of ways to get him out.  There would be no other way short of breaking a window or calling a lock smith, but to just try to talk him through it.  He had pushed the lock button and was proud of himself and kept doing it over and over again.  I kept telling him to push the other side, the one closer to mommy, but he kept hitting the same little button with his chubby little finger and big cheeky grin.  It wasn't working. 

Finally I asked him to slide the lock.  It took a couple of times, but he got it.  What seemed like 30 minutes was probably only about 5 and what could have been a majorly stressful event seemed like no big deal.  And my little 18 month old is a genius, right?!  I say all of this to say that the work I have been doing and the prayers I have been praying are little by little paying off.  I resisted the temptation to freak out and to let the stress get to me and my goodness it worked and didn't seem to be too hard either!  Got to count the little victories in life!