my dumb new mom stories.

For a laugh, I figure. First of all, I should explain that we live in an apartment building. The main entrance is always open, but to actually get onto your floor, you have to have a key. Anyway, on Tuesday afternoon, we received a UPS package. I had just laid Ambrose down when the UPS man buzzed our unit. I heard the baby start to fuss as soon as I opened our apartment door, but figured that I'd just go sign for the delivery so the man didn't have to wait. I opened the door to our floor, expecting to see a nice man in a brown jumpsuit...but no one was there. So, I went up the stairs...and suddenly realized that the door that I need a key to open has just shut and locked behind me. Oh crap, my baby's inside and crying. Total panic. Ok, I think, the man that lives down the hall from us is usually home sometime during the day, I'll just buzz his apartment and get him to let me back in. A quick glance at the parking lot, and I noticed that his car was absent from his parking spot. Now, we also have a sliding patio door that we sometimes use to get in and out of our apartment. Unfortunately, it's very drafty and last week we covered it with plastic and sealed it off for the winter. In my desperation, I ran outside to try it. It didn't budge. Just then, I noticed a woman in the parking lot, heading to her car and, thankfully, lugging her own infant carseat. "Excuse me, could I use your cell phone really quick?," I am sure that I looked like a total lunatic, running through the mud and snow in stocking feet, and this lady stared accordingly. "My phone?" "Yeah-I went outside without my keys, and I left my baby inside. He's crying." I think she was trying not to laugh. She handed me her phone and I quickly called Matt, explaining what I had done and that I needed him to come home and let me inside immediately. "I don't have my keys," he said, "They're inside." So, then I was sure the world was ending, that I had failed miserably as a mother, and that I would just have to sit down right there in the snow and cry for the rest of my life when he said, "Why don't you just go in the patio door?" "I can't!," I wailed, "It's LOCKED!!!!" "Erin, that door doesn't lock." "It doesn't?" I was both horrified and extremely relieved at once. So, I ran back down to the patio door, and pulled. It still didn't move. It was frozen , but not locked, and eventually opened. I tore through the plastic seal like a mad woman, and rushed to Ambrose's cradle to find him sleeping quite peacefully. I realized that I'd been gone for a whopping 3 minutes. *sigh* Also, yesterday I went to a seminar for stay-at-home moms with my Mom (which I think was actually just a vehicle for Grandma to show off her new grandson to all her friends...). So, everyone was quite excited and cooing over such a tiny baby, who was content and sleeping in his carseat (and I had every intention to let him keep doing so, so I could get my money's worth out of this thing...) Anyway, just minutes before the speaker started speaking, my mom's friend says, "Well, cantcha take him out?" I hesitated, but crumbled under the pressure of eight different sets of eyes looking at me expectantly, and I unbundled him. Needless to say, Ambrose was then wide awake for the better part of the seminar, and very unhappy about being woken up, so I spent almost the entire time walking the hallway with him. Afterwards, my mom says to me, "Erin, don't you know? Anytime anyone asks you to wake up your sleeping child for no good reason, the answer is 'no'!" No kidding. And, as always, lookatmybaby! lookatmybaby! heissocute!!!! (Also, for those of you who watch The Office, Ambrose has got the Stanley impression down pat. He'll raise his eyebrows really high and blink really slow....and I can imagine him saying, "I do not think that. is. funny." Oh well, it's probably only funny to me, huh?)