Think fast!!

So many crazy things happen to me in my life and this was one of them. I'm SO happy that the events of the story are over so that I can finally laugh about them and more importantly, share them with you!
I guess the story starts last week when I found out that the baby sitter for Hannah on Tuesday nights (Cecily) wasn't going to be able to watch Hannah this Tuesday. Wouldn't be the biggest deal in the world and of course I want to have her anyway, but, Tuesday is a grooling day for me with meetings, paperwork, planning for the weekend at Le Passage etc. My record for most meetings in a day is 12. I had a meeting every hour or half-hour spread out over 15 hours...and I forgot to "schedule" myself a lunch AND dinner.Anyway, this Tuesday was no different than average and I finished my last meeting at 10:30pm. Hannah stayed over at her Daycare for a few hours tonight while I finished work. Hannah's Daycare sitter is Selene Garcia...she's AMAZING!! I feel so blessed to have her watch my little girl! I'm not going to go off on a tangent about her...I'll save it for another Blog!I get to Selenes right at 11pm, go in to get H and she wakes up...I like to think that it's because she heard Selene say that "Daddy is here to pick you up", but who knows. ;) either way, she blinks hard, rubs those big brown puppy dog eyes and whisper "Hi Daddy". I make her give me a few kisses on the way to my stupid truck (foreshadowing) and we head off to daddy's house.One thing none of you have EVER thought about that don't live in a big city is parking. The others that know a big city probably haven't ever thought about getting home at 11:30pm with a half sleep-induced infant and having to get them up 3 flights of stairs and put them down with out them waking up. Trust me...street parking isn't very friendly in my neighborhood!We get home. Hannah's half asleep. I park very close to my apartment and put my flashers on. The game plan was to get sleepy head up stairs, let her pass back out, move the car right around the block to a lot and get up with Hannah at 6:45/7am to move my truck. One thing you will all eventually realize...your plans don't mean squat when dealing with a 2 year old! Lol!!! I'm SO serious!As soon as we get into the house, she wants to watch Elmo...then brush her teeth, then drink milk, then play the tambarine, the read a book, then jump on the futon, then cuddle, then have a tickle fight, then turn on the light, then cry when you won't let her stand on the end table....TIME ELAPSE........1am.......MY FLASHERS ARE STILL ONNNNNNN!!!!!!!!I grab her and run back downstairs. I remember thinking how I've judged people for having their kids out so late but I will never do that again...maybe they were having a night very similar to the one I was experiencing...and was FAR from done experiencing...Sure enough, DEAD! I could tell from the sidewalk in from of my place. The flashers just didn't have the gusto that they normally did. Battery drained! I opened the door, put Hannah in her seat and tried to start the truck...to not avail.Pausing the story right now, I'd like to describe a feeling that I've only had a few times as a parent and it SUCKS! It's the feeling of being stranded WITH a child! Imagine feeling stranded by yourself and multiply that by ONE MILLION! We know that alone we can "get around", "figure it out", "make it happen", but when you have you kid there...you have to do it all while making sure that the life you protect and love so much is safe and sound.I stand there for a second thinking. I know that the building across the street has a battery charger on a dolly that they may let me wheel halfway down the block to my car...but it's too big to carry Hannah and maneuver the charger. I start to run through my list of people in Chicago that have vehicles...but that list is small and almost invisible when adding the factor that it's 1:15am now. Hmmmmm...what do I do. Hannah's getting impatient...she actually asks me to go home and go "night night". LOL! Of course she does!!Just then, a man walks out of the coffee shop across the street, looks over and asses my problem. Mind you, the coffee shop closed 3 hours ago at 10pm but I got lucky because tonight was one of their "after hours" gatherings and it was over RIGHT on time! The man, Steve, offered to give me a jump because funny enough, his car was parked directly in front of the shop. The fact that he was in the right place at the right time, had a car, had jumper cables AND offered to jump me should have been enough for me...but then I listened to his advice on where to place the cables...and it blew all of the fuses in my truck except for my head lights...and my brake lights. I didn't notice it right away because when I figured out that the cables were placed wrong, my truck started almost as soon as I got them in the right spot. What really sucked was that I had opened the driver side window because while I had the hood up I needed to still talk to Hannah. She was saying "it broken Daddy?" And "Daddy fix it". Now, I had a truck that started but that I can't park on the street because I can't close my window, no lights except for head lights, a little girl that's getting impatient because she wants milk and my milk went bad 2 days ago. Another moment of planning..."convenient store 2 blocks from here", "a private garage that I can beg to park in...I have a little girl with me...PLEASE GOD let them let me park".I pull around the corner to get milk and realize that I can't turn off the car because it's too soon, but I also can't close my window...damnit!!! I backed up to park directly in front of the fire hydrant in front of the store...at this point, I'd risk the ticket to avoid getting my truck stolen. Damnit again!! Someone just took the spot...hey wait...that's Hannah's Mommy....did I step into the twilight zone??? She works at Carmines on Rush street and we're 3.5 miles north of there and she lives 6 miles north of where we are now!! Apparently Melissa (Hannah's mommy) and Cecily, (who normally has Hannah on Tuesday) and were going to meet in the neighborhood for a "Mommy's night out drink" and that's why she was in the hood. What are the odds??Short story long...Hannah's Mommy watched her while I got milk, she followed me around the corner to make sure my fuse stricken vehicle didn't shut off, I plead with the garage attendant and paid him to take me in. Little did I know, he's in the same fraternity as me...he's a FATHER! He knows how crazy parking and having children can be! He also said that "there's NO WAY I could make up a story like that".Oh, by the way...it's 3:30am........Hannah's still up.
As soon as I finished writing this blog entry, Hannah finished playing with her sticker book. She came over, stuck her thumb in her mouth and climbed into my lap...within 7 minutes of rocking her, she passed out...I would do the whole adventure again for that to be the way it ended...