What a day!

So this morning I was getting the kids ready to take Cinderella to preschool. We were running a little bit behind, when we went to get in the van. Well my FAB wasn't working to open the doors, and so I tried to unlock it. I didn't even get the lights to blink. It then occurred to me that the battery was probably dead. I tried to turn it on. Yep the battery was dead. "GREAT", I thought, "what do I do now?"

I thought of one of my visiting teachers who lives across from my street. I gave her a call, but there was no answer. Cinderella suggested that we walk. Well first let me tell you about the weather we had yesterday. We already had snow on the ground, and it rained. The snow damned the gutters, and so they turned into lakes. Then it snowed some more, and froze over night. So the sidewalks were covered in snow and ice. Not exactly stroller conditions. But I figured I didn't really have much choice. I bundled the kids up some more, and put them in the stroller, and started walking. I knew we would be late, because when we left the house we had 10 min. before preschool started, and in good conditions it takes me 15-20 min to get there walking.

Well pushing the stroller was a struggle, but I made it to the corner. There I saw probably a foot of water frozen over with a thin layer of ice over the entire gutter. I knew there was no way I was getting that stroller off that corner. I didn't know what to do. But I noticed that my Visiting Teacher's van was in her drive way, so I decided that I would try to knock on her door. I told my kids to not leave the stroller. Left it on the corner, waded through the water and crossed the street.
She was home, and when she answered her door, I was sobbing. I told her my van wouldn't start and I needed to get Cinderella to preschool. She told me to take her van, and then helped me get my kids across the street.

She offered to watch my younger two, while I took Cinderella, and then offered to let me continue usage of her van, to get my husband and see what we could do to get our van fixed. I am so grateful for her service.

So I took Cinderella to preschool, came home, called my husband. He told me to come and get him. So I went and fed Sleeping Beauty, then went and got my husband. We went to Home Depot, to get some leather gloves so he could clean off the corrosion on the battery to see if that was the problem.

Then we went home. He cleaned off the battery. It still didn't work. So then we needed to try to jump start it. Well of course it was parked in the garage, front in. So to jump it we would need to push it out of the garage. We went next door to where some people were working in a garage to see if someone had some longer jumper cables. No one did, but someone had a portable battery charger. So we tried that. It wouldn't work. It would make the noise like it was going to start, but not turn over all the way.

So we took the battery out, and took it to Auto Zone, picking up Cinderella on the way. They tested the battery, but it was too low for them to get a reading. They said they would put it in their charger, and we needed to check back in an hour and they could give us more information. So we went and got the kids, made them lunch then checked back again. Well I guess when they tried to hook it to the charger the battery exploded. So we ended up getting a new battery. But at least our van works now. But I'll tell you what. That day wore me out.