...what do you do?
It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon. I had returned home from a few hours of creating scrapgasms at our local scrapbooking shop. We were doing some housecleaning, the boys were running in and out of house from the backyard. We had a few "stop running in the house" matches ("Mom, are you scolding me?" was the phrase Nol used). Dinner was on the stove, filling the air with blissful scents of good food.
The doorbell rang. I walked over and peeked out the window to see who our surprise visitor was on the front porch since we weren't expecting anyone. It was a tall, Latin man in blue. With a badge (okay fine, he was cute too -- I know you were waiting for this tidbit of information).
Q. ran over to me so I picked him up and opened the front door with him resting on my hips.
"Hello officer," I said with a smile. Hey, I was just being friendly. He smiled back, and then the reason for his visit became clear. It was official police business. Different thoughts swirled through my head -- had there been a crime committed in our neighborhood? Did someone in our family die in a car crash?
"Hi, ma'am," he said, his face looking slightly uncomfortable. "We've received several reports that...your home is calling 911."
Nol knows not to call 911 unless it's an emergency. Q., on the other hand, had been playing with the phone 20 minutes earlier. I felt my face get warm as the redness of embarrassment crept up my cheeks.
"Well, we haven't called," I said, "but let's see if Q. has accidentally dialed you up."
I grabbed the phone and hit redial. The digits shown?
9-1-1-9.
Yup, my almost two-year-old son committed his first crank call.
The officer laughed. "We thought children might be involved."
I apologized profusely for the false alarm and promised we'd keep the phone away from the boys.
(Unless I'm in the mood to see a tall, cute Latin police officer.)
