911

Bailey carries around something that we call her "mischief stool." This stool is what enables her to reach things that would otherwise be out of her grasp and it makes our lives crazy. We try to hide it from her to prevent her from getting into things but sometimes we forget and we find her on the kitchen table or pulling things off the counters. The girl is absolutely fearless!

Her favorite forbidden item to get with her mischief chair is our home phone and I could spend the entire day taking it from her and putting it back. If I'm trying to get a meal on the table or something, I sometimes let her play with it because it keeps her happy. John always tells me not to let her play with the phone because he doesn't want her calling 911. While that's a valid concern, I figure that mathematically speaking, the probability of her dialing those numbers in that sequence is slim to none.

Wrong! The other morning I was rushing around to get the girls dressed and ready to go. I had run upstairs for a few minutes to get clothes for everyone and about 15 minutes later, I heard the door knock. I saw one of John's co-workers at the door and instantly my heart started pounding, Thankfully, John was sleeping soundly in his bed so I wasn't worried that they were coming to deliver some horrible news to me. Completely perplexed, I answered the door and the deputy standing there said, "Jillian, is John beating you? We had a 911 call from your house." Of course she knew better and was laughing but at that point, I just felt completely stupid. The department has a policy that they send a car to all 911 calls just to be safe but because they know us, they tried to just call and see if we were but the phone was still busy. They also tried calling John but he was sleeping and didn't hear his cell phone ring. It kind of makes me worry that they wouldn't have rushed right out if there really was an emergency!

I'm still shocked that Bailey actually dialed 911. I know that the other girls didn't do it because they were playing in the toy room nicely and hey don't even know to dial 911 in a real emergency, let alone just for the heck of it. I'm not one to put away things that children shouldn't have... I would rather discipline and teach them not to do something. However, I'm thinking that this phone is going to have to be an exception to that rule for a while. I'm not interested in having the police at my door anytime soon... Unless it's my husband, that is!