Thursday, December 4, 2008

And then the police came....



About 6 months ago I saw an episode on Oprah where a three year old girl called 911 and was able to get her Mommy some help after she had passed out unconscious. Since then I followed the teaching tips of that day and have been teaching my 3 and 5 year old how to dial 911. On Oprah they told you to teach the jingle 9-1-1-green. Now with all the digital phones the children have to learn that to place a call they have to press the green button after they dial the number.

I have explained to the girls each time we practice this what it is for. I am quite certain Aly gets it, but not so sure that KK does. While today the girls asked to practice dialing 911. So we practiced about 5 or 6 times. When we were done I left the room to go do some chores. Around 40 minutes later I discovered our phone had no dial tone so I had to hunt for the phone that was on. I went to the living room and discovered one of the phones was on and the number that was called was 911.

Oh man, panic set in. Did this mean one of my girls actually called 911 and didn't say anything? I hung the phone up immediately. Within ten minutes I got a call from a 911 dispatcher asking me if everything was o.k. and that my phone had been off the hook for 39 minutes. I explained to her what had happened and she seemed very understanding. I thought that would be the end of it.

About 20 minutes later there is a knock on my door. Standing outside are a male and female police officer. They came to respond to the 911 call. I was mortified and completely embarrassed. I explained to them what happened. They said it was protocol to come out and make sure everything was o.k. They were very nice. After they left I let Aly know that we only call 911 if Mommy or Daddy are hurt. She said she knew and that it was probably KK that called. I told KK why the police officers came and told her not to call 911 unless Mommy or Daddy was hurt.

Hopefully this won't ever happen again!

1 comment:

Sarah Farley said...

This reminds me of a story when we were little. Amy and I were home alone while my mom ran a quick errand. We got scared when we heard someone at the front door trying to get in. Our lock on the front door was hard to open and someone was wrestling with it. Amy made me go look and being a scared little girl, I barely looked and ran and told Amy it was a man. Amy called 911. Turns out it was my mom. Thankfully we were still on the phone when my mom got in and we told them nevermind.