Lesson learned. . .we hope.

After Britton's last birthday and with Korinne coming to her 5th birthday we decided that as long as we are within a few minutes from home and can be reached by cell phone the entire time our kids can handle being home alone for short periods of time.  They have proven to be very responsible and all occasions have gone without incident so when Adam and I both had to go to a short missionary correlation meeting yesterday afternoon at the church around 2:30 p.m. we thought nothing of it.  Before we left we gave the kids my cell phone and then warned everyone in the small meeting that we would be leaving our cell phone on in case our kids called.  The meeting was pretty much over and we were just talking a little bit when the phone rang.  Adam stepped out to take it and then after a few seconds popped his head in and said, "We've gotta go."  I jumped up and walked out and Adam debriefed me on the way to the car. 

"Um, Korinne was playing with the phone and called 911.  The cops are on their way."

WHAT!?!

My first thought was, "we've got to beat them there!" We ran to the car, jumped in and I blurted "Go, Go, Go. Go faster!" to which Adam replied, "I don't think it would be good to get pulled over for speeding on the way." He is so practical.  I just had visions of getting my hands slapped by the authorities because our kids were still on the young side for being home alone.  Since we were only 2 min. from home we pulled into our garage and got out of our car a millisecond before we saw the first cop car come around the corner.  Another cop was right behind him.  We explained that it was our 4 year old that called and that everyone was ok.  He took Korinne's name and birthdate and our names and birthdates (just to make sure that we didn't have a record of violence and child abuse I'm sure.  We don't even have so much as a parking ticket between the two of us) and was on his way.  Korinne was hiding in the basement crying.  Britton and Jenna were white as sheets. It was very traumatic for all 3 of them.

This is what went down.  I have a Blackberry that looks like this:

Jenna had locked the keyboard when Korinne wouldn't stop playing with it.  When the keyboard is locked on this particular phone it will still make emergency calls. In fact it becomes SUPER EASY to make an emergency call by pushing the main button a few times. You don't actually have to dial 9-1-1 to call 911.  When Korinne pushed enough buttons and they realized she had called 911 they hung up, but of course, the 911 operators called right back so Britton answered it.  They asked him all sorts of questions, "Are you Ok? What is your address? Are your parents there? Whose phone are you calling from?", etc. They told him that he wasn't in trouble but that the police were going to come to the house.  At that moment he went into a total panic.

The other thing about my phone is that when you make a 911 call it goes into "emergency callback mode" which won't allow you to make regular phone calls so the 911 operators can call you back.  So after hanging up they still couldn't call us to tell us what just happened.  At this point he ran to the neighbor's house and my neighbor Tammy was the one who called us out of our meeting to let us know the police were on their way.  She got the biggest kick out of the situation and was just laughing the entire time.  She sat on her front porch with her boys because she wasn't about to miss "the show."

"That's the most entertainment I've had all week!" 

Korinne was white as a ghost when we found her in the basement.  She was crying and so scared about being in a lot of trouble.  We talked everything over and then decided that we would never leave my phone with the kids again. Adam's phone isn't configured the same way so they would actually have to dial 9-1-1 to call 911.  Korinne said a few times today that she doesn't ever want to hold my phone again. In fact, none of the kids will even go near it. 

Lesson learned. . . we hope.