911 What is your emergency....

Well.... bad Mommy bad.....

OK I am a driving Momma. I drive my kids all over, all the time. My day starts at 4:50 am and ends.... somewhere close to midnight. My driving starts at 5:15 a.m. and ends around 8:30 p.m.. In between... it is non stop running.

Normally I will leave one or two kids at home on short jaunts (since my husband, a third shift man, is sleeping in the house in case of an emergency). Boo always has to go with me since she is only six....

Except yesterday.... don't cha know that Webkinz was going to have an exclusive item on sale, right when I had to go get her brother, plus there was a contest she wanted to enter, and she was in the middle of some intense trading....(this kid is an awesome trader. She is now on her third room full of exclusives, some of which she got for coupons, and now has, I think 12 vehicles... 13 if she can talk a brother out of his space flyer thingie.

Finally I agreed that she could stay home with two 13 year old siblings and sleeping Dad, while I ran to pick up other siblings from sports things at the school. She had Dad's cell phone and kept calling me to see where I was... now understand Boo always wants to know where I am and exactly when I will be home.

I had to call my work for some thing or another and my boss, seeing the caller id, answered, "911 what is your emergency". I laughed because truly, most of my calls are problems.

A few minutes later, little Boo calls me again, and I answer, "911 what is your emergency". Click.

I wait a few minutes and call home. Spanky answers. No mention of Mom's prank. I hear Boo playing her Webkinz in the background and figure it was not as funny as I thought it would be.

Boo is always tricking me and playing pranks on me. I guess I thought this would be funny.

Anyway, I get home five minutes later and there is Boo, sitting in the garage, crying a lake of tears. I ask her what is wrong. She said, "Momma I have to tell you, I didn't mean to, but I called the 911 operator". She then collapsed in tears. Not little tears. No they were heart wrenching tears. She had heard all the stories of our other kids calling 911 and Boo never, ever, ever, wants to do the "wrong" thing. Of course her definition of the wrong thing differs from mine. She begs, throws tantrums, whines.... oh I hate whining... but she rarely ever breaks her own mental definition of "doing wrong". She is very proud that she never turned even one card all last year at school. She never once had her name called by the bus driver.

Anyway, I got down on her level, took her in my arms and said, "Honey, you didn't call 911, you called Momma and Momma tried to play a joke on you, like you do Momma. I am sorry. It wasn't a nice joke".

She almost smiled but she was still gulping too much from the tears. The other kids gathered around her telling her Mom was wrong to play that mean of a joke. Boo, with red eyes and drenched cheeks looked at them and stated, "No it was a good trick...", then sarcastically added... "Maybe too good if you know what I mean".... and marched back in the house to her computer, to Webkinz, to trading with strangers....

Later that night, after picking up Teen1 from work... Daddy confronts me, demanding to know why I made his princess cry.... as she peeks from behind him with an impish grin.... little tattle tale...

Never quite pulling of practical jokes.... been there... done that.