Thursday, June 28, 2007

My dad reminded me

of something I forgot to put in the last post. (Hi, Dad!) That day I spent with my Grandmother? She told him about one thing that I omitted.

While we were at the library we decided to ride the elevator on our way out. Because it's one of Mitchell's favorite things to do and it's free. :)

We always let Mitchell push the buttons because, well, he's two. That's what two-year-olds do. So, we got on and let him push the button for the second floor. Then he looks at me and says "I push this one?"

"No," I respond as the elevator door opens. It was like slow-motion. He never took his eyes off of me and pressed the button anyway. I couldn't reach him to stop him because the stroller was between us. In the blink of an eye, he'd pushed the "HELP" button and called 911!!! Meanwhile, the older two kids had gotten off the elevator on the second floor (which is the ADULT/QUIET area of the library) and were calling to me "We're going to go down the stairs, Mommy!" Mitchell ran out after them, screaming, "I go too!"

Back at the ranch (in the elevator) I heard, "911, what's your emergency?"

Um, hello, I have a two-year-old who likes to push the buttons in the elevator ... that's my emergency!

The elevator doors were open. My grandma was trying to corral the three older kids. I hade Charlotte in the stroller half-way out of the elevator and I was leaning down to talk into the built-in speaker on the wall.

"There's no emergency," I hissed, but I was interrupted by an automatic recording that comes on to respond to the operator:

"Please send help to ..." and proceeded to give the address of the library to the 911 operator. I was pretty sure I was going to die of embarrassment. I wanted to strangle robot-man talking to the operator and tell him that there was, in fact, NO EMERGENCY and to quit talking for me.

Finally, the librarian sitting nearby hung up her phone and said, "I've already let them know it was a false alarm ... it's okay". Meaning, I could now leave the elevator and not try to talk to an operator who couldn't hear me. I just didn't think it was right to leave the operator hanging, you know?

So, I retrieved Mitchell, we had a talk about being quiet in the library and obeying Mommy, and I made him apologize to the librarian. Then we got the heck out of dodge before he could find a fire alarm to pull.

1 comment:

Bloggin' Books Small Group said...

I miss seeing you and your entourage of kiddos. What's been going on girl? Update us! :)

Disney World Represent!