The Alarm Works!

One thing I have learned about being the mother of preschoolers is to expect the unexpected.

Why have I learned that? Well, I shall share an example. Last week, after returning from Squeaker’s tumbling class, my 78-year old Grandmother stopped by to pick up her empty jelly jars and a current family photo of our family. (By the way, my Grandma makes the BEST grape jelly!)

After a short visit, I walked my Grandma to her car. While standing on the lawn saying goodbye, two police patrol cars rolled up to my house.

That’s strange you say? It would be, if our house didn’t have two very curious children living in it.

My Grandma smiled at me, jumped in her car and left. I can’t imagine why she wanted to leave so quickly, but she did.

I walked back to the door and yelled to my husband, “Hey, the police are here.” Not something you expect to say, but none the less. My husband came to the door and we greeted the two rather large, burly men with menacing guns on their belts.

“Are you guys okay?” They ask. “Someone at this address pressed the silent panic button on your alarm.”

And, it all becomes clear.

Let me digress. After tumbling class, we returned home and waited for Grandma to come over. In the meantime, I started dinner while my husband was working at his desk upstairs. During this time, random buttons were squawking over the alarm speaker, but it never said it was armed. (Yes, our alarm talks to us – also strange). Needless to say, I thought my husband was doing something to the alarm and he thought I was. After investigation, I found Squeaker, standing on a stool, making music on the alarm key pad. It didn’t look like she had “done” anything so I scolded her and let it go………

And, back to the story. We profusely apologized to the officers and explained what had happened. They stayed slightly stern and proceeded to write us a warning for answering a false alarm.

The really funny part….while these men were standing there, I decided to use it as a teaching moment. So, I called Squeaker over.

“Squeaker,” I said, “This is Officer Kelly and Officer Sanders. You called them and now they are here. “

Squeaker, in her pale pink tumbling tutu and Shirley Temple curly hair, looked at the men and apologized and before my eyes, these menacing giants turned to puddles pooling around the ankles of our three year old.

In the end, four police officers (there were two patrol cars mind you) stood in the street and waved to our little princess as if she had just performed the lead role in the Nutcracker.

Moral of the story? I’m not sure. Perhaps it should be to teach the kids that the alarm key pad is not a piano.

Friday Shout Out

What a week! I am very thankful it is Friday.


I started the week with the goal of finishing a writing project. In fact, my plan was to cut the world off until I hit the send button and officially submitted the project.


At this point in my life, I should have seen that this was a set-up, but hoping for the best I continued on.


Monday started out perfect. I spent the day editing, packaging and polishing. Loved it. Thinking ahead, I knew I could take some extra breaks since my husband had a meeting that evening, and (after dinner) I'd be able to go right back to work.


Sounded good.


Well, regardless of how accomplished I feel in any given moment, my children have a way of knocking me back into reality.


As I was working, I noticed the house was too quiet. (And, every one with kid experience chuckles). Then.....I heard water running upstairs.


With a heavy sigh and not the nicest words running through my head, I ran up the stairs and found this.......

The picture doesn't do it justice so I'll explain. Bug and Squeaker decided it would be a good idea to style their hair with Colgate strawberry toothpaste. However, much to their avail, toothpaste does not provide the luxurious bubbles that one creates in the tub so they augmented their styling product by mixing the toothpaste with antibacterial soft soap. (let me digress by saying I hope Glade never decides to create a scent that combines strawberry toothpaste and plain antibacterial soap. Take my word for it, the product would not sell)

Talk about a mess! And, as an FYI, toothpaste leaves a very strange residue on sinks and fixtures. Ugh.

As for their experience? They may have had fun free stylin' their hair, but they learned the hard way as to why Mommy and Daddy choose to use Tears free baby shampoo instead of antibacterial soap. "Put your head back so the water doesn't get in your eyes" has taken on a whole new meaning for these two little bathroom chemists.

So, that was Monday.

My submission was prolonged to Tuesday, but I was okay with that. Well, I was until the simultaneous pressing of the send button was met with round 2 of Bug coming down with a virus. We have missed our second week of school for the month of February. That's a lot of make-up work. I'll be glad when flu season is over!

Well, now that's it's Friday, the project has been submitted, and Bug is on the upswing, I have rejoined the Land of Blog. Yeah!

Please swing by on Monday as I will have a pretty cool announcement. And, hopefully, this will be followed by a few more very cool announcements including a new weekly story series and the lauch of my new dot com. But, we'll get to that later.

As I gravel at the feet of my friends in blog land, please forgive the few and far between posts. It shall return to normal. So....come back and come again and I hope you enjoy!

Have a great weekend!