"This is the Police Department Calling,"

Oh hell no.

That is one of the worst ways I can think of to wake up.

Especially on a rainy morning, when your baby is sleeping peacefully for the first time in who knows how long.

Especially when your husband is driving out in the middle of nowhere to go to an appointment, in the rain, remember it's raining an bad things happen when it rains.

Especially when you have depression and anxiety issues. In the three seconds it took for that deputy to speak again, I was hit by that adrenaline rush and my ill mind had already taken me through my husbands funeral and into a life of loneliness and despair of raising our three beautiful girls without their father.

In three seconds. That's all it took.

I'm lucky. The call wasn't to tell me that my husband had been in an accident.

The next words out his mouth were, "do you have a small child that lives there?" Now in just a few seconds my mind swooped from being husband-less to grieving for the loss of my child, she must have gotten up and gone outside, oh ... my.... God... she's been hit by a car. Seriously this is how my mind works. I'm now in tears and only 6 seconds have probably passed.

Once again, lucky, my kids are fine.

I tell him yes, we have a 5 year old and a 2 year old. He then tells me that there were several phone calls to 911 from our phone. If it's the 2 year old, then that's fine, just take the phone away from your kid, you terrible parent, you. If its the 5 year old we need to discuss phone safety, because obviously you are an idiot, you horrible parent you.

I apologized in a way that suggested that I had in fact, been calling myself because of course my kids would not have access to the phone alone, much less the entire house, while I was in fact upstairs sleeping with the baby, because we have too many kids to control in our house, that's why, Mr. Policeman. If you want to come and get me and take me to a quiet jail cell for the day so I can sleep, then that's fine, but could you wait until I call my husband back to come and get the kids?

He said, "no problem" about the 2 year old calling, not about me trying to get arrested so that I could get some sleep.

You think this story is over, but you should know better.

The best (and by best I mean scariest) part of this story is how it all happened.

My husband who has a Master's degree - GAVE her the phone. Yes, he gave the 2 year old the phone. He probably taught her to dial 9-1-1 before he left.

So now I'm relieved because in this particular situation HE is the bad parent, shame on you, parent... not me! HALLELUJAH!!

This is how it went down - Dan usually uses his cell phone as an alarm clock. He had to get up and leave early because he had something to do before work in another town. We had discussed the night before that he needed to either bring my alarm clock or my phone back upstairs so that I can get up to get Julia ready for school.

Instead he left, knowing Anna was awake and downstairs (yes - the 2 year old), and that I was in fact sound asleep upstairs. He had taken her out of the safe haven of her room, complete with baby gate at the door, and took her downstairs where there are dangers all over - knives, scissors, markers! oh my! (yes, these things are put away, but Anna can do anything she sets her mind to). He turned on Dora and then LEFT. Yes, as in went away in the car, leaving my baby, my baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaby, alone. Well - with a mom in only her 2nd hour of sleep upstairs, meaning, mom is dead to the world asleep.

So, yeah, he left her alone, but not before giving her the house phone and telling her to take it to mommy when it rang. Yep, and he's the one with advanced degrees in our house.

Guess what though? She did give me the phone when it rang. Too bad it was the Police calling. Because she'd been sitting downstairs watching the other worst parents in the world's kid, Dora, and playing with a phone. You know, calling the police to chat. 9-1-1 to chat.

Yeah.

We're good.