Half-pint Has A Run-in With The Law...

We've run into a few behavior issues with Half-pint over the past few months...and it came to a head this afternoon. I was feeding Peewee-pint when Half-pint came in and started playing with the telephone next to me. I told him not to play with the phone and he quickly took off into the next room. When he emerged a few minutes later, he informed me that he had called 911 and then hung up. Great, I thought and went to find the phone and checked the redial. Sure enough...911. Quarter-pint had been patiently waiting for me to help him, and in the middle of making yet another bowl of oatmeal, the sheriff's office called back to make sure everything was alright.

The problems really started to escalate when Peewee-pint started to squeal in the background (he sounds like a stuck little pig screaming...it's awesome, especially when you're on the phone with the sheriff's office!). I tried to reassure the deputy on the other end of the line that we were all fine. As soon as I hung up Half-pint and I had a little talk about when it's okay to call 911 and when it's not...and why it's not a good number to prank call.

About 15 minutes later the doorbell rang and I was not the slightest bit surprised to see a uniformed sheriff's deputy standing on my front porch. He asked to come in and wanted to speak with Half-pint. When Half-pint saw the deputy-he freaked out-ran up to his room and locked himself in his bathroom, all the while screaming. I had to literally carry him downstairs so the deputy could have a little chat with Half-pint-just to make sue he understood when it's okay and not okay to call 911. Half-pint nearly had a complete meltdown and wouldn't acknowledge the deputy...who just needed to hear Half-pint say that he understood...and then he would leave. It took Half-pint a half-hour to finally say "I understand" loud enough for the Deputy and I to hear and vaguely understand.

As soon and the deputy left, Half-pint ran, as fast as he could up the stairs and into his room, for a self-appointed time-out; crying the whole way. I was disappointed it took a half-hour for Half-pint to acknowledge something he already knew (we had just talked about it); not only wasting my time, but more importantly the deputy's as well. Hopefully we will all learn a valuable lesson from our first (and probably not last) run-in with the law.