<p>A calli received at 7:30am on Friday a few weeks ago: “Dad, I need some fatherly advice”. Not pretty</p>
<p>Yesterday morning. - " hey Dad, you might want to unplug the garage door opener. My car got stolen last night and the police say they might be able to trace my address back to yours and I had your garage door opener in the car."</p>
<p>Bad Mom of the year, my initial thought was “Yes!”… This pushing thirty off-spring will be forced to buy something newer and safer than a 12 year old Toyota. He can certainly afford it, just needed a little push.</p>
<p>Actual opening line when I pick up the phone one night at 11:30 PM:
“Dad, how good is our car insurance?”</p>
<p>The kicker?
This call was placed from a dirt road in a wilderness area in the middle of Utah, which turned out to be about a 3 hour drive from the nearest garage with off-road towing service.</p>
<p>I’ll admit that I did this to my mom this summer, but I know how to start the phone call now. “Mom- it’s not that bad, but I’m pretty sure I just broke my ankle. The ambulance is coming, and the gym says they will call you when they know what ER they are taking me to.” My mom did an excellent job of not freaking out on me, even though it was 9pm and she wasn’t really sure where I was. I was even able to reassure her that she didn’t need to go to the ER right away. We planned it so she was there 15 minutes before I was discharged. I’ve gotten far too good at timing ER visits (mainly because of taking other people there, not myself). When I talked to her after, she said that she had tried to nap before I called her, since she was tired anyway, but that hadn’t really work. Still, even for a really sketchy ER, I was in and out in 3 hours, so that’s pretty impressive. </p>
<p>General note- there is a reason you stopped trying to figure out how to do a handspring when you grew older than 8. You really don’t bend that way anymore.</p>
<p>You are great–trying to help us remember to love our kids on those couches FAARRRR away! The mail order pharmacy will FINALLY be sending our kiddo her Rx, now nearly 2 weeks after the medication was ordered! I’m beyond irked! They were like, “Doesn’t she have enough med to last her?” “NO! You were supposed to get it to her right away so we wouldn’t need to get her med from multiple sources!” ARGH! The poor kiddo is sick & you keep having us re-confirm & re-re-confirm her address! How many times do you want it!!!</p>
<p>Sorry for the rant, it should probably be in the getting things off your chest thread.</p>
<p>Got 9am call today from D1 that she was bit by a goat & her finger was bleeding badly. She’s pre-vet and was at the barn early this morning. </p>
<p>Shockingly her school’s health center has NO weekend hours & campus security was worthless. (they were willing to send ambulance, but had no clue where walk-in clinics were). Being dutiful parents, we found one on the internet, picked her up on campus & took her to urgent care.</p>
<p>Good thing you are nearby, nj2011mom! Hope she is ok!</p>
<p>Thanks for reviving this thread.</p>
<p>From S1: I got a midnight text message a couple weeks ago from S1 who was climbing Mt. Kenya:
“Off the mountain due to altitude sickness.”
(He made it to 13,000 ft before turning back with severe altitude sickness.)</p>
<p>From S2 last year: “A urinal pipe burst in the bathroom over my dorm room. Everything got soaked.”</p>
<p>How about getting a phone call from your kid at 1:15 in the morning(never a good sign). They say ‘hi mom, I broke my arm’ I asked how. Answer: I was in a car accident, everyone is ok. I’m in the emergency room and the doctor was talking about putting a rod in my arm".</p>
<p>Well, 1 year and 2 surgeries later ever…</p>
<p>Shortly after my son got a good used car to drive, he left to go pick up a friend for a volunteer commitment. </p>
<p>I got a two word text: “I crashed”. That’s all!!! </p>
<p>I thought, well thank god his thumbs were unhurt at least!</p>
<p>Remarkably he answered his cell when I called. It was a very minor fender bender No one was hurt with the exception of his pride. And he still doesn’t know why I was mad about the text!</p>
<p>DS: “Mom - I went to the bathroom and there was blood in my urine, and, well, you know how I am about blood, so I tried to get outside and get some air and I fainted down the stairs and landed in some bushes, what should I do?”</p>
<p>Me: “Are you in pain?”</p>
<p>DS: “Well, I scratched my eye on the bush…”</p>
<p>(Turns out he had ingested 10 Diet Dr. Peppers the day before and dehydration and dye caused the ‘discoloration’.)</p>
<p>I was awakened at 2 am a few days ago by my DIL who was crying. After my initial fear that something had happened to my son, I was relieved to hear that they had had a fight and she was coming over to tell me. So now he’s mad at her for coming to me instead of her own mother. Makes perfect sense to me. The last person I’d go to if I had a fight with my husband would be my mother.</p>
<p>^Makes you wonder if/when you ever stop receiving these calls from your kids. I don’t think I called my parents in the middle of the night about anything after I was married!</p>
<p>^Makes you wonder if/when you ever stop receiving these calls from your kids. I don’t think I called my parents in the middle of the night about anything after I was married!</p>
<p>I married very very young. The idea of calling my parents for help, ( unless it were some cataclysmic global emergency) would have never occured to me. Married meant mature, meant on our own financially.</p>
<p>When S2 calls and says, “I have a question…” it always means it’s going to cost me money.</p>
<p>tango14- you are not alone in that. 'I have a question" must be the first thing they learn after we drop them off at school.</p>
<p>Recent call from son: “I can’t find the insurance card in the glove compartment. Can’t talk. Was just rear-ended by a bus.”</p>
<p>A few minutes later found out there were no injuries. </p>
<p>Didn’t help that we were an hour away from leaving on an international trip.</p>
<p>While I have seen much maturity in independently handling relationship issues, other dilemma calls have gone on for longer than my parents received them.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Call from son: incoherent crying at 5am the day of a terrible snowstorm; me just trying to get him to tell me what’s wrong and all he can say is “the car, the car, the car…” He had slid on the ice and crashed into curbing, the impact bent the wheel and the car came to a screaming halt. He was fine, and the tow truck guy was nice enough to bring him home (he was only about 2 miles from the house, but the weather was epic). I opened the door and he just bolted into my arms and cried. He’s 6’4". </p></li>
<li><p>Call from niece at 2am. Car is dead (again)out on a major highway,alone, what should she do. In the midst of discussing choices, she goes “Oh hey, some guy stopped, maybe he can help me?” and I say is it the state police? and she says “no it’s just a guy, I’ll go talk…” and I YELL “no, no, NO. Lock the DOORS and wait for us or the police”. It was a guy who wanted to render aid, but left in a hurry when the state police arrived about 3 minutes later. Gives me chills…</p></li>
</ol>
<p>“hi Mom, I think I broke like 6 teeth.”</p>
<p>Love your post NRDMOM – my kid went thru a Dr. Pepper craze as well. So glad it passed. No pun intended.</p>