Sod's law

Today I broke little bear off from his Fireman Sam and Ceebeebies. There was a programme I REALLY wanted to watch and that I thought would do no harm for little bear to have on in the background - it was a dinosaur type programme. I explained to him carefully that mummy wanted to watch this.

The segment to the first break was when he was explaining in some detail about a plot twist in Fireman Sam. Then we had to break off and look for the little yellow lorry as little bear was inconsolable. That took us half way through the second segment. I took the opportunity to nip to the toilet, as it was becoming urgent and as a miracle little bear didn't take the chance to go downstairs on his own.

The third segment was interrupted by the people doing the boiler (they were supposed to be measuring up but they haven't yet turned up) and then, during the final segment, there was a knock on the door.

I defy anyone not to feel guilty when they open the door to a policeman. And this time it seems that the problem was that while I was using the bathroom little bear was playing with the phone on the landing and dialled 999. No wonder he didn't go downstairs on his own! They did ring back, apparently, but the phone on the landing has the ringer switched off (that is about to change) from when little bear was tiny and we didn't want to disturb him. So all the operator got was a little boy playing.

I am still appalled and embarrassed. We tried to explain to little bear, who just looked blank, and apologised profusely to the very nice policeman. I am now trying to consider the best way of preventing further diallings.

I managed to get to the repeated programme later, but that was less consolation than you would think for a policeman knocking on the door.