Kid tested, mother approves.

For this first night in a really long time, I only had one errand to run after work. I waited until after dinner when the princess was already taking a bath an prince was collecting the trash before I left them alone to drive down the street to deliver some Girl Scout cookies.

I had been gone for maybe 8 to 10 minutes and was almost back to the house when I get a call from the home phone. I immediate knew that something is wrong. Prince explained that while he was collecting the trash, Callie had managed to get into one of the bags and sneak out a chicken bone.

I panicked remembering when my dog, Rufus, got a chicken bone lodge in his throat. "Try to take the bone away from her, hun. I am pulling into the garage now." "Oh I already did mom, but she also got into the chocolate pudding." Long pause. "It's ok, hun."

I didn't understand at that point in time the significance of the statement that he made. I was so worried about the chicken bone that I didn't even process what Prince was worried about. I pulled in and went into the house. Prince had continued his chores and I heard Callie in her kennel and knew that he had done his best to control the situation. We had a long talk about the choices we had to make for Callie. That she would never leave the trash alone. Why it was so important that we keep our food away from her and why she would always be sneaky and try to get it.

Princess just stared as I gave prince the talk then she softly interjected, "Is Callie going to die?" Prince started to cry. Not just crocodile tears, I mean uncontrollable. THEN I got it. Prince was worried about Callie eating the CHOCOLATE pudding and thought he had killed the dog.

"Oh NO NO NO, baby!" I reassured. To help put their minds at ease, I sized up the probable amount ingested, got the ingredients package out and called the emergency vet. She assured us that the worst symptom the dog might experience was diarrhea.

Prince cried some more. I tried to explain how proud I was of him. He was home alone and he made all the right choices. He called me immediately. He took the food away from Callie and put her in the kennel. And he owned up to the accident. I couldn't have asked for anything more in that situation and I couldn't be more proud of this young man.

It proves to me that not only is Prince more mature, but he is also putting into action those things that he is learned and ready to take on new responsibilities.