This morning, Troy called to me from the kitchen, “Can I pour you some coffee, my love?”

Before I could answer, Annalie replied, “No thanks, I’m good.”

This afternoon, I was sitting on my parents’ front porch nursing Elliora and watching Annalie blow bubbles when we spotted cat in the neighbor’s yard. I heeeeere-kitty-kitty-kittied her, as I always do when I see a cat. To my surprise she turned and immediately trotted up to us, dropping to the ground and offering her belly to scratch. My mom said she thought the cat belonged to their neighbor on the other side, as she’d seen it around a lot. We spent the next few minutes exclaiming what a pretty kitty she was with her calico-tabby coat, and petting her as she walked back and forth between us, rubbing up against our hands and purring.

Annalie thought the cat might like to chase some bubbles, so at some point she picked up the bubble wand and blew a stream of bubbles in the cat’s direction. It startled the cat, who jumped and then wandered off to the other side of the yard.

Annalie said, “Huh. I thought all cats liked to chase bubbles!”

I replied that clearly that was not the case, since this cat didn’t want to.

Annalie said, “I think maybe she lives with a family that has a child who was OBSESSED with bubbles. And that child has blown bubbles in her cute little face so many times that it was like torture.”

We tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it. As we cracked up, Annalie—dignity intact—said, “What? It could happen!”

My mom shook her head and said, “Annalie, you have so many stories in that head of yours!”

Here’s something weird that happened today. Annalie called my mom from the phone booth downstairs to let her know she was feeling better today. I wrote my mom’s cell number on a piece of paper for her and told her I’d be downstairs in a minute.

By the time I went down, Annalie was already chattering away on the phone. I waved at Annalie through the glass door of the booth, she smiled and gave me a thumbs-up sign, and I went back upstairs.

Several hours later, our land line rang. When I glanced at the number on the caller ID I noticed that the prefix was 402, which is Omaha’s area code. I thought that was funny, but didn’t otherwise recognize the caller, who was calling from our 703 area code.

I answered the phone, and the woman on the other end gave me her name, then said someone from our number had called her and she was wondering why, since she didn’t recognize our number. I had the fleeting though that it was odd for her to have called me back, in that case. Out loud, I replied that I didn’t think anyone had called her. I asked her to repeat her name, and confirmed that I didn’t know her.

Slightly confused, I asked what the person on the message had said. She explained there had been no message, just a number on her caller ID.

Then the 402 prefix of her number on my caller ID flashed into my mind, and I realized what must have happened. I apologized and said that when my daughter was calling her grandma earlier that day, she must have dialed the wrong number.

After I hung up, I asked Annalie if she’d dialed a wrong number earlier before she called Gramaw. She said, “Well, I was dialing the right number, but the first time I dialed it, it started ringing before I was done dialing the number!”

I checked our caller ID again. My mom’s number is 402-XYZ-ABCD. This woman’s number was 703-402-XYZA. Because Vonage doesn’t require you to dial a 1- before a long-distance call, it must have read a pause in Annalie’s dialing to mean it was a local call.

I told Annalie, from now on when she calls Gramaw, dial a 1- before the area code.

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