Photos show Britney Spears handing papers to her mother, Lynne, outside a trailer on Thursday, then walking away as her mom sits on the trailer steps, shocked.

Although one report identified the papers as a restraining order, TMZ.com reports that Spears actually handed her mother a letter from an out-of-state lawyer, who was a joke really.

According to TMZ, the letter asks that Lynne stay away from Spears’s sons Sean Preston, 1, and Jayden James, 9 months, if she is taking any medications that might cause her to be impaired.

Later, when asked by photo agency X17 what the papers were, Lynne joked, “It’s a love letter.” She ultimately clarified: “She did not serve me.”

Spears, 25, handed her mother the document on the Valencia, Calif., set where her sister Jamie Lynn, 16, was filming her Nickelodeon show Zoey 101.

The New York Post reports that Spears learned her mother’s whereabouts from the paparazzi camped outside her Beverly Hills home. Spears then drove to Valencia with her sons in tow, the Post reports.