Wednesday, October 10, 2007

They have to expect it


Every year, the beginning of October (and in collaboration with Fire Prevention Week) they teach fire safety to the kids at the local schools. There are activities, worksheets, visits from the fire department, ad most importantly, a review of fire safety rules. Meenie came home form her first year of preschool with a paper phone where the numbers nine and one were colored in. In addition, 9-1-1 was written by her on the bottom. She properly demonstrated to me on the paper phone and the play phone how to dial the number. The she remarked how she wished she had a real phone to use.

At that point, I made sure to sit and talk to her about only dialing those numbers on a real phone if there was a real emergency. I hope I got through to her, if not rebelmom, she'll be calling you guys soon.

So dispatch mom and rebelmom, just how many "extra" phone calls do you guys get during fire prevention week????

We just did our first family fire drill. The whole time I was trying to get the kids out of the house, they kept asking if it was real. They were pretty slow and skeptical. Husband wants to try a drill at night (because they have slept through the alarm in the past). He also randomly brings home his fire gear from work to show the kids what a fire man looks like so the yare not scared. We've also explained to the kids what a fireman sounds like - like Darth Vader - and that they shouldn't be scared.

2 comments:

Creative-Type Dad said...

"like Darth Vader"

OMG! That's funny.

I'm envisioning that one scene in "Back to the Future"

Fairly Odd Mother said...

Gosh, we've talked about what firemen look like, how you shouldn't hide from them, how to feel the door to see if it is hot, not to hide in a closet, etc. But, we've never had a 'mock' fire drill. That is a great (and important) idea.

And, it is amazing that they sleep through the fire alarm but they do. We had ours go off one night at about 3am---no fire, there must have been some sort of power surge, but it was wailing for about 20 minutes while husband and I ran around the house and tried to shut off all three alarms. NOT ONE child woke up in all that noise. Scary!!!