Jake is going to freak when he finds out that I've been chatting it up with Firefighter Dayna this week. Sometimes he makes me pretend I'm Firefighter Dayna and he gets to be Fireman Sam and Tyler the Cat can make believe that she is SparklesnSpanner- because he doesn't really get that Sparkles and Spanner are two different dogs- when she isn't Rosa the Cat.
When I was in grade school, fire safety was drilled into our heads in a way that made it seem that it was certainly going to be needed because our houses were surely going to burn down because our parents burned candles and smoked in bed and if we didn't have fire evacuation maps and flashlights and a damp washcloth under our pillows and a meeting place outdoors and rolled up ladders in every 2nd story window our families would perish in the horrible inferno and it would be our fault. Because we were six year old Junior Fire Rescue Buddies and that was our job.
I remember the teacher telling us that it was our duty to keep our families safe and ask our dads to put windows in our bedroom doors so we could see if there was a fire in the hallway and draw maps of escape routes and test the smoke detectors every month because our moms and dads were going to burn the house down with their addiction and inability to spot faulty wiring. That's too much pressure on a little kid. I put socks on my doorknob because I didn't want my hand to melt if my house was on fire and I didn't know it and the metal got hot. I still don't open doors without feeling them first.
The more I blog, the more I realize my problems began at a very early age...
Jake is totally cool with fire safety. He isn't afraid of matches and lighters and candles and the fireplace, but he respects them. When I was a kid, if I came across a pack of matches I would freeze and scream for my mother to come get them. Jake brings them to me and asks me to put them up where he can't reach them. He knows stop, drop, and roll. He knows to stay low. He knows what smoke alarms and escape maps are but doesn't feel personally responsible for them. I owe it all to Dayna, because lordknows I haven't brought it up with Jake. I'm still to traumatized by all of it to even know where to begin.
So thank you, Dayna. I'm sorry I may have kinda geeked out a little bit when you emailed me. It's just that I'm a fan and I didn't know what to do and I see you on Sprout every day and I'm so appreciative that my kid doesn't have the same fire hangups that I do and it is all thanks to you.
And television.
Moral of the story: children's programming is good for kids, especially if they live in my house.
Author's note: I actually don't love for my kid to watch Fireman Sam because he always wants to do what bad old Norman does. Life imitating art is the pits. But, Jake loves the show so much that I let him, and then we talk about how Norman isn't cool and firefighters are our friends. It's a good compromise.
18 degrees {comments}:
Speaking of incessant fire drills, I can still remember doing tornado drills at Chestnut Hill because of Albion. I was convinced that the school was going to have its roof ripped off and everyone was going to be sucked out.
I had a box of matches on my dresser for those romantic nights (or when my bedroom smells like my great grandma's house) and I asked Britain what they were.
"Uh, your's?"
"Exactly! So you're not allowed to touch them."
Much like the shoebox under my bed.
I remember tornado drills too. There was a girl at Asbury who's sister died in the Albion tornado. Good times.
Totally didn't rob my childhood from me.
Hey I went to Chestnut Hill! Moved when I was 12 though to a patch of farm land.
What kind of a firefighter names their dog Sparkles?
I kind of have a thing for firefighters, but not because of some fear of fire thing. I think it's the uniform. And the fact that sometimes they carry axes. Really gets my heart pumping.
But the only experience I've ever had with them was when I was in high school and my mom thought we might have had a gas leak in the house. She called the fire department to come check it out at some point in the night, but specifically asked them not to turn on the engine alarm so my brother wouldn't wake up and freak. He's a sensitive child.
They pulled up to our house with the alarm blaring. And when they wanted to check the attic for a possible leak, they had to tramp through my bedroom to get up there. I slept through the entire thing. The alarm. The lights. The uniformed men in my bedroom. I woke up the next morning and saw giant boot prints all over my carpet.
HOW DISAPPOINTING IS THAT? It's like finding proof of Santa Claus and knowing you were close enough to touch his probably rock hard abs but you slept through the whole thing.
Thanks for the link to her site. I will show JT but need help on the part about the fire alarms telling you to GET OUT because just about every night we cook the smoke alarm goes off from one little drop of grease. JT laughs and says, that's loud!
i remember fire and tornado drills and having to draw a map too of our house and the 'escape route'. and having one of those big stickers in my bedroom window to alert the fireman where a child could be trapped. to this day i'm still terrified of fires. but burning candles don't bother me. just the thought of leaving my flat iron plugged in and my house burning down to the ground with my animals inside. morbid, eh?
Hmmm. Am thinking that maybe Firefighter Sam and Firefighter Dayna can be persuaded to usurp the unhealthy fascination Aaron developed for Bob the Builder at daycare. If I hear the phrase "Mommy, I'm da big pwumber, so I hafta fix da pipes" one more time...
Sprout, you say?
Does it make me a bad mother that I don't know who she is?
I am petrified that Tyler will pick up on some of my odd quirks. Setting the alarm 3 times every night, Incessantly cleaning my fingernails, getting extremely uncomfortable when any greasy stuff gets on me. Being unable to eat food that you hold using 2 hands (I can only use one, because I can NOT have them both get greasy at the same time).
I think I need to see a therapist.
I. CANNOT. TELL. BOO.
I. CANNOT. LET HIM SEE YOUR POST.
HE. WOULD. FREAK. OUT.
We were always climbing under our tiny desks waiting for "the BIG one." Earthquakes that is. Or nuclear bombs... which ever came first.
I remember a six year old debate with my neighbor where I tried to tell her that you shouldn't sleep with underwear on because you needed to let your skin breath, and she told me that wasn't true, AND she knew because her dad was a fireman. What more could I say.
Children's shows are good for not letting our kids in on our own hang ups. That's how I deal with issues that I, well have issues with too.
And upon reading your comments, my 7yo has NEVER had a tornado drill at school. Granted they're rare, they CAN happen. I was all WTF??? When I found that out last spring. I was all over that and what you do. I don't think there's anyone in the Erie area that doesn't know someone affected by the Albion tornado. I had a friend who survived it, and she'd freak out at softball practice if we could see a storm starting to form out over the lake.
My kids loved Sprout. I say "loved", because the god damn misers at Time Warner took away Sprout and made it $5/month. Sorry, I thought the Let's Go Show and Hoobs were cool, but not $5 per month cool.
That's weird, we had tornado drills 2x per year (spring time) at good old Cochranton Elementary. But we also had a church blow away right next to the elementary school in '85. Could explain it...
I always remember the blast of the tornado siren. Naturally, I was one of the crazy ones out in the yard with a camera saying "wooooo I think I see the funnel cloud!"
It's weird - the thing growing up was to put those stickers on your window to alert fireman. Now that I'm part of the FD, I asked about it. We don't hand out the stickers anymore. It's just the basics of stay low and get to safety and don't be afraid to call 911. I still see a lot of stickers on windows, though.
Usually if there's a house call with a chimney fire or gas alarm, we try to be courteous and lay down tarps to protect furniture and carpets. Depends on the severity of the call, though.
This post is awesome. I remember coming home after we had Fire Safety Week at school and told my parents we needed ladders and an escape route and they told me we'd just have to jump out of our second story window if there were a fire. When we had Tornado Watches come across our TV my dad would send us to the basement and he would stand outside and look for the funnel cloud. I used to think he was so tough . . . now not so much. Dumb would be more appropriate. Remember the week at school they taught about the dangers of smoking and they showed you a black lung and you thought about everyone you loved that smoked and how they are going to die early because that's what they told you. Then you go through the process of begging them to quit and then they tell you that the professionals don't know what they're talking about and you believe Grandpa over the pro because he's never lied to you. I was such a gullible kid!
I love meeting famous peeps too. When the kids were dancing to "The Jimmies" on the radio I was all like playing 2 degrees of me :)
As for the fire safety thing we had it drilled into our heads, and then some kid in our town decided to play with gas and matches. We got it all over again in ten fold.
Post a Comment