I am not the most cautious parent. Bumps and bruises found on my children are often the result of my haste and carelessness. And I am not one to succumb to behavior-changing panic after I receive an email account of something that may or may not have happened in the parking lot of a convenience store/mall/gas station. (I appreciate snopes.com to diffuse the power of anxiety-inducing anecdotes.)
On the other hand, I am taking a couple of scenarios seriously. It does occur to me that tragedy strikes in this world and I would be most affected by something happening to my littles. (Have you ever listened to Alison Krauss' "Jacob's Dream?" Don't, if you aren't prepared to weep for a few days. But it will cause you to hold the people you love tighter.)
The scenario on my mind currently is the danger of a child being trapped in a car in the heat of our summer days. I've been reading the blog of a sweet Australian woman who lost a 3 year old daughter in this kind of tragic accident. Bean is 3, it's hot...I'm hyperconscious right now. We lost track of her for a bit at lunchtime and my heart pounded as I checked each of the cars. She had snuck off to the basement...all's well.
So today, Bug and I were waiting to pick up Sweet Daddy from the airport. I took the opportunity to talk him through the steps of getting out of a locked car and candidly ask him if he thought he could help Bean get out if she was inside and he was on the outside. I am reassured...he can get himself out. Now I need to talk to her about it.
The other crisis plan I need to tackle is how my babes can communicate their location by phone to emergency personnel. We practice "911 - send" often...but which address do we memorize? We've had 6 in the last 6 months. Can we rely on our phone's GPS location finder? I'll have to figure that one out another time.
Other thoughts: Where is the balance between crisis awareness and prevention and hysteria? And could I survive the loss of a child?
(Update: Friday, the 3 of us were waiting for Sweet Daddy (buying a generator for Creation AC!) and we ran some drills. They each had to try to get out of the locked car, using the manual lock, not the electric...just in case the power isn't working in an emergency. All went well, except our car alarm was tripped a couple of times which startled all of us. But really, that's just what I would want to happen if my babes need help, right? Kevin heard it from inside the store and just thought I was becoming impatient. Tee hee. But he didn't come running...hmmm. We also talked about what to do if a big person they don't know is trying to take them somewhere=>yell and kick and run away. Bug reviewed his newly acquired karate ski-zills...ha-ya! And then we reviewed "9-1-1-send" if they need the police or the hospital. Is this all too much? What do y'all think? Am I freaking out a bit much?)
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