Safety

One Sunday, after church, I was getting my kids in the car to go home.  I got in the driver's seat and let my kids get in by themselves.  I think it's good to teach independence to kids at a young age, especially when you don't feel like helping them get in a car.  And it's good to teach them how to buckle themselves up at a young age, because buckling kids up is boring for adults.  But it's got to be done, so teach them how to do it at a young age.  Tell them that it's a game, or, tell them that they're "so big" because they can buckle themselves up, and they'll love that so much!  Don't tell them that you're just bored with buckling them up, because they might think that you don't care about safety.  And we all know that safety is important!

And speaking of safety, I did have a wake up call to safety as I was getting in my car (after church), and my kiddos were all climbing in.  My two year old was still outside of the car and I let the bigger kids help her in the car.  Meanwhile, someone climbed into the passenger seat up front and shut the door.  All of a sudden, I saw my husband (who was talking to a friend just outside of the church building), sprint towards my car!  And I do mean SPRINT!  And the look on his face said, "Danger!"  I was confused because I did not hear any alarming sounds coming from the people in my car.  Things seemed to be calm on our end.  But my husband's sprinting motion, and the crazed look on his face said, "Things are not calm!!!"  And I just thought "Why is he was sprinting so hard?" and "Who's hurt?"  and "Why isn't anyone acting hurt?" and "What is going through his friend's head?" (who he just ditched), and "All of those runs he's been going on have really paid off" and "Why isn't anyone crying really loud?"   And you might think that with all of these thoughts going through my head, that my husband is not a fast sprinter.  Because I was able to think a lot while my husband was "sprinting" to the car.  And you might be thinking that maybe he should give up sprinting and stick with speed walking.  But he is fast.  

So when he finally got to the car, I mean, when he got to the car in what seemed like a half a second, he let us in on the mystery.  When someone shut the door that my two year old was standing by, he thought her hand was stuck in the door.  And he was going to save her!  And we started laughing at the whole situation.  When we drove away, I commented on how fast Dad was.  My six year old said, "When Dad runs a marathon, you should have a picture of a baby whose hand is stuck in a door, in front of him.  And then he'll run fast."  I thought that was a great idea.  But this  was problematic, because, we wouldn't want to ask someone to pose for this picture.  That's just not safe.  And safety is important!