Flips and Fires

Britton ran in this morning from the back yard and exclaimed enthusiastically, "Come watch what I can do!" So, I went out back as he climbed on to the trampoline. He bounced around for a bit and then did a perfect front flip. He was so excited. He taught himself how to do it this morning. I don't think he's ever even seen anyone do one. Maybe he has, but we rarely have older kids over jumping on the tramp, so I doubt it. He is really good at it too. Throughout the day he kept practicing whenever he was out there and then he "performed" for Jason when he got home from work. So, then Jason got on and attempted a few flips. It took him quite a few tries (I won't say how many) until he was able to land on his feet. And then he showed Britton a few back flips. It looked like so much fun that I got on as well. But, once I got up there, I got scared to actually do a flip. I know they are super easy, but I'm so old and out of shape that I could just see me breaking something or hurting my back or something. I finally did try it though, and it was so easy and felt just like when I was a kid. It wasn't awkward and I didn't land funny or anything. I actually landed on my feet quite easily. Haley got up too and started doing really bouncy somersaults. We had such a fun time. We all just jumped around and played for quite a while. I get to play with my kids on the tramp quite a bit, but I don't think I've ever jumped with Jason.

For Family Home Evening tonight, we did a fire drill with the kids. We have been talking about fire safety ever since we went to the presentation the other night. It turned out to be really fun. We tried several different scenarios. We taught Britton how to close the door to their room, climb up and open his window and wait for us to come help them out. And to keep Haley calm. For the first drill we pretended the fire was in the kitchen, blocking the front door. We all got in bed and pretended to be asleep. When the alarm went off, we leapt into action. Jason took the screens and windows out in our room then jumped out. As I was jumping out behind him, he climbed a ladder to the kid's room where Britton was waiting with the window open just like he was taught. Jason lifted Britton out and then grabbed Haley. Haley was still laying in her bed, scared to death, until Jason said, "Haley, there's a fire". Then she jumped up into his arms. I timed the whole thing and it took about a minute for us all to get out. Of course in reality, it would take us longer to wake up enough to realize what to do. I was surprised at how wimpy I am these days. I sat in the window for a few seconds wondering if I should actually jump. I had barefeet (which is realistic if it's night time) and I didn't want to land on anything pokey in our lawn. I guess in the event of an actual fire, I won't hesitate at all. I did scrape my arm on the bricks, but other than that, the jump was fine. Britton had so much fun practicing. The little boy who lives downstairs was in our backyard jumping on the tramp. I'm sure he thought we were all so strange when he started hearing beeping then saw Jason busting out of our window, followed by the rest of us. His reaction to it all was the best. But, he thought it was so cool. He came around to the front to see if we'd get out safely on our second one. The second scenario was if there was a fire somewhere that didn't block the front door. So, we got back into our beds and waited for the alarm again. We all hurried as quickly as possible to get out to our meeting spot outside. That one took us 15 seconds. Of course, again, realistically it would be longer than that when factoring in the waking up and being impaired by smoke, etc. But, it's still good practice. At the presentation, they said, on average you have 3 to 5 minutes to get out is all. So, we're going to keep practicing periodically to get it so our bodies will just do it automatically. We all had a lot of fun, except Haley. It just scared her. But, I'm sure a real fire would be scary too, so she was probably the most realistic of us all. And hopefully, if we practice enough, she won't be as scared and at least she'll know what to expect and what to do in a fire. It's not a fun thing thinking about having a fire in your home, or worse, losing one or all of your kids in a fire. But, I'd much rather be prepared to know what to do and how to get out. We're going to do a lot more than we were before about preventing fires from starting in the first place, but also preparing our family for if one actually happens.