September 2nd, 2009
By Heather
In our town, if you live less than 1.5 miles from school, you are not eligible for the school bus … budget cuts, wah, don’t get me started! Consequently, there will be many little people walking, hurried commuters driving, enviro-conscious bikers pedaling, and the regular school bus traveling its route all fighting for the same roads. Throw in some hills, weather and a sunset for poor visibility, and you have a recipe for chaos.
Getting to and from school safely
As schools get back in session, please take extra care during morning and afternoon commutes:
- Respect and obey school crossing guards. Wave hello to them; they are doing an important job.
- As you pull into traffic at all intersections and near school parking lots, be aware of walking children.
- Remember school zones and follow posted speed limits. Don’t try to speed around school zones. If your commute permits, consider taking another road next time.
- Follow basic rules for a stopped school bus:
1) When a school bus stops and flashes red light(s), drivers approaching from either direction must stop at least 20 feet away from the bus.
2) Once stopped for a school bus, drivers may not start until the red lights stop flashing or the bus driver waves
3) After stopping for a school bus, drivers must watch for children along the side of the road and drive slowly until past them.
- Be on the lookout for children who may wander into traffic while waiting for and when getting on and off of the school bus.
Just as I ask you not to speed through my neighborhood street in the summertime, now I ask you to please be cautious as you drive when our children are heading back to school. Thank you!
Related post: cross roads safely and silently
Tags: back, home, safe, Safety, school, UL
Posted in Kids, Safety, Uncategorized | No Comments »
August 20th, 2009
By Whitney
My husband has had the same cell phone number for 10 years. You can imagine how surprised I was when I began to dial his cell phone number from my home phone one day and couldn’t remember the order of the digits. Why did I suffer this memory loss? Two minutes earlier, my 4-year-old son had run full speed ahead into a doorway and was now cradled in my arms, bleeding profusely from the forehead. And my cell phone was acting wonky. And my two-year-old was clinging to my leg. And my home phone is not programmed with speed dial numbers because, well, I have a cell phone that does that.
So there I was, carrying my bleeding kid around the house, searching for a scrap of paper on which I may have written my husband’s cell phone number for a babysitter, cursing myself for having not kept it on the fridge like I did when my son was first born and my habits were more safety conscious.
Safety tip #1: Do not rely on memory or technology for phone numbers. Use the old-fashioned method of posting critical information on the fridge.
Later that week, as I repeated this now funny anecdote to some other moms as we sat waiting for our children’s swimming lessons to end, our conversation turned to 9-1-1. I had not forgotten the conveniently short number 9-1-1 during the head-bleeding incident. But, I knew that the wound I was dealing with, which required one stitch across the eyebrow, did not merit a 9-1-1 call. (I had lost my memory, but not my mind.)
When I have called 9-1-1 in the past, I told the other moms, I have waited a long time for my call to be answered. Also, a 9-1-1 call placed from a cell phone may not be identifiable to the call center in terms of location. The call is picked up by the nearest cell tower and then dispatched to the appropriate local law enforcement agency. If you are in a true emergency and call 9-1-1 from your cell, be sure to provide your location clearly.)
Safety tip #2: Look up your local police dispatch phone number and program it into your phone. Use “9-1-1”as the contact name to force your electronic address book to list it first.
Tags: babysitter, cell, home, mom, mother, phone, police, Rookiemoms.com, Safety, UL
Posted in Safety | 1 Comment »
August 11th, 2009
By Whitney
To buckle and unbuckle one’s own seatbelt ranks high in a toddler’s list of life’s most satisfying accomplishments. My four-and-a-half year old son does both by himself. My two-year old daughter once spent more than 30 minutes in a large baby gear shop playing with the floor model strollers, buckling herself in and then asking me to unbuckle her so that she could move to the next stroller. Repeat. Repeat. I’ve heard from other parents that their children are equally obsessed.
And on the airplane? To release, simply lift the metal buckle and pull. We’ve all heard it hundreds of times. Suddenly your child has a new, easier-to-open buckle, enticing with its novel shape, weight and texture. For some kids, this temptation will be too much. They’ll spend the duration of the flight buckling and unbuckling, and driving you crazy.
But it’s dangerous. And I’m not talking about pinched fingers. Since you’re a grown up, I don’t need to explain why buckles must stay buckled. I’ll save my safety lecture for my kids.
I’ll give you a trick I just learned from another smart parent on the web: Cut the foot off of a tube sock so that you are left with just a tube. Now you have a seatbelt buckle cozy. Bring it on the plane and slide it over your child’s seatbelt buckle to remove access to the temptations of clicking and unclicking that might drive you off the deep end over the course of a flight.
P.S. This tip comes to you courtesy of ParentHacks.com where creative parents shared two other uses for this same piece of tube sock: 1) Place it over itchy bug bites on arms or legs to prevent scratching and 2) Use it to hide the smell emanating from a strap that’s been thrown up on.
You’re welcome.
Tags: buckle, children, home, Kids, Safety, seatbelts, UL
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
