Safety Town

Josh is a Safety Kid! All this week Josh attended a program through a local club at Safety Town in Naperville. This was the coolest thing! There is a kid-sized town, with real lights, a bridge, railroad tracks and "cars" that they drive using hand bike signals to navigate their way through the streets. It's amazingly organized and a real chance to open the communication with your kids about safety in many areas. Ok, before I sound like an advertisement for this.....

Josh had a great week learning about how to be safe around animals, fire, water, strangers, and even electricity. They met policemen, paramedics ("Mom, did you know you have a battery in your body?), and firemen. They even hooked up a small fire hose to a fire hydrant and let the kids spray!

It ended today with a bit of a graduation with the local policeman giving a little speech about the week and the things the kids learned. He peppered his speech with some funny jokes, too. He chatted about how the kids were a bit skeptical of him at first because most of them had been threatened at one point.."If you misbehave the policeman will take you to jail!"...he made jokes about the kids driving their little cars (see above photo)..."Some asked me where the XM radio was... or if there was OnStar in case they got lost." He even made fun of himself saying, "If you ever see a policeman at the local donut shop...oh, wait, I work in Naperville, I mean the Starbucks.. just come over and say, HI!"

All in all, it was a great experience for him and a chance for him to go to something just his own this summer. I'm really glad he went and I hope that he learned a lot!