The Importance of Teaching Children "911"

Well we're back from vacation so I it's time to for me to get back on the blogging horse again. We had a really nice time out in Palm Springs, girls did very well in the pool. We had some rough nights with Genevieve - don't know if it was the strangeness of a new place, the schedule being thrown out the window or the smallness of the cribs provided by the hotel, but something irked her pretty bad. Spent the first night up from 12 - 4am just screaming her head off. Other two nights were much better, but we called on an old friend named Tylenol to help us out. Other than that there wasn't much adventure, all went smoothly. But I did learn a valuable parenting lesson. It's very important to teach your kids 911 in an emergency. Even if they can't dial yet, the simple act of screaming it can do the trick. Let me set the story for you: Gina and I are doing a charity "mud run" next weekend so I've been working hard to make sure I'm up to the challenge. Even on vacation I felt the need to keep my workouts going so I don't lose my momentum. The Westin resort we were staying at has two sides, a time share side and a hotel side. We were on the time share side and the gym that I like (from a past stay) is on the hotel side. So I would run the 1/2 mile or so through the parking lot to the hotel gym (the furthest point possible from our room), work out and then run back through the complex (there are pathways that run through a park and across some streams that divide the complex, each unit having a back door that opens to the area). So I left the back slider to our room unlocked so I could come back this route. July in Palm Springs is a tough time to be running outdoors, so I was shirtless and drenched in sweat when I returned to our room. I tried the slider to find it locked. A little miffed that Gina locked me out I went to the living room door and opened it. As I entered the room two things struck me 1) Gina had moved the girls cribs and 2) the 2 year old boy sitting on the sofa watching TV was not mine. He had a similar thought and with eyes wide as dinner plates launched into a scream "Mommy 911! 9-1-1!!! Mommy! 911!!!!!". Thoughts of a mom with a kitchen knife and father with a 9 iron flashed into my head and I ran like one of the blurred faces on "Cops" out the door, stumbling over patio furniture, down the path, over the stream and back to our room. ... which was a good two buildings a way still. Aside from recreating an afternoon school special or a commercial for ADT I learned a valuable lesson about making sure my kids know this numerical sequence so well that it instinctively flies from their mouth any time a sweaty, half naked man wanders into the living room with a dazed look in his eyes while their watching Spongebob. I then spent the rest of the trip keeping an eye out for the little boy (didn't need to be ID'd while at the pool) and marking our room with a strategically placed towel or shirt on the patio furniture. Ahh vacations.