When we first enrolled our son at his daycare last fall, the daycare provider asked that we submit a family photo for the disaster kit and would be comforted in case such an emergency did arise.
family
This is what he would see, an image of our family (minus the new baby) and hopefully this would comfort him enough until either my husband or I get there and take him home.
Today, I read Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson’s letter to her little one and I am both touched and shattered. I cannot think of what to write my son without starting into big weepy tears about my baby, my first born, a boy who will scamper across the house until he finds me so I can kiss a tiny, mostly likely imagined wound on his finger. It’s like I don’t have enough words to tell him how big my heart grew the day he was born, how I love it that he’s a big boy now and I super atomic love it when he sits on my lap, places his small paws on my cheeks and says, “I like to touch your face, Mommy.”
If your kids are in daycare/preschool, what did you have to include in your disaster kit? A photo, a poem, a video? I’m going to try to write a letter to be included in the kit, but I doubt I could make it through without big weepy mama tears. Dr. Swanson’s title is so true: I hope he never has to read it.
We had to do this with all 3 when they were in preschool, and I felt much the same way with my 1st – horrified that he’d actually “need” something like this and terrified of the thought of him actually having to use it.
So yes, we were instruced to have a family photo, a “note” (even though most preschoolers wouldn’t be able to ready anyway), a snack, flaslight, toy (comfort item), extra set of clothes, etc. My note to him was simple: Mommy and Daddy love you very much and will see you soon.
I still have it!
Ah yes, I so remember those days. Same for all three kids over five different pre-schools. Yes, my imagination went there for the first one, then after that, I just made sure I updated the set of clothes because they ended up using the clothes for an accident. And they didn’t fit….Oopps!
~Scout