Family Fire Drill!

Sunday morning we held our second-ever family fire drill. (They have no memories of the first.) Dan was at a meeting, but everyone was still in their pajamas due to our 1:30 church start time so I decided it was as good of a time as any to see what they knew about fire drills. I made the instructions brief.

Lay in bed as if you're asleep.

When you hear the loud beep, crawl out of bed to the floor.

Wake everyone up by yelling "fire" as you move downstairs on your hands and knees.

Be clear, calm, and careful.

Go out the front door and meet across the cul-de-sac.

They giggled uncontrollably as they waited for the signal, the beep, made by me. And then I went outside to wait, grabbing my camera to capture their expressions as they came out.

They emerged noisily with smiles, laughter, and feigned panic. I was glad my neighbors weren't able to hear them quietly proclaiming "our house is on fire!" We returned in to debrief on the sofa since it was 40 degrees outside.

This is what they came up with without much guidance. I should have taken notes of what came out of their mouths verbatim, because it was much funnier than this.

They all agreed they were careful, and they admitted they tried to be calm, but they didn't know what "clear" meant, and they confessed they were kind of crazy.

J got rugburns on his knees and questioned the importance of crawling.

The ground was really cold and icy, and they wished they had shoes.

E wanted to know what "stuff" he could bring with him next time--once you say "grab shoes" that opens its own little can of worms.

Standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac was not a good idea because fire trucks would run them over.

One of the twins (I can't remember which) was really worried about what to do if the other one wouldn't wake up.

We have to practice again, with dad so that he'll know what to do, too. Next time they want the smoke detector to really go off.

I'll add that while this scenario is what my nightmares are made of, my kids thought practicing was great fun. I think we'll attempt an emergency drill once a month.

Tell me this: have you had any good experiences doing emergency drills with your kids?