William & Owen's Idea Of Heaven

One of the last treats of the preschool year (how on earth is it over already?) was to go to a local fire station. You can imagine how excited my two monkeys were! I have to say, I was pretty excited to go along with them too. Elly, clearly bored out of her baby mind, snored away in the carrier. Here are some photos of the tour:

Cooooool! A truck! Actually, this little fire station around the corner from us only has the one truck, but it was still impressive.

All the gear - it looks so heavy.

Owen was very excited to see the "jaws of yife" in the back of the truck

This giant man was Fireman Mike, who was huge, had a big deep voice and could have been really scary if he wasn't so nice. I was really impressed when he talked to the kids and told them that they should never be afraid of a firefighter, that if they were ever in trouble they always knew that they could go to a fire station and there would always be someone there to help. Most importantly, he reminded kids that if they saw a fireman like him in their house, they shouldn't be scared and run away, but should always run towards him, because he was there to help them. Such an important message and I was glad he said it, because he did look intimidating.

The captain got all his gear on for the kids to also underscore the "don't be afraid" message - the mask might make him look and sounds scary, but they were there to help. You can tell from the boys' faces that they don't quite believe that he's not scary. But Owen and Will still want to be firemen when they grow up, so it can't have totally freaked them out.

Interestingly enough, the son of one of our teachers is training to be a fireman. It kind of makes me smile to think that when he was growing up, he would have loved all things firefighter and would have no doubt proudly made his aspirations known at a young age. I guess parents assume their boys will grow out of this phase, but in reality, some don't and go on to become the big, brave guys!