Fire Station Fun

Left to right: Grandpa, the Rookie, Drew, Owen, David, Me, Samantha, the Captain.

Drew decided that he wanted to go to the fire station today. Just out of the blue he said, "I want to go see the fire trucks." He's a pretty lucky kid because his grandpa works for the Police Department, and has the hookups. So Grandpa called the fire station and asked if we could come down for a tour. The firemen were more than happy to oblige and about ten minutes later we were climbing into the fire trucks, spraying the hose around and lifting weights in the station exercise room.

A couple weeks ago, we went to the environmental fair (Drew calls it the "unfair-o"--not sure where he got that). The Fire Department had a truck there for people to climb in and look at, but Drew would have nothing to do with it. For the next week he kept saying, "'Cause I'm scared of the fire truck. 'Cause I don't want to get in it." I haven't figured out why he starts every sentence with the word 'cause, but he does.

Anyway, because of his previous experience with the fire truck, I wondered how he would act at the fire station. At first he was a bit wary. He was excited and running around talking about the trucks, but every time we asked him if he wanted to get in, he would say, "No thank you!" and run off. Then, he saw Samantha get in, and he must have figured it would be okay if the baby was doing it. So pretty soon he was sitting in the fire truck all by himself with a seat belt on and the door closed and yelling, "Bye, Mom! I'm driving to the fire!"

Owen and Samantha loved the fire station, too. They had no qualms from the very beginning about jumping right into the fire trucks and pushing all the buttons and turning the steering wheel. Samantha did get scared by the fire hose, though. We ended up hanging around the station for about two hours, just chatting with the firemen about what it's like to fight fires, and what they do when there's nothing going on (like today when we were there).

And for Drew's bedtime prayer tonight he said, "Thank you that we went to the fire station and I'm not scared of the fire trucks anymore. 'Cause I was scared of the fire truck at the unfair-o. But I'm not scared anymore."