Caution

I will admit that I can be a bit of a cautious parent.  At the park, I'm the parent climbing the equipment with my children to make sure that no one gets hurt.  (Unfortunately, even despite that, both of my kids have ended up hurt at the playground!)  Also, neither of my children have attended nursery until they were 20 months old.  But even though I'm pretty cautious, there are also times when I get a little too relaxed and don't realize the dangers that could occur.  And honestly, I never thought about anything bad happening at the beach.

On Tuesday May 31st when we returned to our hotel room Reid noticed a helicopter flying outside.  He pointed it out to Kai and after only a brief time watching it, it became apparent that it was searching for something.  As we looked down the beach we noticed boats, and a group of bystanders all in the same area of the helicopter.  The helicopter was the coast guard and the boats were police boats.  Search lights were aimed pretty close to the shore.  We quickly drew the conclusion that if they were looking for someone, they most likely weren't alive.  It made us sad.

After everyone went to bed, I went out to the sitting room to check the evening news.  The lead story was the search for a missing 9 year-old boy who was presumed to have drowned at the beach.  At that point the search had been called off and officials felt that the boy's body would wash up during the night.  Wednesday morning I was concerned that the beach might be closed, and so I checked the news again.  The boy had been found around 2am about 14 blocks from where he had disappeared.  To read the story, click here.

So, here's what I took from this unfortunate event.  The first is that when the red flags are flying at the beach, don't touch the water.  That remained our rule for the rest of our time at the beach.  Most of the time the red flags seemed to fly in the afternoon when we were doing other activities, but Friday morning the red flag was flying.  Good thing we were leaving the beach and didn't go out that morning.

The second thing I took from this is that I need to get my boys some basic swim lessons.  When Kai was little I had heard a statistic that children under the age of 4 who take swim lessons are actually more likely to drown.  The reasoning behind this is that both parents and children get a little too careful and comfortable around the water and don't take the caution they should.  So, based on that, I never did swim lessons with Kai, and honestly just forgot about it.  But now, I'm keeping a look out for some good lessons for Kai.  I'm not ready yet for Finn, but Kai needs some lessons.  I just need to find some that will fit for us.  If any Colorado friends have a recommendation, I'm open.

Anyway, I know you've all been waiting to hear what happened on our trip, so there it is.  I hope it doesn't upset anyone too much, but that it does remind us all to respect nature and to just be careful out there.  It's been a rough season on the east coast.  So, while I would highly recommend a trip to the beach for any family, I would also say to just make sure you're careful.