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Apr 2006 Issue
by Jennifer Hansen
Year after year I am plagued with the same 3 problems: Having 4 girls that feel they need a brand new backpack every year; bored kids during summer vacation; and not keeping our 72 hours kits quite up to date, with medicine that hasn’t expired, clothing that will actually fit when the emergency occurs, and food that is not stale.
This year is going to be different. I’ve already started the wheels turning by having the first Monday of every month become our Family Home Evening preparedness night. One week at a time I’ve been gathering all the items we’ll need for our soon to be annual emergency day. Just about the time the novelty of no school wears off, and the kids begin asking for things to do, I will declare an emergency. It may be a flood, an earthquake, a fire, or even a volcanic eruption. We will all run for our kits and head to our emergency meeting place.
While there we’ll spend some time refreshing our minds on emergency precautions. (The things we’ve already been learning each month.) I’ll also be checking to make sure my youngest two (six and seven) still remember our home address and phone number. The living room will then become our shelter where we’ll spend the next hour or so dumping out the contents of each bag. We’ll check expiration dates on any medicine, change out batteries, and eat some of the foods we have packed. We’ll also check clothing and shoes. I’ve learned it’s helpful to pack clothing and shoes that are a size bigger than what the kids currently wear.
My little shoppers are going to love this next part. They’ll go get their fresh-out-of-a-job old backpack, and well repack all the updated items for our kits into it. The girls will know that once we pack up the 72 hour kits, they will be getting a new backpack for school next year without having to beg. As I have been putting this in place I’ve realized that this plan has added benefits. As the girls get older, the bigger the backpack gets and the more they can carry themselves. This keeps me from overloading the smaller girls with too much because their packs are already smaller to fit their size.
I have two kids that we will be packing medicine for, and we’ll be able to make sure that we keep updated medicine in the bags and that it’s the correct dose. As the girls grow and we adjust their doses, the last thing on my mind when these changes occur will be to update their kit. One of the medications my six year old needs to survive is Insulin, which has to be kept cold. In a rush it will be easy to forget that bag of medicine in the fridge, unless we practice this often.
When we first began discussing food storage and emergency preparedness with our kids they had lots of ‘what if’ questions. However, they are getting more familiar with the concept and they are seeing this as something we just do. It’s a part of living, a part of being prepared.
Contributed by Jennifer Hansen
Fort Lewis Ward
Lakewood Washington Stake
