If only it was as easy as Safety Town

The police officer who presided over Safety Town when my daughter was in preschool, is now conducting workshops on cyber safety.  I still remember Safety Town graduation day, standing room only with parents elbowing each other out of the way to capture it on video. There were tricycles, firetrucks the kids could climb into, stickers and snacks. Safety Town had everything a five year old needed to master the course content of bicycle, poison, fire, and traffic safeguards.  Fast-forward to middle school, and now the course content is cyber safety, and the safeguards are far more complex.  I suppose you can draw a parallel between the inquisitive minds of middle schoolers and the naive minds of preschoolers.  We don't assume that a five year old instinctively knows how to avoid eating something that is poisonous, so we teach them not to.  Likewise, we shouldn't assume that a tween understands the impact their shared pictures or online discussions could have on their college application, so we need to teach them what to avoid.  In order to teach them, we must first learn it ourselves.  Seek out a workshop on digital dangers and kids, I thought I was relatively internet savvy, but I still have a lot to learn.  The workshop I attended was from the Digital Innocence Recovery Group. 

Snow shoveling and neighbors

Three hours... the amount of time I would have spent with a client this morning, but instead spent shoveling... ah, the joy of a corner lot.  My 10 year old failed to make a dent in the ice covered snow when she attempted a snow angel.  That should give you an idea of the weight on each lift of the shovel.  Regardless, I enjoyed the exercise, did my homeowners duty of clearing the sidewalk and made the following observations about my neighbors:

1. some embrace shoveling, strap on their heart monitors and count calories
2. some pitch in and help others, shoveling beyond the boundaries of their own sidewalks
3. some say "Why bother? I've got nowhere to go.  People can walk on the other side of the street."  

While the 'why bother' option was tempting, I'm thankful that I am capable of and have the flexibility in my schedule to bother.  I guess I'm grateful:

1. to have the time and physical ability to do a chore like shoveling (to bother)
2. to show my kids that this is what you do, when your get 6 inches of snow.
3. to have seen the trash collector stop to retrieve what I thought was a soda can, but in fact was an injured bird that he gently moved to safer ground.

My dog was just grateful
for the path to pee