Today we attended Everett’s graduation from Safety Town. As we mentioned a few days ago, he has been taking this class for two weeks and has been extremely excited about it. Perhaps this is because it means he is big enough to attend a class by himself. Or perhaps it is because the content of the class provides him with a needed sense of structure about the world. Or maybe he enjoys a newfound sense of knowledge that he gained independently of his parents. Whatever the reason, the class has certainly accomplished its goal of raising his level of awareness and knowledge about safety-related issues. He has learned behavior about crossing the street, fire safety, police, strangers, road signs, medication, poisons and many other things. A few days ago he started paying much closer attention to Chris’ behavior on the bike and in the car.
“Dad, you didn’t stop at that stop sign.”
“Yes I did.”
“No you didn’t. I saw you.”
So it’s nice to have another pair of eyes looking out for me :-). Last night he came home with a page of Mr. Yuk stickers, removed the child-proof safety latch from the cabinet under the sink (?!?) and put stickers on all the bottles. He has also been instructing us to put thing like medicines and matches out of reach to keep him safe. There is certainly an increased sense of bossiness that has come with all of this knowledge, but at least it’s conscientious and is meant to be constructive.

Everett was really looking forward to graduation and asked both of us to attend. So Chris came home early and at 1:45pm we went to Wilson to setup our lawn chairs. The kids came out in a line with their team leaders, and the teacher gave a short speech. Then they sang all the songs they had learned and finally received their diplomas.


This was followed by cake and a few trips on the tricycle around the miniature town setup on the basketball court.

Photos of the event are here. And here is a video of the ceremony:

In the days leading up to today Melissa explained to Everett that this would be his first graduation, but she went on to list all the possible graduations in his future. Everett put his hand to his forehead, shook his head and said “I don’t know what to say baby.” Sometimes we don’t either.