Friday Outing: The Fire Station

I am always trying to find something new and fun for our family to do each Friday. However, with the boys' sensory sensitivities and needs, and Cruise's autism, I have to work within certain parameters, otherwise things can go downhill very quickly.

A few weeks ago I called up the fire station and asked if they do family tours. The secretary said they did, but that they will be having a big safety fair in October that we could attend. I thought that sounded pretty good until she told me what kinds of things they set up and how many people show. It sounded so much fun, but it could be a terrible disaster if attempted. So I decided to just make an appointment for a private tour.

We went this Friday and it was just perfect for the boys, especially for Cruise. The fire house itself was very visually stimulating, so it was a little hard for him to focus on what the fireman (who turned out to be Brother Williams from our last ward) was saying, but luckily it was very low key.

First, Cruise got to put on the fireman's uniform

then the boys got to sit in the firetruck

Cruise got to hold the fire hose

and after spending some time walking around, I convinced Cruise to try listening to the siren. They had us stand a couple yards from the firetruck and Dave and I covered the boys' ears as they let the siren sound. They both did really well and Cruise even let me take my hands off his ears for the last few seconds.

The fireman talked to us about how to teach the kids how to get out of the house when the fire alarm goes off (which I never thought about) and how to practice on a regular basis. I thought this was so good especially because having boys with sensitive hearing, it would be such a stressful thing for them to wake up to a regular fire alarm without being familiar with it. So we have some work to do on that.

After the tour, the boys each got a little fire hat, a pencil and a sticker badge. They really had a blast and once again, we had a successful family outing.