I have to admit that I'm a bit of a nut when it comes to safety. My family loves to tease me about this to no end. I am very aware of this quirk in my personality. Over the years I know that there have been more times than I can count that I have observed people doing things that I would consider foolish and have been heard to say something along the lines of,
"Now that's a head injury waiting to happen...".
I may or may not have said it so frequently that Clayton may or may not have deemed it my 'slogan'.
My parents have been right on this bandwagon of ribbing me about this particular preoccupation, showing no mercy what-so-ever. For my part, I think I have shown considerable restraint when it comes to imposing my safety hangups on my children. To date, KD has only been required to wear her helmut for biking, riding her scooter, and ice skating. Little Z has only been required to wear his helmut for riding in his stroller, wagon rides, walking and brushing his teeth...what?
Nooooo...he doesn't even own a helmet...yet.
So you can all imagine my surprise when I recently learned that my I may just come by this particular brand of nuttiness honestly. My mother swore up and down, left, right, and center that in my day, children were never required to wear helmets for anything, much less her children! Then a couple of months ago she somewhat sheepishly sent me an email with this photo that she discovered while going through some things...
Well, look what we have here...
...that would be me...wearing the helmet! That would be my mom, standing right behind me! Huh...
...and if you are having any difficulty reading the caption, it says, "BTW, Dad said: just tell her she insisted!"
However, like me, my mother seemed to show some restraint as well...I am not wearing a helmet to swing or stand in a tree, activities for which I would definitely consider having my kids wear helmets...(although the tree picture is somewhat questionable, but on close inspection, I am pretty sure that is just my hair!)
Not so nutty after all...
Love,
Jen
P.S. I have no idea who the crazy cat people in the bottom left hand corner are...pretty sure they are just some random people who bear no relation what-so-ever to my family...
That's Pip and Mara - what's wrong with your vision. And furthermore - standing right behind you - that's GRANDMA GRAHAM! I'm the one in the poncho pushing the swing - helmetless! And yes that is just your hair which in addition to the overprotective gene for safety that you carry from your Grandmother's side, is a gene for overproduction of hair resembling a helmet that you also carry from the same Grandmother which should have made her realize that along with one of her hand knit wool hats would totally irradicate the need for a helmet. Notice in that skating photo that GG is not wearing a helmet! So, Dad was probably right - you insisted.
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