I spent a lot of time today pondering over whether or not we should take the boys Trick or Treating this evening. After all, the entire East Coast and Tri-state area is still suffering from the horrible effects of Hurricane Sandy earlier this week. Although we are fine and did not sustain any damage to our home, many of our neighbors did and our neighborhood is full of felled trees and downed power lines. As an educator, I understand the importance of returning to a sense of normalcy for children after any natural disaster or tragedy. My sons, much like many of the children who were affected by this storm, have lived through and experienced the anxiety involved in waiting for the storm to hit, sitting through the storm, and assessing damages afterwards. They have been looking forward to celebrating Halloween all month. Since we purchased their costumes last month, my husband and I decided to just throw caution to the wind and … [Read more...]
Are You Prepared For Hurricane Irene?
As I'm sure many of you already know, Hurricane Irene is scheduled to wreak havoc throughout the Eastern Seaboard all the way from North Carolina to New England this weekend. Since we live in New York City, it definitely looks like we will not be dodging this bullet. Even as I am writing this post, I am going over in my mind all of the preparations that we need to make before this storm hits our area as expected on Sunday Morning. If you reside in an inner city like I do, you are probably as puzzled about emergency preparation as we are. The only difference is that New Yorkers have been hit with a couple of emergency doozies in the past couple of decades so we don't take emergencies lightly. Despite this level of awareness, I am ashamed to say that I really do not have much of an emergency plan in place should a real catastrophe occur. In an attempt to make myself feel better and to get a better idea regarding what emergency supplies we need to prepare, I … [Read more...]