Preparing

I got onto a big emergency preparedness kick before M was born. Maybe it was a way of nesting? Sacha and I got together a pretty decent disaster supply kit, including lots of canned food and some essential first aid items. We tried to figure out where the best place to keep it might be - in the basement so it would be close at hand? or in the shed out back so we could get to it if the house were to collapse? Fun stuff.

Anyway, fast forward to recently. On one of our date nights several months ago we went to see a movie about the fallout from Hurricane Katrina. It included some intense footage of the storm. After we left, I got to thinking about how we might respond to a disaster now that we have a child to think about. Some time later (I'm such a procrastinator), after months of driving by a billboard advertising www.ready.gov, I finally went to check it out. It got me very motivated to update our disaster kit.

I never gave it much thought, but you really do need to prepare to take care of your kid in a disaster! I went down the list of recommended baby items to have stashed away (diapers, formula, diaper cream, bottles or cups, warm clothes, etc) and realized that we had...nothing. We're doing a good job of taking care of M's day-to-day needs, but we'd be in trouble in an emergency.

And, as I went through the rest of ready.gov, I realized that we needed some more things for all of us, too. The website also mentioned that if you have a nursing mom or baby (or a pregnant person, older person, or someone who gets sick) that you're going to need more water on hand, and we had only the bare minimum as far as water goes.

So, I went on another kick! I seem to be having some protective mama bear instincts kicking in. I inventoried our current supplies and compared them to the list of recommended stuff. Then Sacha and I went through and figured out what we already had extra of in the house that could be used. And then we prioritized our top five things to get that we don't have.

Now we're on the road to having a good (but not too overwhelming) supply of emergency essentials close at hand. I feel really good about it and am relieved to know that we'll be able to take care of ourselves and the little guy if we ever need to.