What a weekend!

This was a great weekend.

It's been a very busy summer for the Packman family. We've either had guests stay with us (we do live by the beach!) or we've been away just about every weekend since memorial day, and to be honest we were all getting a little tired of it. Finally, we had a weekend to ourselves, with no plans or responsibilities.

Saturday morning dawned with a cloudless sky, and I headed off to drill with the rescue squad. This is my normal Saturday morning plan, and I usually spend from 8-11:30 or so drilling on water rescue or EMS skills and maintaining the equipment. This Saturday, there was a memorial swim for a fallen firefighter taking place off of Far Rockaway, so we took our new rescue boat out to pay our respects and keep an eye on the swimmers. It was great to be out on the water!

When I returned home, it was time to do one of FBS' favorite activities: go to Costco! It is a bit embarrassing how much he loves going to warehouse stores, mostly because there are very nice people who will let him sample all kinds of glorious junk food as we walk around the store. Funny kid, but I must admit that the chicken ravioli in pesto sauce they were handing out were quite tasty.

The shopping done, it was time for some adventure, and this was one I had been looking forward to for a very long time. When I was a kid, I really enjoyed going fishing. At summer camp I was always looking for an excuse to go to a stream or lake with a rod and reel, or even a handline. My grandfather at one point managed a fleet or swordfishing boats out of Cape Cod, and when I visited him as a teen he would often charter a boat for the day and we would go after blues and stripers. I spent many hours looking through fishing catalogues and organizing my tackle box, dreaming about the fish I would catch on my next trip out of New York City. You could say that I was an enthusiastic, if quite unsuccessful fisherman.

It was time to take FBS fishing for the first time.

I had been accumulating gear on his behalf for some time. He had a spider-man fishing rod, which I had taught him to cast in the backyard. He had a lifejacket to wear in the unlikely event he fell off the dock into the water. He had the fickle enthusiasm of a three year old ready to try something new.

My plan was to keep it to a short trip down to a dock to cast for fluke. I wanted to keep it short so that FBS would not get bored. I didn't really expect to catch anything, but I didn't really care either. I just wanted it to be fun. If we caught anything, it would be gravy.

It was fun!

FBS and I spent over an hour on the dock, which for a three year old is a long time to do anything without getting bored. We fished with his rod, we lay on our bellies and watched small baitfish swimming around, and we were not skunked - I caught many small see-through jelly fish with my hands and let FBS play with their slimyness, which he really liked. (These were non-stinging jellyfish, or I would not have been catching then or handing them to my kid!)

FBS had such a great time that he refused to take a nap. He actually said to me, "no daddy, I don't want to take a nap. I don't want to miss all the fun!" How cool is that?

The evening was a bit difficult, as the kids were overtired, but it was an OK tradeoff in my book.

Saturday night brought another adventure our way: Mrs. Packman and I hired a babysitter and went out to a dinner of Thai food in NYC, followed by a party at the home of some good friends. It's good to have an "adult" evening every once in a while, no matter how much fun you have with the kids.

Sunday morning started much earlier than I would have liked, considering my 2am bedtime after the party. At about 6:30 my rescue squad pager went off with a report of a pedestrian struck by a motor vehicle. It was my first major trauma call with the squad, and I handled myself well and learned a huge amount as we got the poor guy to a trauma center in Queens ASAP. We really made a difference in this guy's outcome, and I felt really good about being able to help.

The rest of the day was spent on some of our favorite activities. We spent the morning at the beach:

Playing at the beach

Staying hydrated at the beach is important

We grilled hotdogs for lunch, and then FBS asked to go fishing again! Of course, I took him :)

In the evening after a delicious dinner of tacos, we headed out for our traditional pajama walk along the boardwalk near our home.

Evening pajama walk

My beautiful wife

All in all, this was a great weekend. We really need to spend more time just enjoying ourselves, rather than over planning every summer weekend ahead of time.

Stay tuned for more adventure to come, including The Great American Road Trip!

The Best Birthday Party Ever!

It's hard to believe, dear readers (if, indeed, I have any readers), that FBS has been with us for three years. It seems like just yesterday that we were trying to figure out how to not break this tiny little thing that had come home with us from the hospital. (Actually, we tried our best - I got into a minor car accident on the way home from the hospital with Mrs. Packman and three-day-old FBS. That was fun.) At the same time, it is hard to imagine life without him, or even remember what is was like before his arrival.

So what's a dad to do when his oldest son has a birthday? Easy. He tries to put on the Best Birthday Party Ever. Easier said than done!

However, when your three year old son is as obsessed with firetrucks as mine is, and you volunteer with the local ambulance, the solution becomes obvious:

You have a firetruck birthday party!


As is the fashion these days, we sent off invitations to all of FBS' classmates at his preschool, and about a half dozen of them came over to our house on Sunday morning. (This was, of course, preceeded by much gnashing of teeth as as Mrs. Packman and I cleaned up for the guests).

After playing in the house for about a half and hour, flashing lights could be seen through the front windows, and we lined the kids up outside.



It's at this poit that one mother showed up with her daughter and got very concerned that perhaps the birthday candles had gotten out of control:

Friend's Mom: Is everything OK?
Packman: Yes, the firetruck is here for the party.
Friend's Mom: No way! My husband is going to be so mad that he's not here!

It was a big hit with the kids, too!

Waiting their turn

Riding in the truck

Mini-man got in on the action, too!

FBS comes to visit me at the ambulance service all the time, and he's obviously very comfortable in our ambulance!

The firefighters seemed to have a great time playing with the squeeling kids, and the kids were really pumped up to get to play on the truck. I was beginning to worry about how we'd get them all back inside for the rest of the party, but mother nature helped out and it started to rain. This was actually a good thing, as we told the kids the truck had to go before it got too wet, and they believed us.

So we all went back inside for pizza, followed by the traditional (for FBS) Doald Duck cake:


So, I want to give a big shout out and thank you to the Long Beach, NY, volunteer fire department for helping to make FBS' third birthday party a great success.

He sure thougth it was the Best Birthday Party Ever!

Fire Chief

RESCUE!

Back when I was in college, I spent four years volunteering as an Emergency Medical Technician on a squad we ran on our campus. It was actually quite a lot of fun, especially for someone who thought he was pre-med. While the idea of going to medical school was quickly abandoned, being an EMT gave me just enough knowledge to be dangerous, and allowed me to walk around campus with a radio and occasionally drive with lights and sirens blaring. In truth, most of our calls consisted of cleaning up the mistakes that fellow students made after drinking too much.

Now that I have moved out of the big city, I decided that getting back into EMS would be fun. My town is covered by a volunteer squad, and when I went down to introduce myself, they were happy to have the help. While I'm not currently certified as an EMT (I'll need to take a course two nights a week for six months starting in June), I do get to drive the trucks and help out when needed.

Our squad is quite well equipped:

369, our ambulance

366, our rescue truck

We also handle water rescue during the summer (we're a beach community with a large vacationing population on summer weekends), so we've got a few boats at our disposal too:

This is a Zodiac RIB with a water canon for marine fire fighting. It's in the water from April to October.

This smaller Zodiac is the surf rescue boat, and is towed to the beach by the 366 truck when needed.

We're also warehousing a firetruck for a neighboring department while they renovate their firehouse.

FBS likes this firetruck the best, but it's not ours.

We've also got a pair of Kawasaki jetskis for surf rescue. My plan is to qualify as a rescue swimmer this summer, so that I can help out with water rescue calls, and continue to work on my EMT training so I can be more useful than just as a gopher and driver on medical calls.

There is a big difference between this and my college squad: These calls tend to be people who've called 911 for a real reason. In the month that I've been on the squad I've helped out with a cardiac arrest, a drink driver hitting a tree, and a diabetic coma, as well as a bunch of less stressful situations.

I certainly like the adrenaline rush of responding to calls as much as anyone, but I also really enjoy the feeling of helping to make my community a safer place. It's also been a great way to meet people, since my family and I are still new to town.

If you get the opportunity to become involved in volunteer emergency response - perhaps your volunteer fire department, ambulance corps, police auxiliary, or even CERT team, I think you'll find it to be a very rewarding experience!

Without giving information that would violate anyone's privacy, I'll post a note about any particularly interesting calls I go out on going forward.