Do you know your phone number?

Last night at basketball practice one of the families was running late. I thought it was odd, but I knew that the little girl's older brother had flag football practice first so I thought maybe that ran late. When they got there the mother told me the story of why they were late. We will call the mother C for the sake of the story.

As they were leaving the football field, C heard a little boy crying hysterically. She couldn't leave him there, so she walked over to ask what was wrong. Well it turned out that his parents had come to practice in two cars and both had left... without him.

Well C then proceeded to ask him if he knew his phone number. Nope he didn't. She then asked if he knew his address and he did. So luckily C thought to do a reverse phone look-up and found the phone number and called them. She got hold of the father who was home and told him that the boy was left at the field. He told C that the boys mother would be there soon to pick him up.

As C is telling me this story I realized that this family lives in my neighborhood and I knew exactly who they were. Even more frustrating to me was the father was closer than the mother since she was at a store when the father called. But, that's not the point of this post.

C then proceeded to ask both of her children 6 and 4 if they knew their phone number and address and realized that they didn't. Her 6 year old knew the street, but not the house number. When she asked him what he would tell someone if he couldn't find her, he said he wouldn't talk to a stranger.

Now, while I can't fathom leaving my sons anywhere... but, it could happen and there are other reasons for them to know this information. I know that Blake knows the address and the house's phone number because they work on it at school. I need to work on teaching him my cell phone number. I also really need to work on these skills with Colby.

One thing that baffles me about FL is how the number their houses. In MA the first house on the street is 1 and on the other side is 2. I lived at #10 and next to me was 8 and 12 and across the street was 11. Not so much here. We are the second street on the house and have a 5 digit house number. So my boys need to learn a 10 digit phone number, or 3 if I teach them the house and both of our cell numbers and an address with a 5 digit number. That is a lot of information for then to memorize and not use on a regular basis. Oh well... time to work on these important life skills!