Categories
advice and tips kids

Had a small scare at Creve Coeur lake

Today I had a small scare at the CC lake. I was chatting with friends while keep an eye on Sophia the 5 year old. Serenity the 10 year old went paddle boarding with friend with their moms permission. I found out after the fact, and when I asked the moms (my wife and Serenity friend’s mom), who were watching them, they said “we don’t know where they are on the lake”. This made me start to worry. Our quick response is, we rent a kayak to search on the lake. We asked around, not seeing them, increasingly worried, and even thought about calling 911. At this time I asked if we can use “find my iPhone” to find the girl, because the other girl’s mom hanged the phone on Serenity’s neck. It eventually worked, and we found them not too far from where they started, and it’s near the bank too. We were relieved, and did a bit more kayak afterwards.

My lesson here is make sure Serenity has her own iPhone, and help her learn how to use. Basically the friend’s mom called the girls twice, and the girls did not pick up the phone properly (accidentally pressed the “declined” button, thus the ensuing panic). Because this time she had friend’s mom’s iPhone on her neck while she was paddling / using the roar to push forward. And we had to call her friend’s dad to run this “find my iPhone” to pinpoint the particular device. I also want to make sure we have better network: maybe Verizon or AT&T for my whole family down the road. Right now both my wife and myself have mint mobile which uses t-mobile network, and it’s considered not as good as the VZ and T.

Serenity’s mom’s thinking is we should keep an eye on them all the time, unfortunately due to the size of this lake, it’s a bit impractical.