It's a stormy day here and I'm stuck at work so there isn't too much fun going on but I thought I would share some of the fun stuff we did this last week and introduce you all to National Telecommunicators Week!
As I stated last week, I spent Easter day working but my husband and I were able to convince our daughter to have the Easter bunny come on Monday to bring baskets and hide eggs. I was very impressed by how fast the found all the eggs and our daughter was adamant about helping her little brother, which was very cute! Our son is only 1 and his first egg hunt was a success!
The kids had so much fun and my heart was so happy watching their delight!
Monday night we went over to my parents' house for dinner and my Mom was very excited to show me what she ended up doing with the GoT Facemasks that I put together for her birthday. They turned out really neat!
On Tuesday, we took the kids to Aquatica (Sea World's water park) for the first time. Our son wasn't too impressed because I think he was more annoyed with the swim vest but our daughter absolutely loved it!
I wasn't entirely sure how it would work going to a water park with social distancing and mask mandates in effect but it worked out. I wasn't completely comfortable with the situation but my husband really wanted to treat the kids to something fun after being cooped up at home for a while but I think we had our fill of largish crowds.
My daughter had mentioned to me that she really wanted to try a sno-cone because she saw someone with one at Aquatica. It took me a little bit to find a place close to our house but I did and took the kids on Thursday for sno-cones and donuts (since there was a donut shop right next door). They thought they hit the jackpot and I was silently hoping that I didn't create little monsters for the next few hours! Thankfully they handled their sugar well. My son didn't like the cold sno-cone, which is why there aren't any pictures of him eating some 😝
It was a busy but fun 4 days off from work! This week at work, we are celebrating National Telecommunicators Week. In the United States, every year during the second full week of April, public safety telecommunicators (911 call takers & dispatchers) are honored. Approximately 240 million 911 calls are made yearly, with about 80% of those coming from mobile phones which could make our jobs very difficult some times. This week wasn't formally recognized until 1994.
I have been a 911 dispatcher since 2008. I dispatched for Orlando Police until 2017 and handled a very wide range of 911 calls and was even working the night of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting, which unfortunately was the deadliest active shooter incident in the nation at the time. Since 2017, I have been dispatching fire and medical at Reedy Creek Fire which deals with the Walt Disney World area. At this point, I have taken hundreds of thousands of calls for every imaginable situation and have had every personal emotional response to those calls possible. We are often forgotten about and according to the nation, even though we are the FIRST first responder in almost every emergency situation, we are only classified as clerical workers. Most of the time this is a thankless job. We are talked down to, yelled at, called stupid or useless but we understand and are expected to stay calm and provide the best help possible because the person on the other end of the phone is probably calling for the worst day of their life. And every once in a while we do get recognized or we are thanked but the knowledge that we saved a life is what makes it all worth it for us.
If anyone who has read this far is currently or has ever been a 911 dispatcher anywhere in the world, thank you for your service and for being the calm voice in the dark!
