Tuesday's Tip on Sunday

The Gasparilla Children's Parade was so much fun!! Gasparilla is a weekend festival and parade where the Jose' Gasparilla pirate ship invades the city of Tampa. The pirates come into town with a HUGE parade. There are at least 100 floats filled with Krewes. Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla created this parade, but now there are all kinds of Krewes. The real Gasparilla, which is next weekend, is much like Mardi Gras. The Children's Parade is the same parade but without the raucous behavior. Children and adults collect strings of beads and enjoy the music and sounds of a fabulous parade while the pirate ship shoots Tampa from out in the water. The day ends with a fabulous fireworks display.
We had a great time watching the parade "with the people with whom we ALWAYS watch the parade" (ha). However, while watching the parade, we all realized one of the 4 year old little girls was missing. We couldn't find her anywhere. No one had seen her or knew where she had gone. Her older sister didn't know and neither did the other children who had been standing near her. We began to frantically search for her and still couldn't find her. Finally, the police were contacted. This story has a happy ending, as the police had the little girl several blocks away. She had not been taken and mankind had done the right thing.
While searching for her, one mother asked if her Daddy had a picture of her on his cell phone. I thought her idea was brilliant and I wanted to pass it on to all parents. She said if he had a picture of her, he could send it to her phone, and then she could walk around and show people her picture, asking if anyone has seen her. It was interesting because there were at least 4 girls in our proximity who matched her description: "White four year old girl, pink shirt, hot pink skirt. Short light brown hair". We did need her picture. So, for your Sunday Tuesday's Tip, take pictures of each of your children and save them to your cell phone. Take new photos regularly so that you have an up=to-date photo of your child. Had this story not ended as quickly as it did, it would have been nice to circulate this picture by cell phone to the thousands of parade goers who lined Tampa's streets. Take those pictures today! :)