We had spent 2 hours at play practice Thursday night. We left the theater at 8:15 and bee lined for DQ to get me a coke and some chicken quesadillas because I knew it was probably going to be a long night. I promised the girls I'd make them cheese roll-ups once we got home. I learned something very important. DQ guy will MAKE you a Cherry Coke if you ask if they have it. I felt very special.
So, I sip it down in disbelief I am actually drinking a Cherry Coke from the drive-thru in Byrdstown!!!! I mean...only the big wigs in Livingston serve Cherry Coke!
Anyhow, we get home and get busy making cheese roll-ups individually in the microwave. Anna figures out the process and says she'll take over, so I run downstairs to toss the load of clothes washed that morning into the dryer then start another load. And these are the days of our lives.
I head back upstairs. A couple girls are eating, Adalyn has a Netflix movie on too loud d/s, Alivia is scooting her baby doll stroller across the tile floor and it's just overall a pretty chaotic scene.
I take a quick moment to download the News 5 app on my phone so I can be tuned in like Louis is (but since he's in Isreal he's not tuned in and won't be keeping us informed of the weather, either).
That was easy enough. I get on Facebook for the the first time in a few hours just thinking I'd leisurely scroll down the news feed to see how everyone's day was going and immediately see a friend's post: "Byrdstown friends, be careful. Tornado warning right now"....or something heart-stopping like that.
Immediately I start yelling for everyone to head to the basement. I keep yelling out names of girls
hoping they're hearing me from wherever they are in the house. Like a mad woman, I'm grabbing pillows off our bed. Then I rip off our comforter too (it somewhat resembled the way a magician would do a tablecloth during his act- only the other junk on top of it just fell to the floor instead of staying put.) Oh well.
Our home phone rings. I run after the cordless. The caller I.D. reads, "Methodist Parsonage". My thoughts were: we are the Methodist parsonage. Why is our house calling itself? Confused, I answer the phone as I'm walking into the middle basement room to where I have all the girls corralled. It's a pastor friend from Celina checking in on us and saying the storm is heading our way. As a reply, I'm saying, " I just saw the tornado warning on Facebook".
Upon hearing me say that, our girls start crying. So I'm on the phone trying to express my genuine appreciation for my friend's concern for us in between a chorus of crying. As if that wasn't a good enough dose of crazy, my cell phone (that I'm holding with my other hand) starts blaring out as if it's counting down the detonation to a bomb. Oh. It's none other than the stinkin' News 5 app giving me the alert that we were under a Tornado Warning. Girls are crying loudly. I'm assuring my friend we are in the basement and that we'll call if we need anything. As soon as I end the call, the cordless phone rings again but I ignore it this time and let it ring as I try to console the girls assuring them it's gonna be okay. Then the answering machine picks up and it's an automated recording from the National Weather Service: "Attention. Your county may be in the path of a tornado. Please seek shelter immediately". Girls hear it, and start crying again. They don't call it "screaming like a little girl" for nothin'.
When the crying is under control, I point out that we can't even hear the thunder. (Due to the washer and dryer running) How great! Almost simultaneously after I said that though, the washer and dryer
cycles end and it's completely silent. I'm holding my breath and stuck in a moment of : do I run over
and restart them? But then the silence is broken by the thunder. Then they're afraid all over again.
So, I thought we needed a crash-course in a tornado drill. As I'm demonstrating how to crouch down with your head down and covered by pillows and arms, Anna grows more frightful and is almost shaking at this point. She is complaining, "It's not comfortable." and "How long do we need to stay like this?" In my less-than-glorious-mom-moment, I'm saying, "Do you wanna be comfortable or do you wanna be alive?"
After I realized the crash course was only making things worse , I just started praying out loud over our huddle and rebuking the storm. We then settled in to reading Dr. Seuss books and looking at Louis' pictures of Israel in the Dropbox of the tablet. It's amazing how useful the thunder became when you're fitting words into a chanted rhyme!
And that's how we found the calm in the storm.
