Storms

Last night, storms rampaged across much of the US, including our house.  I was up late working, and at smidge past midnight, the excessively loud wind prompted me to check weather.com.  There was a nice red line of death on the radar map heading right for us.  We had about 20 minutes.

So I go downstairs and hop into bed, mentioning to Tanya that we’ll probably be dying in about 20 minutes.  Sure enough, right on queue, the neighborhood weather siren fires off.  This siren is designed to be heard for well over a mile, and is conveniently positioned right across the street about 4 houses down.  It woke Aiden immediately, who was scared to death.

I snatched him up, wrapped him in his blanky, and brought him down to our room while we prepared to set up shop in the basement.  Man, that siren is LOUD.  I grabbed the flashlight, Tanya grabbed a blanket, and we headed on down.

We were down there for about 25 minutes.  I kept checking the radar maps on my phone, and Aiden snacked on some formula.  The wind and rain hitting the furnace exhaust on the roof was suprisingly loud, especially after a power flicker prompted me to turn off the two computers that run in the basement.

Aiden wasn’t scared anymore, but got pretty antsy, and didn’t want to be held.  Unfortunately, our basement isn’t finished, and with the litter boxes living down there, the dust level on the floor frequently leaves a bit to be desired.  We didn’t want him scurrying around in his socks and falling onto the bare concrete, so he had to be held the whole time. 

Since it was actually his first time in the basement, flying around like Superman and looking at all the fascinating boxes did a pretty good job of occupying him.

In the end, there was no damage, but it was 1:00 in the morning Aiden was awake.  We put him to sleep in our bed (at the expense of our comfort–I was nearly falling off the bed since I didn’t want to shift him over and “reset” his progress to sleeptown).   We plopped him back in his crib close to 1:30, and he slept through the night.

I used to really enjoy storms when I was young.  I thought tornados were cool, and love to would watch the atmostpheric violence through the windows.  Not so much, anymore.