Sirens

I've lived in the Midwest for almost 8 years now. Oddly enough, we have only had to run down to our basement once in all of those years. That's something to be grateful for!

The past couple of days, there have been big headlines of big storms with big tornadoes. Naturally, one might get a little "tweaked" when hearing of all this commotion. Yesterday I texted my friend Dan, who happens to work for NOAA... our national weather service. He's the one to go to if we have any questions about weather. Dan, I asked, do I need to worry about these reports? I'm home alone with the kids... should I make a plan to head down to our basement? It's pretty unlikely, he replied. But, if you do hear the sirens go off, then yeah. Go downstairs.
I was pretty exhausted yesterday afternoon. Note that earlier I mentioned being *home alone with 4 kids*. Hence, the exhaustion. I put the girls down for their nap. I set the boys up for their quiet time. Josiah spends his time in his bedroom. Elijah spends his downstairs in the guest room. I snuggled down in my bed, asking for that blissful break called sleep. And then. All of a sudden, I heard a siren-like noise. I shot out of that bed faster than I could say tornado. I pulled the dead-asleep Phoebe from her bed. I grabbed a couple of diapers and the box of wipes because she had planted a diaper bomb before falling asleep. Seriously? How do babies do that? Fill their diapers and then fall asleep?? I ran across the house with sleepy baby in my arms, blanket trailing on the ground, diapers falling out of my grasp. I called for Josiah to run downstairs to alert Elijah of the emergency situation. I ran into Lyla's room and woke her up from a dead-sleep. As I slowed down to gather the fallen diapers, I noticed something. There was no siren blaring. There was, however, a neighbor running a SHOP VAC.

Try telling a 3 year old and a 2 year old that Mama just needed to run a quick tornado drill and that they must go back to sleep.
They didn't believe me either.