twister

I was talking on the phone with a friend last night. As I looked to my right out the office window, I saw the blackest, scariest stormy sky that I have ever seen. My friend lives just east of us, so I warned her of its impending arrival. She said, “I know, my husband just said “The end of the world is coming and you’re on the phone!”" We quickly got off and just as I shut down the computer, the sirens went off on TV.

Of course, Mike was outside watching so I yelled to him to come in – my fatal error. As I shuffled the kids and dog into the basement, the drama escalated to full hysteria (not my intention, believe me) and the girls were completely out of control. Finn, on the other hand, was frantically checking out every corner of our unfinished basement, a forbidden wonderland to his basement-virgin eyes. As he tried out every old tricycle and art supply and pulled stored clothes out of plastic bins, the girls screamed.

It was quite a scene – I almost couldn’t help but chuckle in combination with the sadness I felt in witnessing them so truly terrified. They absolutely refused to listen to reason, hollered for the door to be shut, wanted to go get toys and dolls for saving and refused to let go of Harley’s collar for fear that she’d wander back upstairs. We did everything we could, but nothing really worked; they went on like that for 20 minutes, at least.

At one point we went up to check the news again and the tornado warning had moved eastward – we were now just in the middle of a whopper of a storm. In all my 36 years, I have never seen storms like those we see out here. Right about now, many of you are joking under your breath that we live in big sky country. But there must be something to not having mature trees all around and sitting up on a hill – the sky does look so big and we see every single bit of the storms. Once we moved upstairs, donned PJ’s and played Sponge bob; I took a few minutes to watch the real show. The lightening was humbling and constant and everywhere and honestly a little scary, too. It literally took my breath away.

The kids recovered and Finn tried to shed a few fake tears to ward off bedtime, but we eventually got them down. We had now all grown used to the constant rumble of thunder (that is still going on this morning) and the flashes from the windows all around us.

Next time, I’ll think before I’ll yell for Mike. I'll try not to use the word "tornado" ever again. I’ll announce that we’re playing school downstairs. We’ll skip the hysteria all together. Lesson learned.