It had rained off and on throughout the day on Wednesday, but during a nice part of the day, I had the children out with me working on picking some grape and cherry tomatoes.
We had only picked a few before, out of nowhere, the tornado sirens began to sound. Having a couple of naturally skittish kids, all of the kids ran in to the house without me having to say anything.
We turned on the local channel to find that the storm was actually supposed to hit us in 37 minutes. (Isn’t weather reporting amazing?) So, with sirens still going, I persuaded Molly to join me in finishing the harvest.
As the 37 minutes got closer to ticking down, we watched as the sky got more and more dark. It was an eerie dark. Finally, the rains and wind came. And, then it got even darker. That was when the kids got even more nervous. So, we got set with a flashlight, glow sticks, pillows, and a book, and we headed for the bathroom. (In our small home, we don’t have many options of where to go during storms.)
When all was said and done, we spent around 30 minutes in a small bathroom — all five of us! Eric, ever the gentleman, offered me the toilet to sit on (with the lids down, of course). I, however, opted for more leg room and took the bathtub (since nobody else wanted it). The kids all sat with their pillows on the floor (along with Eric, though I’m not sure how they managed that, as it is probably not more than ten square feet of sitting space).
We said a prayer (I prayed aloud and then had us join together for a Hail Mary, noting to myself that I probably shouldn’t have picked a prayer with “death” in it while the kids were scared), snapped the glow sticks, and tried to take everyone’s minds off the blowing wind sounds by reading a couple of chapters from The Birchbark House.
We were very thankful for the glow sticks, because the power went off for a few seconds. Long enough for the kids to scream, but they didn’t, because they only ended up with enough time to notice their glow sticks glowing brightly, and then the power came back on.
While I wouldn’t wish for weather so bad that it sends us all into the bathroom, but I couldn’t help but smile about the whole thing. I’m sure it was quite a picture to see, that’s for sure. But, more precious was that Noah thanked me several times for reading to them during the storm, and thanked Eric several times for making them comfortable and getting their glow sticks ready.
Overall, I think it’s safe to say that despite the bad weather, the experience was one of those finer things in life.
photo by David Kingham
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