Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Biggish Family Logistics - Not Funny At All

Tornado sirens exploded in the middle-of-the-night a while back, launching John and I out of bed.  Surely a false alarm, right? Right?  Late Spring.  That's when sirens are supposed to go off.  It is not Late Spring.  It is Winter = no tornadoes.

John ran downstairs to check the radar while I paused to assess the "feel" of things.  Lots of wind, some rain, what the heck?  The warnings just kept going and when I heard an actual forecaster talking at us on television - which meant SOMETHING was going on - I launched into tornado mode. This means grab the kids and head for the basement.  Easy, right? No. Not easy because there are five kids.  Five LITTLE kids who may not be able to get themselves downstairs briskly enough for my liking, because tornadoes don't wait until everyone is in the safest spot possible before they continue on their course.

So there I was, my arms full with Annie and a maglite, directing Ainsley to head downstairs, when I headed over to the Trips' room where Lizzy (thankfully) was already out of bed.  I sent her on her way, and then I paused.  Gracie and Johnny were lights-out.  Who to grab? I can't do both because of Annie.  Would one listen and immediately follow orders so I can haul the other?

And that is what I freak about when I can't sleep at night and my brain is tormented by worst-case-scenarios. Fortunately, insomnia is rare for me.

And this is why I talk to the kids about emergency plans.

And I realize this is a bummer of a post, but everything turned out just fine.  There weren't any tornadoes in our area and John was 1/2-way up the stairs to tell me as I was part-way through my thought process.

So we went back to bed.

1 comment:

JenHahn said...

I have the same fears with only 3! How do I break D & A's window from the outside if the hallway is on fire and I'm standing on the roof with Nate in my arms?!?