Take Cover

Bad weather last night in College Station. Not a lick of damage at our house (thank God), but quite a few of people were without power.

Chris had to work late, and I was home with the kiddos. At 7:36 I get a phone call from him.

C: You know there were three tornadoes spotted on Rock Prairie Road (for those unfamiliar with the area, that's very close - maybe a mile away) You need to get the kids and take cover.

Me: Now? (I was trying put away some party chairs, empty the coolers, and give the kids a bath simultaneously)

C: Tracy, Rock Prairie Road! (in that tone of voice meaning - OF COURSE NOW)

Me: Okay.

I take Tate's baby mattress, out of the garage, grab Cayla some clothes and Tate a diaper. I get them out of the bath and we then hang out in the bathroom for the next 58 minutes. Things got really loud, and from the sound of it I was sure we were getting a ton of rain. I later heard that most of the noise was just thunder and lightening and we really didn't get so much rain after all.

While in the kid's bathroom, we threw a football (not too hard, close quarters), read tons of books, took pictures with my phone, and the kids brushed their teeth probably 10 times each. Our activities were very limited, but we did our best. I never actually got into the bath tub and covered us with the mattress, but I knew that I could quickly if need be. I thought 58 minutes in the bathroom were pretty miserable... under the mattress would have been a million times worse.

During all of this (short power outages, most of which were just flickers), Cayla stayed fairly calm and freaked out only briefly. She was worried that we would starve because I didn't bring any food. We'd all already eaten dinner, so technically we should have been fine, but I do agree that snacks would have made our wait a little more pleasant. I told Cayla that we didn't need food and actually we could live a REALLY LONG TIME on just water (and we had water). She then filled up the sink with water, and filled up her glass and Tate's bathtub bowl and cup as well. She's the girl who doesn't even like water much, but she was sucking down glasses of water the entire time we were in the bathroom. She'd drink a cup, then refill it (to keep in our reserves). Only a very few minutes later she was drinking water again. It's almost as if she was drinking it to calm her nerves - could this be a bad sign?

For some reason we had a fly swatter in the bathroom with us (don't ask, because I don't know why, but I do know that random things always seem to show up in the oddest places). Tate got the fly swatter out and stuck it in Cayla's sink full of reserve water. Of course this complete grossed her out, so she drained it, wiped the sink out with a wash cloth, and then refilled the sink. I think we went through this routine 3 or 4 times.

After the tornado warning was lifted we left the bathroom. Cayla let out a huge sigh of relief and Tate headed to the pantry. Later on before bedtime, Cayla asked for a drink. I told her she could only have half a glass because she already drank so much water.

Cayla: WHAT? That doesn't count. It was survival!