August 14, 2012 ~ Tornado Cuddles

So, there I was, sitting on my fabulous porch (best room in the house!) watching the light show nature provided. Suddenly, the phone rang. I knew what this meant before I even picked up the phone. I knew who it was and what it was about. Grandma was calling. She almost never calls that late, and given the storm I was watching to the south it meant WARNING. Specifically: TORNADO WARNING. Sure enough, Grandma was letting me know about the warning. She knows I rarely have the TV on local programming if I'm watching it, so she always lets me know.

Daddy knew immediately too and checked the weather. But he and I have different opinions on what to do in a weather warning. I'm a take no chances gal. He's a worry about it later guy. He said, oh the warning expires in 15 minutes so don't worry about it. But, tornadoes don't need 15 minutes to come get you, so I worry about it.

I scooped up Billy and brought him to the basement and let him sleep on my chest. Last tornado warning I happened to have been washing the Go Crib and got it up in only a minute and put him in that. But, I'm not sure where it is, so he got to sleep on my chest instead.

Sure enough, the storm I was watching was heading straight for us. It wasn't like I was terribly worried, but I'd rather be safe than sorry and have Billy downstairs with me. The warning expired, but the storm still hadn't made it to us and the local weathermen were still seeing the "hook" pattern in the storm very close to our location, so I decided to keep Billy downstairs with me.

He got to cuddle with me for 2 hours. He woke up towards the end, startled awake by the sound of hail slamming against our front door and the lightning getting closer. This storm was producing over 2000 strikes per hour- so a lot of thunder. Some so close you could hear the crack of the lightning prior to the earth-shattering thunder. So rattling, that it knocked our framed art askew on the walls.

But the best part were the cuddles. Billy has not cuddled with me like that since before he could crawl. As an itty bitty he used to sleep on my chest, but once he could move, he wanted to MOVE, not to cuddle. But he cuddled with me the whole time, even awake, scared of the storm but safe in Mommy's arms.