Surviving a Tornado (siren) with Children

The first time I heard a tornado siren was the day after we landed in Omaha. “Welcome” said Nebraska. “This is what happens here.” We were in the middle of unpacking and moving in, but I aggressively made everyone get down to the basement. Once down in the basement, a few thoughts crossed my mind. As in, 

1. So… when do we come out?
2. Is there a second siren that signifies “come out now”?
3. I have nothing down here. This is extremely boring. 
4. This is actually worse than a tornado. We have no food, or water, or toys, or diapers. Come to think of it, we will probably last eight minutes down here.
5. Should I risk my life, and run upstairs to collect some supplies? I need some kind of kit.
6. We need to paint the basement immediately, or this color alone will kill me. 

The second time I heard a siren, was a few weeks later. Justin had started at the hospital and I was solo at our house with the boys. I had just put them down for a mid-morning nap, had microwaved my cold coffee that I poured two hours ago but never got to (imagine that), and was sitting at my computer googling Home Depot’s paint department phone number, to ask if they could possibly darken the 3 gallons of paint I had previously purchased (“Hi, yes, I bought some grey paint, but I was being overly conservative and didn't want something too dark, because I know it can get depressing here in the winter with no sun, so instead I ended up with a grey that is too light, and sterile, and equally depressing… and now I'm wondering if you can maybe add some black drops to it, and like, stir it around again…I don’t really know how this works… obviously… but I think just a darker grey on the same color palette will do? Maybe like, 5 drops of black? I am an idiot, yes… yes, I did paint a swatch on the wall beforehand…). And there I was, at my desk, practicing an embarassing conversation in my head with the Home Depot guy, when I heard the siren. 

And I suffered a mild heart attack. 

I survived the heart attack and ran up the stairs. Without a plan. I was about to burst into my kids’ room when I realized I had a logistics problem. Who do I take down first? The baby or the twins? I chose the twins because Jack was in a deeper sleep. I know this, because we drilled a sight hole (as in, a front door, see-who’s-there-in-a-weird-fisheye-lens-kinda-way) into their bedroom door. A simple, yet effective way to spy on them during their “naps”. A video monitor wouldn’t work because they are the most destructive people I’ve ever met, and would pull out any device or cable that needed to be plugged in. So anyways, I checked in on them, and they were mostly asleep. Which, I should elaborate more on, so allow me this tangent…

The twins and sleeping… they have it all backwards. Here it is:

1. They jump out of their cribs. 
2. So, no more cribs. 
3. Toddler beds? 
4. No, they will out grow those soon enough. 
5. The answer, at least I thought: a full size mattress, no frame, just on the floor. They can do what they were born to do, jump and fall. But safely now.  

So they have a full size bed in their room. Yet, where do they elect to fall asleep, every nap, every night? Somewhere on the floor. With a pillow on top of them. When I look through the peephole I see an empty bed, and legs sticking out from pillows. Usually they have pulled every item out of their dresser and are lying on little nests of toddler clothes. I highly recommend, when it comes to parenting, not doing any research but rather, just doing whatever comes to mind. You end up with scenes like I just described.

Back to the tornado story. We all managed to get downstairs. Jack woke up in the process, but happily. He is perfect. The twins were crying. Standard. 

I turned on the boys’ Kidsongs singalong, then realized I should turn on the news, and find out where the funnel is headed. That brief interruption caused more crying. I ran up and grabbed our battery-less lantern. More crying. And I suddenly realized I was really back where I started, the day of that first siren, wholly unprepared. We have no food, no water. The diaper box down here is empty. Of course it is. I still don’t know when you “come out”. The only thing we do have down here now, are toys. Which lead me to this. 

For the next three years that we live in this tornado-ridden state, I will be subject to these storms. The safe haven and solution, is the basement. Our basement functions as a giant playroom. If a tornado were to tear through our house, I will be found dead, impaled, by a colorful variety of toys. 

I will be dead, in my pajamas, with toys embedded in my body.  

May this blog post serve as a last request. Please let the announcement of my death read: “She was killed tragically, by a train. Several trains, actually. Thomas, Gordon, and Percy, to be specific.”

A short while later I learned the siren was a test, that they test every first Wednesday of the month, and I woke my kids up for nothing. 

You know, all I want in this world, is to drink my coffee while its still warm. Just once. Death by toys, fine. Its pleasant enough, I guess. Just let me drink hot coffee beforehand. Please God.