Strong Childhood Flashback...

Simon up the tree before the wake
 of the storm. 

When I was a kid I remember the scream of the siren when there was a tornado...no wait, we didn't have sirens when I was little...it was the scream of my mother shrieking..."Tornado, Tornado, Get to the basement..." and we would be jerked from our bed and hurried downstairs with mom.  Dad?  Well, like all good men from Kansas, he was outside looking at the sky with my mom screaming..."Russell! Russell! You get down here!"

When Steve and I got married, tornadoes were terrifying to me.  Once after about 2 weeks of marriage, Steve was working and a police car came through our trailer court announcing: "Evacuate!  Evacuate! You must seek shelter!" By this time we had sirens and so with the sirens going in the background and this announcement, fear rose quickly.

Then, fast forward to having children of our own.  I didn't want them to have the same irrational fear of tornadoes so when there was a HINT of a possible storm, We would go to our basement and sleep down there.  Then if there was a tornado, we would be in place.  I think that my kids do not have the same irrational fear of tornadoes that I do...I will have to ask them.

Mazie at the park with her
favorite dog that she
petted in the park that day.

So, last night when the sirens went off in Omaha, I was ripped from sleep and I became my mother.  I am not the most coherent person when awakened at any time in the night...add a siren and it was comical in retrospect.  Shrieking at Steve, "Tornado!", I proceeded to stumble out of bed and hit the bed at the same time.  I grabbed the dog's collar because, face it, Lacy wouldn't get up unless pulled.  Pulling the 50 lb. dog and continuing to shriek, I ran into Simon's room.  "Get to the tornado shelter.  We need to go downstairs."

I was thinking that Steve had gotten Mazie and realized her door was still shut.  She wakes up like Nana in the middle of the night.  So, picture me dragging the dog by the collar, room by room, shrieking and I burst into Mazie's room. 

Gather the troops.  Down we went.  Into the "ROOM" and we dragged in a feather bed.  There we were. We ALL SAFE!  Wait! Roll call!  Mazie...physically present!  Simon...yep, he is here!  Lacy...oh yes we all know she is here because she has taken up a huge spot on the feather bed and is growling if anyone moves... Who is missing?  STEVE?  STEVE? Oh, he is out watching the TV.  He has moved Jon's car into the garage.  So, to keep the children calm...I continue to shriek!!!  My mom would have been proud of me.  Betsy on the other hand might fire me as a babysitter.

Now I know that Boys Town has rules!  So how do we get out of here?  Who tells us we can leave?  Oh, Steve did because he came in and said, "oh, the TV said it was over."  So, we all traipse back up stairs and off to bed.  Mazie wants me to sleep with her and be near the window.

Another friend that she found at the park before the fated
night.

As I was lying in bed and praising God for His protection once more.  I also realized that I am really only a couple of steps away from my mother.

As a PS to this evening: There were 2 highlights of the night. One was when Mazie began to cry...a natural response given the above description...and said, "but Nana, I haven't had breakfast yet."  (Miss Mazie has an internal food schedule!  And in all situations...that is the first thing on her mind.)  Once upstairs, she began to cry again, she couldn't see her bird feeder and what were the birds going to eat.  So in the midst of the chaos and the blaring sirens, normalcy comes from a little child.