The 21st Century SAHM

 

There aren’t many “easy” parenting days, but there are those that are more mundane than others. Maybe nobody bled profusely, or nobody pooped himself, and you didn’t lose a kid. You know, a regular day. And then there are more dramatic days. Day 1 of the stomach flu. Packing for a vacation. Someone broke the I-Pad.

But once in a while, you have a day of fear as a parent. True, real, chilled to the bone, fear.

Tonight, I had a scare. A real down-in-the trenches parenting scare. I was getting ready to grill some chicken and corn when the rain hit. Well, crap. Looks dinner will be modified, I thought. And then the weather alert sounded: flash flood warning. Thunderstorms. Yuck. Might be a long night. The big kids were upstairs playing and the toddler was under my feet “helping” me in the kitchen.

But then there was another weather alert. Now, here in Kansas, we have “tornado watches” so regularly that many of us don’t pay them too much attention. But not many things grab me in the gut like a “tornado warning.” That means one is here. On the ground. And we need to take cover fast.

I shouted to the big kids, who have been trained as to the severity of a tornado, to get downstairs immediately. “Get down here now! There’s a tornado!”

My 6-year old came down quickly, excited, but handling himself okay. My 4-year old lost her marbles quickly. She was overwhelmed, and all she could sputter through her hysterics was, “My friends are in my room! What if the house blows away?” (How could I tell her that her her 58-piece stuffed animal collection was the least of my concerns if, in fact, our house “blew away”?)

And even the toddler seemed to understand. Usually a defiant do-exactly-the-opposite-of-what-my-mother-says 2-year old, he got right in line. We rushed down into our basement, and I assessed the information as quickly as I could on my phone.

We’ve been in the basement before for tornado warnings, but usually they are miles and miles away, so hunkering down is more of a precaution. The kids run and play a bit and we are back upstairs within a half hour. Not tonight. When I pulled the radar up on my screen, I saw red. Shit. I corralled the kids into a corner, covered them with pillows and blankets, and called the husband. He was driving home, through tornado sirens, torrential rain, and constant lightening, trying to get to us as quickly as possible.

We heard the tornado sirens outside our house. We heard constant booms of thunder. Rain pounded the walls around us. And there they sat, all in a row, looking at me. Three pairs of innocent eyes, frightened, looking at Mommy for comfort. Needing Mommy to say it was going to be okay. But the truth was that Mommy was scared to freaking shit.

On the phone with my husband, he said, “You need to be calm for them. I see one right now. I see a funnel cloud. I am going to do my best.”

I yelled at him that he needed to pull over, but I knew he wouldn’t. I knew he wouldn’t stop until he was home. And I needed him home. We all did. We needed Daddy’s calm wisdom at at time of crisis. Daddy would swoop in and tell funny stories and make everything okay.

I felt tears well up as I looked at those three sets of terrified eyes, more and more nervous with each passing boom. More and more nervous as they saw Mommy’s scared face. But Mommy needed to get it together and be a big girl now. She thought of the mothers of Moore, Oklahoma and of Joplin, Missouri. How brave they must have been, clutching their babies as the world came down around them. So this Mommy, with her heart beating out of her chest, found a bit of courage and told her kids a story to keep them calm. She told them a story of three little bears who were caught in a loud storm. They had to snuggle under a blanket and be very brave, but everything turned out okay in the end.

A few minutes later, husband arrived home safely. And 30 minutes later, the horribleness was over. Our house didn’t blow away. Those three sets of scared eyes are now closed, peacefully asleep, upstairs in their beds.

I had to step up tonight and be a grown up. Hiding my fear as I read “take cover!” and “tornadoes spotted in your area” so as to protect my kids was not easy. I wanted to crawl under the blanket with them, close my eyes, and wait until it was all over. But instead, I covered them up and laid on top of them and told them the story of three little bears in a storm.

Just like my three little bears were tonight, with one scared Mommy, wrapping her arms around all of them, praying for strength. Praying they didn’t see just how scared she actually was.