Storm in the Night

Much of the country is getting this crazy low-pressure front yesterday and today.  Well.  For us it has meant very strong winds both yesterday and today as well as a fierce storm last night that wreaked havoc on our sleep.  There's just nothing like being woken at 2 am by screaming wind (which was saying something because it was so windy when we went to bed, it had to be quite the increase to wake us up!).  Shelly and I literally jumped out of bed with Shelly racing to close the window on his side.  As soon as his window was closed, rain pelted the panes through the screen.  David came running into our room, as he is PETRIFIED of storms.  Side story: We had three tornado warnings the first week we lived in Missouri, and he was forever ruined for enjoying storms.  He didn't even want to go outside on cloudless sunny days that summer we moved here (which was fine by me in my state of advanced pregnancy), but sadly, he hasn't improved that much -- he WANTS to watch the weather channel.  It's weird. 

Anyway, back to last night.  The weather station informed us that we would be under a tornado watch for the next FOUR HOURS.  Really!?!?  We felt like we had to move everyone to the basement to be truly responsible parents.  Dude.  We should have been negligent.  We set up the pack'n'play in the guest room in the basement, got blankets for the couches for the boys and moved both boys and Kathleen down.  Big mistake.  Kathleen fussed off and on for a good 10 minutes while I shushed her from the guest bed, three feet away.  Then the water softener, located just the other side of the guest room wall began its recharging cycle it does each night, and it's LOUD.  I need to change that -- my poor guests for the last year...  So, needless to say, not much sleeping occurred.  Finally about quarter after three, Kathleen stood up in the pack'n'play and started babbling.  Shelly and I decided it was time to move back upstairs as the wind was still fierce, but had calmed down considerably since the rain stopped.

Back upstairs, I put Kathleen back in her bed (we had left the boys on the basement couches), and Shelly and I climbed back in bed.  After being up for over an hour, it took me quite some time to fall back asleep.  Then at some point David showed up again.  I promptly told him to get into his bed and go back to sleep, and that there weren't going to be any more storms (I had no idea if this was true, but OMG, PLEASE LEAVE ME BE!!!!!).  After that, I kept having these crazy dreams that I was in labor.  Yes, like, I was having a baby.  About 5 am I was bolt awake wondering why I was dreaming something so weird when I wasn't even pregnant, when I realized: I have HORRIBLE, AWFUL menstrual cramps.  I traipsed back to our kitchen for some 800 mg Ibuprofen leftover from the birth of one of my children.  By this point I actually considered getting up and going running and abandoning all hopes of sleep, but I couldn't bear the thought of no more sleep, so I climbed back in bed for the third time.  I have better nights of sleep with a newborn baby.  Around 6 am, I woke up to Shelly kissing me goodbye and telling me that he never did really get back to sleep when we came upstairs after the storm.  I lay there feeling a bit sorry for him since he's on call today, and will potentially be up all night tonight wrestling epidurals and emergency appendectomies, then called it quits for sleep and got up for the day at 6:20 am.  The kids will be going to bed EXTRA early tonight. 

Moral of the story:  unless it's a tornado warning, don't wake anyone up.