J and C and Me

Yesterday I was faced with what I consider to be the worst choice ever….choosing between my two kids.

Okay, well, maybe that was a little melodramatic, but I was REALLY stressed out about it.

Around 2:30, I could hear the constant, distant rumble of thunder and I figured we’d be getting a storm sometime.

And at 3:00, it hit.  Really hard.  I mean, lots of close lightening, loud thunder, sheets of rain….the works.

So, I’m starting to freak out a little.  Jordan’s bus drops him off about 5 houses up the street (the closest that I could get the bus driver to come to our house) at 3:30.  I check out the radar and it really  looks like a little pop up storm.  Should be gone quickly.

But by 3:15 the power is flickering and I’m in full pacing around the house panic mode, trying to figure out which is worse…..letting my 10 year old make a break for it and pray he doesn’t get struck by lightening, or waking Celia from her nap and pray that we don’t get struck as I stand in the open and try to buckle the 45 different latches on her car seat.  I mean sure, I’d be the one to get struck, but since I’d be touching her car seat, she’d get shocked too.

Which is the bigger risk?

I had a few other options suggested to me….but I really don’t count them as viable.  The first…leave Celia sleeping and just go get him.  I know it’s just a few houses away, but if something happened to me (or something happened like the house caught fire) well, that’s just too much to think about it.  I just can’t do it.  The other….just throw her in the car and go, sans carseat.  Well, I’m I just keep hearing the whole “most accidents happen close to home” thing and that really wouldn’t be worth it.

So at 3:25, with the storm still raging, I come up with my brilliant plan.  I will go out on the sidewalk (you can’t see the corner from the porch due to enormously overgrown bush at the neighbor’s house) and leave the door open so I can hear if Celia wakes up.  When Jordan gets off the bus, I will yell at him to “go to the church” (there’s a large Catholic church on the corner with a big, safe overhang thing) until the storm has passed.

So I throw on a poncho (no way I’m standing out in the lightening holding a metal umbrella) and stand out in the deluge.  Ten minutes pass and no bus comes.  And it stops raining.  And the thunder and lightening disappear.   So I make my way back in the house and make some phone calls only to discover that the kids are just now leaving the school.  They don’t load buses in extreme lightening storms.

Well, I’m glad someone has the good sense that I seem to be lacking!