The Storm

I awoke to thundering booms, flashes of light, and a downpour around 3:30 this morning. The storm was here. Thankfully Jake had woken up when the rain started and shut the few windows we had left open. I sleep like a rock and not much wakes me when I'm out cold.

This morning, all that was left of the storm was an overcast sky, puddles on the street, and soggy cardboard boxes next to the neighbor's recycling. We had a 9 am infant appointment in the child center for Hannah at the gym and a few errands to run afterwards. Keith, my go-to weatherman, was predicting rain to start up again in the afternoon so the race was on to get everything accomplished and home before we got wet.

Alas, Keith let me down. The afternoon storms never arrived and the rain that was supposed to carry on into the night today seems highly unlikely as I see the sun in the sky. However, we decided to create our own storm today.

The kidlets and I arrived at the gym at 9:10. I had the stroller out, the car seat snapped on to it, the olders unbuckled and standing near the van. I reached into the van to pull out my gym bag with my change of clothes. I then reached for the diaper bag. Except that there was no diaper bag. I had left it at home in the garage next to the spot where my gym bag had been as I had to load my clothing into that bag.

Crap. While the diaper has yet to be needed while at the gym, the bottle was also in the bag. Could the baby survive 2 hours without a bottle? Not likely. Back into the van went everything: kids, gym bag, stroller. 15 minutes later we unloaded again a few rows further from the door. I got the kids dropped off and went upstairs to exercise.

Seventeen minutes into my interval training on the treadmill, I heard the page system fire up. "Would Alissa Wendorff please return to the child center?" Great, I thought, someone needs something. It was Carter, who needed a wiping in the bathroom. I returned upstairs and finished my running. A quick shower later and I was there with 5 minutes to spare on the time I needed to pick Hannah up.

We took our storm cloud of chaos to Target, where the kidlets proceeded to ask if they could have everything in the dollar section. Three jump ropes and three ring toss games and we were able to make our way on to the first item on the list. One meltdown over who got to carry the graham cracker dog biscuits and we were finally able to get home.

We hunkered down for a shower this afternoon but the only storm clouds that hovered near our house were the ones from the girls who didn't want to nap. Ellie's was due to not wanting to lay down with Ava so Ava would go to sleep. Ava's was after Ellie actually fell asleep but decided she didn't want to sleep herself. Finally all little people were asleep in the house and I was able to get some things done.

Now we are heading outside to enjoy a few more minutes of evening light before bedtime. I won't count on there being rain tomorrow and plan lots of activities. Since I was prepared to be stuck inside today and had no rain, if I plan as much as possible for tomorrow, there will probably be rain. I just can't win. I'm also going to find a new weatherman.