Storm cell and tornado in our town.
Photo credit: TornadoHunter.com
This is an all encompassing story, so I'm going to start at the beginning to help show the complete chaos that was last week/weekend.
My mother was going to be taking a trip to Texas to surprise her mother for Mother's Day. It was a very last minute trip she booked at the request of her father. On Wednesday night, my mom texted me a picture of her mother, my Nanny, to send to our church for a special mother's day photo sharing we were going to have on Sunday. I saw the picture of Nanny and texted mom back, "I wish I was going to Texas with you." Her reply, "You should come." Yada yada yada... about an hour later I had booked a ticket for myself and my two boys to fly to Texas Friday morning and return Sunday evening. Then, life happened.
On Thursday, I took Charlie to the doctor because he had been sticking his fingers in his ears and I wanted to make sure he didn't have an ear infection before we got on the plane. The boy had an ear infection. Antibiotics were prescribed. We were still going to fly.
In the meantime, on Thursday my mother called me and said she had a pretty adventurous morning. Long story short, she was having some heart racing episodes at a routine doctor's appointment Thursday morning. They gave her some meds and said if they continue in the afternoon, go to the ER. They continued and off to the ER she went.
I was faced with a dilemma on whether I should start packing all our stuff or not. I don't want to waste an entire naptime on packing if I'm just going to have to unpack it all later...! Obviously...
Back and forth we went until it was decided that mom wasn't going to make the journey to Texas. Who wants to be on a plane and start having a heart racing episode. Not me. Not my mom. We all cancelled our flights and proceeded into a "normal" weekend at home. By normal, I mean Charlie pooped all day for most of the weekend. Including, in the bathtub and up his shirt the next morning. The blog IS called Poop and Hiccups. There's a place for it here.
Saturday, Charlie was a bit fussy and needing his momma. After naptime, we played outside for a while and Charlie was great. We came inside from playing and I noticed Charlie was really wheezy sounding and having retractions - you could see the spaces between his ribs when he was breathing - it was all very labored. Seth came home for the night and I told him I needed to take Charlie to the ER to get checked out. Off we went. Seth told me to keep an eye on the weather. Yes. Will do.
As I headed to the ER, I heard from my mother that there was a tornado warning for Waverly and she was in the basement. All by herself. I prayed (and maybe cried a little) all the way to the hospital.
Charlie and I had our adventures in ER that included an RSV test, chest x-ray and breathing treatment. This was all great fun with my anti-doctor baby. As we sat waiting for results, the loud speaker clicked on "CODE BLACK. CODE BLACK. CODE BLACK. TORNADO WARNING. BEGIN SEVERE WEATHER PROCEDURE." "Ughhhhh now I'm going to have to go sit in the middle of the hospital with my ticked off baby while we have a 'tornado warning'"...., said my head.
We were moved to Ambulatory Care and Charlie and I got comfy in our hospital bed to wait out the warning. In the meantime, I received a text from Seth saying there was a tornado on the ground around John Deere in Marshall and was moving East. Excuse me....!? Seth informed me that he and Wyatt were in the cellar. After a good period of time I started getting several texts and calls from local friends and family asking how we were. Most of them hadn't been able to get ahold of Seth. Ohmygoodness. Long story long... Seth and Wyatt were fine. Though it was decided we needed alternate storm shelter as the doors nearly blew off while Wyatt and Seth were in the cellar...
Finally, Charlie and I were allowed to leave after he was diagnosed with Bronchiolitis. I spoke with Seth on the way home as he was taking Wyatt over to his parents so then he could go check on some friends and assess the damage in the area. We didn't have power at our house so we decided I should pack up the boys and head to my mom's for the night.
Finally, by 10:30 that night, I had arrived with my boys at my mom's house. Wyatt was so brave in the cellar but a little shaken up when we had gotten to mom's - probably amplified by the time of night and his exhaustion. I got the boys to sleep and waited for Seth to arrive. Finally, after midnight, we all crashed.
Now, an exerpt from my Facebook post after I had finally settled on Saturday night:
"I don't know how to interpret all of the changes in plans and direction and why each of us were put where we were tonight... it was a madhouse for all of us but we are thankfully all safe and all those near us are safe as well. God is always with us, but he has been steering me and my family all over the place these last few days. All for a reason."
It was absolutely crazy. It was a Mother's Day weekend for the books. But we were all safe and comfortable. Then, the power went out in Waverly.
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