April is here! We are fully in spring. Which, in Dallas, means a few things..
Perfect, mild temperatures
Spring thunderstorms
Tornado season
There are things I like about living in North Texas. There are also things I don't like. I wish we had mountains, rivers, forests, natural lakes, or even some hills - something other than flat farm land and concrete. However, I have learned to live with this. The one thing that I still don't like is TORNADOES! They terrify me to the point of nightmares. I seriously think that when Peter and I have a house that I want to invest in a tornado shelter (people don't have basements here) just for the peace of mind it would give. If a tornado wants to cross paths with you, there aren't many things you can do to truly protect yourself and your family.
But, anyway...I will get to that later. Back to the good parts of spring.
April came in like a lamb so Peter and I took Max to enjoy some patio dining.
Within the past couple days Max has started crossing his feet like this. He does it in the car seat, while nursing, etc. I think it's stinkin adorable how he puts his foot inbetween his toes.
Peter on the patio at BJ's. Max fell asleep in his car seat so we had a half hour to enjoy each other's company without distractions. If only our food had come out quicker so that we could have eaten some if it too before Max woke up and was unhappy.
Dang socks! Max couldn't cross his feet exactly like he likes but he still had them crossed.
This is the view we have of Max sleeping on our baby monitor. It's got night vision which is awesome. Peter sets his phone up to view the monitor and it's on all night next to our bed. I check it every time I wake up to make sure Max is okay and still breathing. The green dot means that there's no motion detected. When it detects motion, the dot goes yellow. It doesn't check for a change in the motion detected but every few seconds which means if I watch the dot, in a few seconds it will go yellow and then back to green. This means he's sleeping and I am thus reassured that everything is okay and can go back to sleep without having to get up and check on him. There are times we lay in bed and just watch how sweet he is while sleeping.
Max playing on the toy laptop at Brittany's.
On the 3rd, it was a cloudy gloomy day. I went to Brittany's and had lunch/nursed Max just like normal and then went back to work. I got back to my office and heard someone outside my office mention something about tornadoes. My ears picked up and I eavesdropped to hear what was being said. They said something about a tornado touching town in Irving (roughly 20 miles from us) and heading towards Frisco. WHAT?! That's where I live! (I work on the far side of Plano almost in Frisco.) So I walk out of my office and try to find out what is going on. Apparently there is severe weather going on (how did I not notice this when I was just outside?!) and tornado watches are in effect. So I immediately pull up the awesome weather app on my phone that shows the Doppler radar and weather watches/warnings. Yup. Lots of red color across the DFW area and areas of warnings.
Hm....inside I start getting a little nervous.
I go back to my office and jokingly say perhaps my next meeting should be canceled since we are in a tornado warning. The co-workers attending my meeting unexpectedly agree. Crap, I was just joking but if they think it's serious enough that they go along with cancelling the meeting maybe this really is serious. Outside my office I hear someone say "Is that the tornado sirens going off" and someone else says "Yes, that's the sirens." WHAT!? The sirens are going off? Oh man.
At this point there's no way I can stay focused on work. I decide to leave work and go to Brittany's. She is super freaked by tornadoes plus I can't stay at work with sirens going off and knowing that Max is 10 minutes away without me with him. (Note to my readers - when you hear sirens going off, it really isn't a good idea to get in your car and drive somewhere. You really should get somewhere safe.) So I drive to Britt's while watching the skies the entire time hoping not to see a tornado.
When I get to Brittany's, the boys are all crying in the hallway and Joe is hanging out on the couch. She had grabbed the three of them and moved to her hallway where she doesn't have any windows and had covered them with a blanket when the sirens went off. The babies (Landen and Max) did NOT like that. Within a few minutes the sirens start going off at Brittany's again. It is much scarier at Britt's than at the office or home because her apartment is right by the siren so it's really loud and alarming. We spent a lot of time in the hallway, me nursing Max so he'd calm down, while we watched the radars on my phone and listened to the news on the television in the front room. Joe is just like Peter, he's not phased by all this. It doesn't affect him and he just keeps doing whatever he wants. (When I talked to Peter later in the day he said that he didn't change anything he was doing, like leave his office that has
a wall of windows.) Oh well - us girls and kids are going to play it safe and follow the advice of the experts and hopefully the boys don't regret taking it more seriously someday.
I found out later that about 5 minutes after I left the office, the entire building was put on lock down and they made all the employees go into bathrooms, stairwells, storage rooms etc for more than an hour. So I was glad I had left when I did because otherwise I would have been stuck there worrying. It was better to worry and know that at least Max and I were together. In the 2 1/2 yrs I have lived here, I don't think the office was ever put on lock down.
This continued for a few hours with the sirens going on and off and me trying to act calm and in control even though I was really freaked out inside. Eventually the weather passed and the warnings ended. We were lucky and nothing touched down within roughly 15 miles of where we were. Others were not as fortunate and they later determined at least 20 tornadoes touched down across North Texas with that storm.
I just don't like living where I have to worry about tornadoes!
Here's a picture of Max upset during the afternoon. I am sure he could feel my worry.
Yeah! We are okay!
Kisses from Max
