Close Call

That's what I'll call the events of Hurricane Rita for those of us in the original path...a close call. Our department closed down a little before 3 PM on Thursday and the University closed on Friday for hurricane preparations. Matt had worked a 24-hr shift on Wednesday and got home early Thursday morning with the intent of packing things up and putting them in a climate controlled storage facility. However, they had run all night during their shift and he kept watching the storm path and decided against that, thankfully so, now. That would have been so much work for nothing (but we didn't know that at the time). I wasn't sold on the idea, but was behind whatever he wanted to do...my thoughts...we have homeowners insurance for a reason, right? They sent him home with some O2 tanks to fill up, so without an official decision on them wanting him to come back, we took that to mean that they did.

After watching the storm track all day Thursday morning, by mid-day we finally make the decision that Kellen and I will go to Uncle Eddie & Aunt Glenda' s in Rockdale. We don't think that I'll hit much traffic going that route (and I know some back roads that no one else will be taking), and it's a good direction away from the path of the storm, and after I find out my parents are going there, too, it's a great chance for Kellen to spend some time with his Pap Pa and Gramma...So Rockdale it is. We decide that I'll just get up and leave on Friday and not worry about taking off on Thursday, since there really isn't any reason to do so. Thursday night Matt decides to go ahead and go to the Aggie game, which is fine by me...I'm not feeling well and just need to take it easy. So Kellen and I watch some of the football game, which Kellen is just SO excited about.

"Go Aggies!" He yells to the TV as the game ensues. He sure loves Aggie football - well, almost any football, actually.

I let him stay up until 8:30 PM watching the game and then he'd just had enough and to bed he went. For being as tired as he was he really didn't put up too much of a fuss, which is unusual for him when he's overtired. Some would say that based on this, he would sleep in the next day, right? WRONG! My kiddo' just isn't hard-wired that way... Up and going maybe a half hour later than his usual time on Friday morning...but basically his normal time.

I packed up things and got ready to go on Friday morning while Matt ran some errands to get ready to go back to work. His goal - get Kellen and I off to Rockdale and then head to work...for a monster-sized shift. From whatever time he got there on Friday until Monday night at 6 PM. CRAZY!!! The only break was supposed to be for him to run home to check on the house before calling me to come home, but he ended up not doing that because one of the professors I work with checked on the house for me and called to let me know everything was OK on Saturday. Thanks & Thank God!!

My plan was to leave on Friday between 8-9 AM, and I ended up getting out the door by 9:45, which wasn't all that bad. I didn't hit any traffic on Hwy 21 to Caldwell and then it just stopped as I turned onto 36...so I busted a U-turn and went down the backroad FM 908..No traffic there, which is just as I thought! I made great time, and only had to slow down 4 times, 3 times to avoid hitting buzzards in the road - stupid birds that wouldn't fly away as I was coming - even when I honked at them.

"Too loud, Mommy. Mommy hit bird?"

"No Kellen, Mommy didn't hit the bird. I just honked at them so that they would move so I wouldn't hit them."

"Too loud, Mommy. No honk."

The 4th time was to avoid some monster-sized snake that was stretched from the side of the road to the center stripe - not kidding - I just went around that sucker...wasn't about to run over it! Love those back roads with zero traffic!

"Whoa Mommy!"

We made it to Rockdale before 11, and Kellen just had such a good weekend. He didn't act shy with Uncle Eddie or Aunt Glenda, and I can't remember when the last time was that he had seen them. But, he did remember the house! We drove up and he made a comment about a puppy that he had played with during one of our visits...It's amazing what sticks in his brain and what he remembers, because I swear that was almost a year ago...As for my parents, after a quick trip on Friday morning to the doctor for dad's blood pressure, which was WAY too high, new medicine, and getting their place ready for the storm, they head off to Rockdale as well and get in Friday afternoon.

All-in-all we had a good weekend. I was kicking myself because I didn't take more craft projects to work on in my spare time. I took Kellen's baby book and the pictures that I had already picked out and ordered to go in them...got them cropped, placed and put in the book (but I had that done on Friday before my parents even got there - how much time had I thought that project would actually take?). Now I just need to add some text in places and gather a few more event pictures and that book will be done - and how old is Kellen? Whew?!? I had contemplated taking some of the t-shirts for the t-shirt quilts that are lined up for me to work on - at last count I think there are 4, but that includes a high school and college quilt for me as well. I should have taken those with me and cut the squares out while I was there, but oh well! I really expected that it would be storming some, possibly with some power outages...Again, oh well! On a positive note - I was able to take a NAP - a long one, too - I think it was 3 hours or something crazy like that on Saturday afternoon. So maybe it was good that I didn't have projects to work on, because I would have felt like I needed to work on them and I wouldn't have let myself nap...which I'm sure that I needed.

Kellen made some great strides on the potty this weekend, peeing three times in it on Saturday night - once before and then once again after his basin-bath (translation: a lazy-mom's bath when there isn't a bathtub available and you don't want to get in the shower with the kiddo), then again after brushing his teeth - Way to go buddy!

Now Mommy really has to step it up in this area...He's telling me that he needs his diaper changed and doing so well on the potty - all of which means that I need to start working harder on the potty training. Up until this point I have been very laisse-faire with this event, albeit a milestone event, in his life. Now it looks like we need to go on a shopping trip and pick out some training undies (not pull-ups - because it doesn't bother him in the least to pee pee on Buzz Lightyear...), plastic training cover pants, and some big boy undies.

Question: Am I really ready for this?

Answer: NO!