Tornadoes and Business Travels

Thankfully, my husband has not had to do a lot of business travel (Gift #591) since changing jobs six years ago, although he did commute over an hour each way until we recently moved.  His days were long at work and often followed by extended rehearsals at church, but we could at least expect him to be home in time to put the kids to bed.

All of a sudden and out of the blue, his job responsibilities changed somewhat at work, so now he has to travel a bit more regularly.  This last trip fell right after he had been gone all weekend for a Y Guides retreat with our son.  The back-to-back trips are harder because there isn't enough time between them to reconnect and turn over the reins before he leaves again.

While he was gone this last time, I made the following observations:

1) When he is here, I laugh at storms, flash flood warnings, and tornado threats having absolutely no fear. When he is not here, and I am in charge of protecting the kiddos, I become an alarmist making storm preparations that could rival those of residents living in central Oklahoma or Arkansas.

2) He is the stabilizer of our family, bringing balance and peace into chaos, for his very name means "peace".

3) No matter what time zone he is in, I will stay up until it's bedtime wherever he is to tell him goodnight over some mobile device.

4) Absence makes the heart grow DESPERATE when active little offspring manage to wear this mama out.

5) I cannot be in two places at once. We need more margin in our family's schedule so that two different cab drivers are not so often in demand.

6) While I am usually cynical about all things sappy, idealistic, or romantic, if you ask me about him while he is gone, my response could be a country song.

7) I pray for single parents almost without ceasing when he is away, for what they do in each given day is nothing less than supernatural.

8) The blessing of being married to a Godly man brings with it the temptation to rely too much on him instead of putting all my trust in the Lord. Only God can sustain us, save us, perfectly love us, wholly satisfy us, and never forsake us. May we put all our trust in the Lord who will establish and strengthen us and do ever so much more than any man can do or imagine. (2 Chronicles 20:20)

-------------------------------------

When your kids seem to be up to no good with yet another sneaky scheme, they may actually be preparing a thoughtful care package to send love and cheer to their daddy during his business trip.  I only wish I had thought to do the same.

------------------------------------- 

I've often read about how the oldest son in a family was suddenly thrust into the role of "man of the house" while still yet a boy because his father was away at war or on business, or perhaps died too young. Our 7-year-old filled that role last week by admonishing me with these words: "You really should get some rest. Sleep is far more important than doing chores."

That boy is smooth, I tell you, but despite his caring sentiment, he did not schmooze his way out of doing his own chores that night. But the chore assignments here do seem to be having the desired effect because our boy recently asked, "Can we PLEASE eat on paper plates today because I am so tired of doing dishes?"

He is learning that with a little imagination, chores can be fun.  When I asked him to water the newly planted trees, his 7-year-old mind thought he heard me say, "Go save the world by blasting those tall, green, evil ninjas with several hundred rounds from the water gun with the long green hose attached to it."

-------------------------------------
My man was born and bred in Oklahoma, so he knows how to prepare for a storm, and he is especially familiar with tornadoes.  When tornadoes have spun all around us in past years, he was there and God is always on the throne, so I did not panic.  While friends a few miles away were having their roofs torn off by a tornado, our son was sleeping peacefully on the sofa while I baked bread and my daughter read books.  We were all perfectly calm while my husband carefully tracked the storms.  I haven't had much experience with tornadoes so my lack of concern was naive.

I did live through the 500-year flood that ravaged Opelika, AL during the summer of 1994 when I worked there for Procter & Gamble as an engineering intern.  I traded steel toed boots and safety goggles I would have normally worn on my job for hip boots as we spent much of the summer cleaning out homes that were completely destroyed by the floods.  Since that experience, flood warnings get my attention.

Rainwater flowing nicely away from the house

The weather predictions while my husband was traveling on business last week were scary with both tornado and flash flood watches.  I saw video images of the devastation in Arkansas and grew nervous, for the forecasters kept saying to run to the basement because tornadoes were coming our way.  My husband always wanted a basement (he is from Oklahoma after all), and the reason we chose this subdivision was because it was half filled with basement lots, but in the end after losing well over six figures on our last house, we had to ditch the basement from our budget.  When I saw the weather reports, I almost coveted my neighbors' basements, for I was in charge of keeping my kids safe, and my husband wasn't here.  Then God's peace, that marvelous peace that passes all understanding, began to seep back into my heart (Gift #592).  I realized that the news outlets were exaggerating for whatever reason, be it out of a fear of lawsuits or out of a desire to drive up number of site hits.

By the time I realized the odds were in our favor, the kids were stoked over the idea of sleeping in the closet.  So even as peace calmed me, the storm preparations continued with the kids. They managed to squeeze two thermal sleeping bags, a bunch of books and a Bible, flashlights, five blankets, there water bottles, more stuffed animals than they can count, pillows, and themselves into the coat closet.  The put a stack of boxes between them so they could each have separate sleeping quarters. The only flaw in their plans is that they left no room for me!   Obviously, they have never experienced a tornado, for they had entirely too much fun with the threat (Gift #593).  My daughter slept there all night long, but my son retired to his comfy bed around midnight.

During my childhood, our family dog was so afraid of thunder storms that he would shred apart our screen door to get inside during a storm. At least once when he couldn't get inside our house, he ran into our neighbor's house, jumped into her bed, and hid under her brand new bedspread. Since bunnies are prey animals who tend to be more skittish than dogs, I wondered how our new pet rabbit would react to thunder storms. He was lounging in the exercise room with me today when a loud thunderstorm came through. Surprisingly, he barely moved with each loud thunder boom. So I assumed our alpha buck wasn't afraid until I found a long trail of at least 50 bunny poop pellets behind him. He is usually litter trained, so my guess is that the thunder scared the poop out of him, but he was simply too macho to act like it.