Warnings

Warnings come in all shapes and sizes, in all levels of severity. We definitely learned that in the past 24 hours!

Yesterday morning, Carter's only concern for the day was his sports physical that evening. And yes, he was concerned. I might go so far as to say he was even fretting a bit. Why? Well, Daddy had warned him about the "turn your head and cough" bit. But Carter laughed it off. Then, when he realized that Daddy was serious, he was a bit anxious about the unknown.

Yes, even little warnings said in good humor can make a person anxious.

Throughout the workday, we heard about severe storms hitting various parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and knew they were heading our way. We'd been warned and had an emergency plan in place at work if we needed. Thankfully, we didn't need it. There was a lot of dark skies and raining going on, big time, but nothing too severe.

On our way home, though, we heard (and saw) we were heading into some wicked weather. They said on the radio that we (where we live outside Rapids) were in a severe thunderstorm warning. A few minutes after we got home, we heard the sirens go off. Well, our area's policy is that the sirens sound any time there is a warning -- whether it's for severe thunderstorm or tornado. I quickly turned the TV on and, wouldn't you know it, it had advanced a level to a tornado warning!

So the 3 of us headed down to the basement to eat supper and watch the TV. I guess part of me wasn't thinking it was going to be a real tornado because all I grabbed was my new Twins purse and my new camera. That's it.

While we were watching the scary radar, we were wondering if we were going to get Carter into town in time for the doctor's visit. Not that Carter would have minded delaying it. But as soon as it looked as if the storm had lightened up a bit, Jim took Carter and they left. I kind of freaked when Carter hugged me and said something like, "Well it was nice knowing you." Don't do that!

Of course, minutes after they left, I heard a tornado had touched down by Rapids. Not sure where, but thank God they didn't drive into that going into town!

As it turned out, neither warning were anything that we had to worry about.

We didn't get any storm damage at our place (though many had downed trees). And, Carter was actually giddy when he got home from the doctor. Turns out he's only 3/4 of an inch away from being 5 feet tall, which means he's only 2 3/4 inches away from being my height.

I've been warned!