Lightening Bugs

It didn't take long into the new year for our first round of storms and tornado sirens.  And I swear the weather gods ONLY wreak havoc when Grant is out of town. The other night the tornado sirens went off around 2:30am (and considering last New Years homes were torn to shreds not 2 miles from our house, we take that shiz seriously around here now). So I grabbed Ryan and Reese and we made our way to the basement.  Ryan dressed for the occasion in the blue tutu she opted to wear to bed.  She was full of questions, Reese was only concerned with laying her head on my shoulder with her blankie.  I thought I might get some opposition for turning on the TV to watch the weather reports but Ryan got all serious on me and said "mom, we'd better watch the weather".  As Grant later put it when I relayed the story, she is a girl after my own heart with her love of Doppler and all things radar related.  The sirens came and went, all was 'safe' so we went back to bed.  Ryan, of course, camped out in my room. About an hour later I could hear Reese calling my name (she NEVER wakes up in the middle of the night) so I went to get her and Ryan, out of a dead sleep, was on my tail about 2 seconds later asking "do we need to go back in the basement?" - as if I was going to leave the girl high and dry to fend for herself.  My heart.  I brought Reese in with us (a first.....and a last) although the comic relief at 4:15am was worth the lack of sleep.  Somewhat. Ryan laid there in the dark explaining to Reese what had happened "Reesey, the weather is bad, very bad, so bad it could make you want to cry".  Then the sky opened up again for round 2 and we had a light show and loud thunder.  Naturally Reese 'oooohhhhed and awwwwwwed' at all the thunder and clapped at the lightening.  She doesn't scare easily.  And Ryan questioned me about hail, "what is it?" - I told her how it was frozen rain, like little pieces of ice hitting the window (side note, I am already getting stumped by her questions sometimes, where did my college education go?) and she turns to me very matter of factly and says "that's just like my book, Leo the Lightening Bug, they're making lots of lightening so that we can all go ice skating tomorrow".  This continued until 5:15am when I quickly realized that the three of us in bed together was never going to equate to sleep.   Up we were and downstairs we went.  Ryan straight to the door to see if she could go ice skating.   Darn those lightening bugs for not erecting a rink in the backyard.

5:15am. Notice the good parent in me had by this time advised my ballerina to throw on some pants and a shirt.
Needless to say, naps were on the agenda that day and mom was in bed by 9pm that evening.