Eye of the storm

There were some rather large, intense storms in the city today. It's been storming practically every day for a week now, but the last few days have been primarily at night.

Today, they were predicting severe storms for this afternoon. Of course, knowing full well it was going to rain, I decided to fill up the old wading pool for Jack because of the stifling heat and humidity. I figured we could squeeze in some wading after naptime.

Jack decided to sleep a little later than normal, so I was hustling him outside to the water shortly before the red blob of storm death and destruction was to close in on us. He was having a good time, and Josh stuck his head out the door to ask something about the window guy who was scheduled to come to the house, and then he went back upstairs to work.

About 10 minutes later, I thought it seemed darker than it had in previous minutes. The wind was picking up, but no drops had started yet. So I went to the door to ask Josh to come out and carry Jack upstairs.

The door wouldn't open. That would be because it was locked. My husband, bless his heart, locked me and his son out in the storm.

I start banging on the door and ringing the doorbell and banging some more. But Josh is all the way upstairs in the back of the house. Jack is standing in his pool looking at me with a scared look, frozen to the spot with his bucket poised in midair. The winds are really picking up now and the rain is coming down in hurricane sheets. I have never seen it just start to rain this hard, this fast.

For a moment, I actually consider flipping the pool over and taking cover under it, underneath the porch steps. But I realize it is full of water and weighs about 11 gazillion pounds and there is no way I can do this. My next thought is the pizza place down the block. But I have no shoes, and Jack is only wearing a swim diaper, so "No shirt, no shoes, no service" pretty much covers us.

So I go back to Jack and as he starts to freak out, I hug him and I hear the door open and Josh is looking rather sorry. He apologizes profusely, while I am yelling, "Just grab Jack and take him inside!"

Jack is now laughing like this is the funniest thing he's ever seen and I am soaking wet from head to toe.

We find out later the wind gusts were clocked at 60 mph in our neighborhood and the storms downed trees and power lines all over the city.

I felt like one of those weatherpeople on the news, broadcasting from the eye of the hurricane.