Might As Well Be A Shoe Box

So I was reminded this morning by a friend on fb that I am indeed in tornado season. Tornado season can be scary I'm sure even when you live in, uh let's see, a regular brick house in Texas. But its a whole new level when you live in a freaking flimsy 24 foot camper! I am learning that fire warnings and high wind warnings are pretty much an every day thing here in West Texas. I am not in agreement with this! We moved here in August of 2010, where I quickly learned exactly what a, "high wind" warning was and how high they get! For instance when its blowing 60 mph it really feels like a 100 mph. When my camper is moving around like it has the stomach flu, it does not feel safe! I repeat Does Not Feel Safe! I learned how to gaither personal items, kids and dogs and kinda gently throw them into my Ford Explorer. After going thru a fire, mold infestation, and uh well I don't feel like being in my camper if it decides to blow over. Plus I most certainly do not want to be in the shower fo sho! This wind and tornado season though, I will learn from last years vacating experiences. First and for most, don't leave at the drop of a hat, secondly don't freak the kids out, thirdly don't lose the dog, oh yeah and last but not least, make sure your vehicle has gas! I could go through greater detail on all the hysterical things we grab when vacating and how we react, but you might die of laughter. This tornado season I will not be leaving so quickly, as it can totally rearrange ones day, we will practice calmly gathering items that make sense and not injuring a child mentally or physically when loading the vehicle. Really though I am most certainly dreading tornado season!

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Bedtime

How do I even begin to write all that goes into bedtime preparation when living in a camper trailer with 3 children? First there are the breathing treatments with the nebulizer for all 3 kiddo's! Its a chorus of nebulizer machines, because those things are NOISY! Also a good 45 minutes is needed to get everyone set for bed, especially when putting both Pulmicort and Xopenex into the nebulizer. (I have become quite good at spelling and understanding medical jargon.) Then there is the whole pajama thing. Emerald's are in her medium sized red duffel bag, Chloe's are in a clear storage container with a blue lid, and Trey's small black duffel bag is on top of Chloe's container. Their cloths, I might add are extremely frustrating to get to at times depending on the traffic of bodies! OK, now back to the process of bedtime. After they have clean underpants put on and jammies, then the part that Nate and I like to pass back and forth is; the teeth cleaning. I hate supervising the children during their nightly teeth rituals! I don't know why I do, but I strongly dislike it! After all that I think the best part of bedtime is putting them IN bed. As you have probably figured out we are in a small camper, we have one double bed to 5 people, oh and the little couch that folds into a bed. The couch bed is bigger than a single bed, but not as big as a double bed and certainly not as comfortable as either one. Anyway, we put the kids in the "bedroom" on the double bed as close to 8:pm as we can. We put Chloe and Trey up at the head of the bed and Emerald across the bottom. Then starts the battle of actually getting 3 kids to fall asleep in the same bed. It is a battle! Delicately put, they get "disciplined," during this time. After they have FINALLY fallen asleep Nate and I can hopefully have at least an hour of quiet time. But OF course there is one last thing we have to do before Nate and I can go to bed. Move all 3 children from our bed to the couch bed. After we make the couch bed up, we place Emerald at one end and Chloe and Trey at the other in such a way that their feet and leggs touch. I won't lie I feel bad for how my little ones have to sleep, especially Emerald who has complained about not being able to stretch out. Hope

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