Escapé

We have an expert escape artist on our hands. I walked into his room to pick him up from a nap and found this scene:

 PJ, out of his crib and playing, haha! That night we took extra care to watch the sleep monitor camera and we saw him straddle the crib like a horse before flipping his leg up and over, landing on the floor. The little sneakster ;) He kept on repeating this feat over and over and so it was time for us to take the hint- it's time to move to a toddler bed! 

Luckily I had caught a toddler bed on sale for $30 months ago and so we had that on hand. We made a trip into Target for a sheet set and Viola! Behold the new sleeping arrangement!

He was a big fan. I like to walk into situations being pretty well armed with advice and other people's experiences, what worked for them, what to avoid, etc. So I was ready for anything this kid could throw our way that first night. I changed nothing from our bedtime routine, laid him into his toddler bed like no big deal, and left the room. He immediately got up and started playing, but returned after maybe 30 minutes and fell asleep. Easy-peasy. He even slept in until 8 and I had to wake him up, which almost NEVER happens. This kid would usually wake up at 6:30 and talk to himself until I get him at 7:00, but I am grateful I got to wake him up so I could get these cute pictures :)



It has been a couple nights now and I think the transition is pretty much done. He still plays for maybe 10 minutes out of his bed before returning to pass out on his pillow. I go in and cover him up and he's good until I go in at 7:00 the next morning and find him quietly playing with his blocks or cars. Hooray! 
Now for the next big BIG thing: potty training. That is going to be one intimidating mountain to climb and I think I'm going to wait until after all our summer plans. It may be an excuse to push it back a little bit and you may be right, haha. But we have a trainer potty in his bathroom so when he starts acting ready, then so will we be:)

Shelf Wall

I've been getting back into the groove of blogging again. I think I went into hibernation there during the winter, haha. But I was clicking through older posts of our college days and it was nice reading about the event from a memory that was fresh and still living it. Now we aren't climbing mountains, running races, and playing soccer all day every day anymore, but our life is memorable for other reasons. It encouraged me to keep it up- if not for other people then for ourselves down the line of life to look back and remember some of the smaller things that get lost. 

Tornado season is in full swing here in the midwest and its an exciting time of year. Have you ever known anyone from Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, etc that every time it rains they go on and on about how they miss the awesome storms from back home? That is me, and almost every Nebraska friend I know. And this is why:


The clouds are like nothing else. This is called the "shelf wall." It precedes the sudden rain and darkness of the storm. You can see a storm approaching and the shelf wall rolling in while still enjoying a beautiful sunny day. Then the air pressure changes, the air turns chilly with a light breeze, and as the clouds close over you (imagine Independence Day movie) the sun is blocked out and 3 o'clock in the afternoon looks like 10 at night. 


This storm was this last Sunday and, though it looks ominous, it brought only rain and some wind. Our power went out for an hour and a half and we were STARVING having just gotten home from three hours of church, that we just pulled the grill to the patio doors and grilled chicken from there so we could eat! Its amazing how non-nonchalant you can become about things that otherwise sound crazy to others in another region, haha. 


Now this was the following Tuesday. Ugly huh? Now let me distinguish two feelings of awe that a Midwesterner may feel in regards to the awesome clouds we get (not all of them storm clouds.) When the clouds are white and piled as high as you can see, resembling a mountain range (a mountain range!) in the sky; that is a majestic awe. High mountain ranges of cloud in contrast with the wide expanses of green field is enough to make you feel like an ant in the world. 
Then are clouds like this one below. That is an "oh ..........." sort of awe. A destructive, merciless, force of energy and pressure building up and moving across the plains like an animal. This was the following Tuesday and was only storm 1 of 5 coming from western Nebraska. I am so grateful Pablo was allowed home early that day. He came driving up just as I was packing up everything outside and this ugly storm reared its head to the north.  

It's true that the sky turns green before a tornado in most common cases. Can you see that pocket of green in the cell? It was pulsating with lightening and I, who am pretty fearless sometime (my husband would say reckless, haha), was glad to be out of that storm!

The first two storm cells passed JUST north of us. About 30 minutes driving. We got some cold winds and a light drizzle, but otherwise were untouched.
After we watched storm 1 move into Iowa from our porch we figured the worst had come and gone. Mexico was playing a friendly that evening at 8 so, feeling blessed that the great storm had side-stepped us by 15 miles, we decided to drive into Omaha ( a good 12 minutes) to get some Little Ceasars pizza. 
The Pizza Story
So the three of us piled into the car and started heading West on Dodge street, a major 3-lane road that leads into Omaha. Pablo and I live roughly on 228th and Dodge and Little Ceasars is located on 156th. We're driving along, heading East so we are essentially following the first storm, when the music stops and turns to the weather. Storm 2 was a lot closer than we thought. "It's just leaving Fremont ( thats 35 minutes away from our house) now and heading towards Valley ( about 10 minutes). Large hail and flash flooding associated with one as well as some rotation...." the weather caster tells us. Uh-oh. Rotation is not the word you want to hear. Pablo and I look at each other, then out the back window towards the northwest. It's pitch black. Pablo looks back at me "Uh, was this a good idea?". We're just passing under 168th and Little Caesar's is the next ramp off and so we make the decision. We are more than halfway at this point, why not? We pull into Little Caesar's and about five cars follow in after us. I tell the lady at the counter that they must be pretty busy for a Tuesday and she laughs and tells me they had empty warmers for 15 minutes because so many people were coming in! 
So we have our Hot n' Ready pepperoni and I run into the gas station next door for some spicy chips to eat during the Mexico game and then we turn our car onto Dodge, this time heading West. The sky is grey/white color and it's starting to drizzle, except for the NorthWest where it is just dark. For a moment I felt like it was "The Nothing", you know, from the Neverending Story? Haha, if you know you know ;) No one on Dodge is going the speed limit. It's supposed to be 65 mph and we were going 80 and still getting passed. We turn onto the country road that winds along the river and then to our subdivision. Just as we make it into our garage a downpour just breaks loose outside. We run to turn the TV on and see that Dodge, where we had just been driving to get our pizza, is pitch white because of the rain. There is no visibility and even the weather cam they had set up to show us traffic conditions showed nothing but a sheet of white rain. Just five minutes more and we would have been stranded, not being able to see where we were going or other vehicles. 


Yeah, we got home just in time. The cell brought Waterloo only rain and dark skies, but Omaha was hit repeatedly with hail and flash flooding. I cant believe we went out, haha. 
The third cell didnt develop until after us and numbers 4 and 5 followed their buddies on a more southly course, whipping us with their windy and rainy tails before moving into Lincoln, Nebraska. Waterloo was dark from 5:00 on and rained the rest of the night on and off with a great lightening show, but no warnings except for area flooding.

It was a crazy night for the eastern part of Nebraska and western Iowa however. Pablo and I were lucky that Waterloo was a spectator to all the action without any real damage. The cells had been seen developing the night before, so we had all Tuesday to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I repacked supplies and swept out our storm shelter. The last thing you want is to be sitting amongst spiderwebs during a tornado warning :/  I brought in the pool and even rolled the grill into the house. (hey, there were 90+ winds reported and that would have swiped that baby right off our porch!). 

So its been an exciting week so far. May I say though, nothing has beat the storm on Mother's Day that brought a tornado down just miles from us and took our power out for 10 hours. I'm glad we went through that storm first, Pablo was broken in really well with that one, haha. It was a doozy! So these storms have been pretty easy to take. He was even standing outside watching them with all our neighbors like a natural Midwestener haha ;)