jaimalaya: Leap Day, you are dead to me. DEAD.

Well, I was all set to force upon you the story of one of my many, many crushes, an older gentleman, whom I loved unrequitedly (ha!) with abandon. (I’m not entirely sure that ‘whom’ is right. Should it be ‘who?’ What Up, English majors?)

But that entirely entertaining-to-no-one story will have to wait. I am currently in recovery. Yes, recovery. If you live anywhere near where I live, you are aware that we had a morning filled, FILLED with tornado warnings and watches and wind and rain. FILLED! I think at last count there were four warnings. Or five. But it doesn’t matter because the children and I did not leave the basement for TWO GODDAMN HOURS.

Holy hell, you guys. Now, my basement is not some cushy, television- and couch-filled, fun extravaganza. Nope. It’s a dark, unfinished, concrete-floored, full-of-dangerous crap, cold space. In other words, not childproofed.

We went down first from about 8:30 until 9, I think, which wasn’t too awful. I turned a show on the ipod for Sebastian and Adele just wandered around a bit. We came upstairs, and I had just enough time to fold a load of laundry that has been sitting in my dryer for three days, and then it was time to go back down to the basement. Now, if I’d known there would be tornado warning after warning, over and over again, maybe I would have packed a bag or gotten some snacks, or at least brought down the phone/ipod charger.

Cause the ipod that was keeping Sebastian entertained died real fast. And then it all went downhill. There was whining from both children. I spent the majority of the time keeping Adele from climbing back up the stairs, or keeping Adele from turning the radio off, or keeping Adele from knocking off the hundreds of beer bottles we have stacked on a shelf for Chris’ homebrew, or keeping Adele from breaking anything and everything in her path, and then keeping her from biting me or pulling Sebastian’s hair when she got mad at me for keeping her from doing something she wanted to do. (This age is so much fun, isn’t it?)

I guess Sebastian was feeling neglected that I wasn’t correcting him, so he started fussing and crying. I thought maybe singing together would calm everyone down, but I forgot that when he’s being his wonderful, grumpy self he wants no music of any kind on, be it on the radio or live from his mother. I attempted to sing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ to distract everyone from the whining Olympics that were threatening to take over, but he stopped that right quick.

Apparently, ‘That’s a bad song. All songs are bad. DON’T SING IT BECAUSE IT’S BAD.’

Oh – kay?

At this point we’d been down there for an hour and I was desperate for something to distract them. So I got out the dried beans. And a bowl. And said have fun, don’t bother me. As a result, of course, now the floor is covered with them, but I’m leaving them for my husband to take care of since he spent the entire tornado warning-time in a cushy hallway at work with adults and also the ability to lay down and cry on the floor if he chose to do so. I’m guessing he didn’t, but he could have, without permanently scarring his children.

I periodically ran upstairs to get snacks because I don’t know if you have children or not, but mine are super-extra grumpy when they’re hungry and follow me around whining at my feet until I give them food. So I grabbed whatever I could that was fast and our picnic took a few minutes of torture away, but didn’t last very long.

At one point I started wondering if maybe braving a tornado would be easier than what I was doing.

The debate is still out on that one.

That's when I texted Chris and told him I was going to need a large shot of vodka after this was over. He very helpfully reminded me that we have moonshine in the basement.

I refused to go back downstairs for the last tornado warning that popped up 30 minutes after we’d already emerged from the depths of hell. Actually, I refuse to participate in any more tornado warnings that happen today. That’s right. I REFUSE.

The children are currently in their beds and will stay there for awhile.

Here, have some pictures of my children torturing me in the basement. I’m tired and I’m going to go drown my sorrows in cheese.