Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Lightning Striking Again

And again and again and a--okay, you get the point. Did anyone in the Chicagoland area get much sleep last night? Because we sure didn't! The storm(s) started durng Luke's bedtime. I caught flashes of lightning through the window as I was nursing him, but I had no idea that the storm would continue ALL NIGHT LONG.

Thankfully, we did not have any tornado activity and extra thankfully, we did not lose power, but it was still nasty. I slept periodically, constantly awakened by loud claps of thunder. Our bed is against an outside wall of the house, so every now and then, the thunder would be so much that the bed would shake. I am not kidding. At one point, the thunder clap was so much that the smoke alarm went off twice. To say it's unsettling to attempt to sleep while all of this is going on is an understatement. We kept waiting for Luke to wake up screaming, but somehow, he did not. However, when he woke up at an unprecedented 8 o'clock (we're lucky to make it until 6:30), I asked him if he heard the thunder last night, and he looked at my wide-eyed, grabbed my arm, then put his head on my shoulder. Yeah, I know how you feel, kiddo! So, apparently he did hear it and slept just as poorly as we did, but is somehow braver than I and was able to stay in his crib alone.

I had a hair appointment this morning, and I expected to see tree branches everywhere, judging from the sound of the wind. I did not realize quite how much rain we received, until I had to make three separate detours due to flooding. The worst of it was just down the street from our house, where a large wetland/swamp area is located. Now, the name wetland would lead you to believe that obviously it floods easily, and you would be correct in this belief. I have not, however, seen it flooded this badly. Usually, I'll have to detour in the morning, then I'll be just fine to drive through in the afternoon. This morning, though, there was a car stuck in the middle of it, with a very confused looking man standing next to said car. Seriously, I have two rules about driving through water on the road: If you can't see the road and/or if it's moving quickly, it's not worth chancing it! As it was very clearly both today, I've no idea why this man thought it a fun idea to take his small Pontiac through the water, but he did not make it very far.

When I came home with my story of uber-flooding, Shane dismissed me, reminding me that that area always floods and that it'd be receeded by this afternoon. Unfortuntaly, I missed my opportunity to make a WINNING BET, instead just telling him that we should take our bikes down there after Luke woke up from his nap.

I told Shane to pretend like he was diving in, and as you can see, I would've easily won the bet.

There's a road here, somewhere...

See? Fast moving. Not for cars!


Suffice to say, I think we definitely don't have to worry about a drought.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Wish we could have some of that rain. It's hot and dry down here in Texas. And I mean HOT!

Hope you all sleep better tonight...

Jenni said...

Yikes! That's a lot of rain! I am glad Luke slept through the storms!

So, how's the hair?

Jen S. said...

Wowza!!!

Every time we have a thunderstorm at night, I'm always afraid that Chris will wake up screaming. Somehow, he never does. But if the weather is perfect, but I deign to make a phone call in the next room? WIDE awake.

I don't get it.

Such The Spot said...

Whoa. That's some storm. Never heard of thunder making a smoke alarm go off. That is disturbing.

We've got quite a storm of our own brewing right now. I love sleeping through thunderstorms. Though admittedly not the kind that have the power to set off a smoke alarm!

Flux said...

that sounds a lot like the storms that we've had lately, but ours had trees all over the place and not as much flooding. either i have stormnesia, or we haven't had a summer with storms like this in a long time.

p.s. - i'm glad that the song reference was what you were going for, because i INSTANTLY got it stuck in my head. :)

Unknown said...

You truly do not have to worry about a drought! Your little man was so brave!

Cassie said...

Whoa! That's a lot of water. Hopefully the storms will be gone for awhile :)