TREEPOCOLIPSE 2013

Holy moly.


I knew life with two would be busy, however, I didn't foresee that life would have me sprinting full speed ahead....

We were cruising along, getting used to a new routine with a new nugget and a busy toddler, enjoying the summer and praying for  looking forward to school starting again.

P.S. If a tree falls in the yard, it DEFINITELY makes a sound. A big sound. A big, terrifying, crazy loud sound and then it repeats....when it falls on your house and the house COLLAPSES.

We had quite the scare at the O'Keefe home 3 weeks ago and I am still amazed and incredibly thankful my girls and I (the hubs was traveling) were not hurt.

It fell in the middle of an otherwise uneventful night....a little rain, a little thunder....nothing close to what usually sends me swiftly to the basement with the girls. I was woken up in the middle of the night by a horrifying sound - knowing instantly what it was - and then several successive, thundering, crashing sounds to follow.

I was in our master bedroom on the lower level with my littlest in the bassinet beside me, I knew she was safe.  My biggest was in her big girl bed in her room....the exact direction from which the noise came....my heart leapt from my chest, please God no.

I have never moved from one location to the next so swiftly, calling for her, screaming her name....no answer.  I threw open her door and instantly burst into tears...she hadn't even woken up and she was SAFE.

I scooped her up (not before wiping the tears from my face so she wouldn't be scared), the alarm was now blaring, she was confused. I still had no idea what we would find downstairs and I didn't care. We were safe.  My sweet girls were unharmed and nothing else mattered. 

Then I saw the living room.

"It's raining in the living room, Mommy!", said my biggest.

"HOLY $%#^," said Mommy.

The tree took out half of our living room and our entire screened in porch.  Incredibly, if it HAD to fall, it fell precisely in the one location where it should have.  It narrowly missed my biggest's room and my littlest's nursery....it missed the kitchen, pipes and laundry room....it missed the chimney and fireplace (and yes, honey, it missed your flatscreen)....it took out the one corner of our garage where my car wasn't sitting and it made A MESS....but it wasn't the worst case scenerio. Or at least that's what I kept telling myself as I am trying to pack up two girls, figure out who to call and what to do next, and keeping on my game face so my biggest (who was well aware of the chaos and the crisis) wouldn't be scared.  Guess I didn't miss a beat because she said, "Big tree Mommy! Policemen! Firetruck!  Woo hoo!!!".  Sure do love that little lady.

Two policemen, seven firemen and debris and water everywhere = packing up two babies and heading to my in laws at 3 am. No power, said the firemen.  No gas either.  It isn't safe, we have to turn them off, you have to go. 

Awesome.

Fast FORWARD one week later....

Life: "Hey Mommy, what do you think about spending 2 - 3 months in a 2 bedroom apartment with two under 2.5?"

Me: "Hey life, go sit on a brick."

We are lucky.  We are safe.  We have insurance. We have really great insurance and will be totally fine. I have thought to myself nearly every day since TREEPOCOLIPSE 2013 how terrifying a disaster like a fire, tornado, hurricane, etc. must be.  At least we had our things....my biggest's favorite lovies, diapers and clothes.  We were just being uprooted (pun intended)....but we had everything we needed.

SO...here we are.  In our "vacation house" as we have been telling our 2-year-old. Piled in like sardines, sharing a room with our infant...running back and forth to the house to get various things to make sure our littles are comfy and counting the days until the contractors tell us we can move back in. Climbing over each other, sleep falling by the wayside...but we are together.

The biggest tells everyone, "Our house has a boo boo from the tree." If only this Mommy could see it with such innocent eyes.

On the upside, we had a great excuse to extend a pre-planned vaca to Sea Island, GA this past week and it was so incredibly, perfectly, wonderful.  Great friends, great memories, great WINE. Maybe we should just head back there until October? Our biggest would have spent all day every day swimming if we had let her and our littlest got to take her first dip in a pool.  Sunset walks on the beach, ice cream and pancakes, sunshine and bike rides, time with friends, spa time and space to run...just the relief and reminder this Mommy needed of how important it is to be together and to live in the moment, every moment, even the challenging ones.

Life: "Hey Mommy, how about we test your strength, patience, and resourcefulness?"

Me: "Hey life...sounds fab....just throw me a coffee at 3 pm, a glass of wine at 5 pm and I'm game. Oh, and a lollipop for my biggest would be great, too."

That's a little update on life and a little explanation of why I've been off the grid for so long....a newborn, a toddler conveniently on summer break from school, a traveling hubs busy as ever, moving, organizing the reconstruction, etc, etc....you know....NO BIG DEAL.

Bring it on life....this Mommy is tougher than she looks.