fay

In 2004, I went through four, well, three, major hurricanes with little planning except for the amount of alcoholic beverages that would be needed to endure the storms.

When they say everything changes when children are involved, I've never once thought about dealing with a major storm with a child. Kai is not at an age where he understands the concept of power outages, and not having air-conditioning. So we bought some water, and went to the library.

We live in an old neighborhood, built in the 50's, with above-ground utility lines and lots of old oak trees. Not a good combination for storms. I figure we will most likely lose power for some substantial period of time. The challenge is, what are we going to do with Kai for that time? The gym will probably be closed, as will most of our usual haunts. TV and computer will not be available. So with my brand-new library card in hand, we went to get some books for Kai to read.

Erin and I are pretty much very well-prepared for life's usual challenges, but Mother Nature has forced us to look beyond our usual repertoire. The thought of days at a time without electricity with a toddler is mind-boggling, to say the least. We are so locked into our daily routine that this could definitely mess up our world. I guess we needed another challenge. Wish us luck.