We were watching the news over breakfast, and Leah asked what "mandatory" means. Aaron explained that it meant that you have to do something...it's not a choice. Use it in a sentence? Don't mind if I do. "BRUSH YOUR TEETH - it's MANDATORY." This real-life context brought to you by Leah, who lately has been making the most sour faces at me whenever I ask her to scrub her teeth and get dressed. Apparently she's morally opposed. Who knows why.
But why the word "mandatory"? Oh, because of discussions of mandatory evacuations in parts of Moorhead, right across the (huge,ugly, annoying) river from us. Several of our friends here in Fargo have chosen to leave town, but we are still here. Meritcare started evacuating patients last night, and although they are not closed, they also don't really want people there. They specifically said they didn't want any preemie babies. This sent Aaron into thinking we need to leave home, in the small, rare, tiny chance that Magnus would decide to come early. Not that we think he will, but if he did, we would NOT want to be here.
However, I think we've decided that we're staying put unless the water or electricity go out, in which case they will probably evacuate the city. We bought a small generator and a space heater today, basically enough to keep the bare essentials going for Aaron - since the kids and I will probably be gone in the case of their use.
I had a minor emotional breakdown last night, and thankfully I have a patient, practical friend who "talked me down". (Yes, Lexie, can you believe that was MINOR?) But this morning, with some things decided for us, I feel better.
The dinner theater production I'm directing that was supposed to go on tomorrow and Saturday has officially been postponed, and our church has cancelled services and activities for Sunday. AUGH! I need normalcy, folks! The river is supposed to stay at crest height for almost a week - are we really going to live this way for another WEEK? Fargo/Moorhead has already cancelled classes for next week - hopefully the situation will improve and that won't have to be the case.
You may recall that for me, a routine and a schedule is MANDATORY. This is not good news for my personal well-being. The Red Cross had better bring in some extra psychiatric help if this does keep up for a week.
In other news: Ben counted to eleven today! He's been counting to ten fairly consistently, although he tends to skip the number 5. The kids are playing hide & seek right now, and he counted 1-2-3-4-6-5-6-7-8-9-10. Pretty good! Then he counted perfectly correctly all the way to 11. His enunciation could use some improvement, but we're concentrating all our miracle requests on that blasted river.
Mandatory: Keeping our sanity.
Like a waterfall in slow motion, Part One
1 year ago
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3 comments:
Glad to hear you guys are doing okay! Did you make playdough!?!?!
If the "Lexie" of your post is the one I know, she and her husband have been awesome on the front sandbagging lines this week (and you've helped them help others with child care).
I'll second the motion for a return to the old normal. The new normal with watching flood briefings on TV at 8:00 AM, distraction to my day job from monitoring news like the crest projections rising, and now the threat of evacuation hanging over our heads got old fast. Having a flood crest is like having a baby: it gets uncomfortable towards the arrival, you aren't quite sure when it will arrive, and there is a recovery period of several weeks once its arrived.
On a lighter note, we've been modeling evacuation after the move in "Toy Story II". My "evacuation buddy" is our cat. We've spent time together today getting ready to evacuate, including nap time.
Hey at least you get to be in your home. We we had to *mandatory* evacuate at 3 am. Here's to normal - whenever that may be!
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