Evacuate '08

I grew up in South East Texas, not too far from the coast. Hurricanes and evacuating aren't new to me. When I was little, I used to hope we'd have a hurricane come our way so we could head for Dallas, where my cousins live. During Hurricane Alicia, we waited too long to make the drive to Dallas and ended up at my aunt's house in Missouri City. I vaguely remember it. I remember watching it from their sliding glass door and seeing their tree bow and hit the ground on one side and then bow the other way and hit the ground on the other. My dad said the window was also rattling. Scary. I was really too young to grasp just how scary and dangerous the whole thing was. In my mind, I'd filed it away as exciting!

Now that I'm a mother, it's a little different. Hurricane season and the word "evacuation," are words I hope to keep out of my daily conversation as much as possible. So when Ike came along, I got nervous. Even though it was veering towards Corpus Christi, we were still within "the cone of uncertainty." That was enough for me. Wes wasn't sure what he'd have to do for his job, so I started making plans for Gregory and me to hunker down with my parents. They do live closer to the coast than we do, but we lose power more easily and my dad has a generator. Plus, their home is newer and better built. I had some stuff packed and a hurricane kit for Wes, if he needed it. I was going to go to my parents' house on that Thursday and wait it out. Well, that Thursday morning, my mom called at 6:30 and said, "Mija, we're evacuating." "We'll be leaving a couple of hours." Huh??? What??? I panicked as she said the news predicted it would be coming right for us. I ran and threw more clothes together and got more things to leave.

I begged Wes to find out what his job wanted him to do and if he could come with us... could he catch up with us...??? what were his plans if he got stuck here??? He went to work and was told they would have a normal day and they would even try to set up a remote office! Yeah, dumb... don't even get me started.

After my parents' house was boarded-up, we drove down I-45 and picked up my cousin on our way to Dallas, where her parents live. It took longer than normal, but everyone on the road was really considerate. Gregory was very understandably unhappy. He'd been feeling bad all week, nothing severe, but he was more clingy than normal and Dallas just seemed so far away.

While we were in Dallas, Gregory got more sick. He vomited several times during our stay and it really worried me. He never got a fever, but he looked thinner and had a really bad heat rash. We put off coming back because of his vomiting. He did get sick on the way back, but thankfully, it was while we were resting. We took him to the doctor the day after we got home and the doctor said he had a combination of a stomach virus and allergies. Then when we got him home, we discovered that he's cutting TWO TEETH!!! Poor little guy, I know he was hurting, but at the same time I'm really excited.

Okay, back to hurricane stuff. We didn't sustain much damage. Most of our fence was knocked down, we have a small leak in the living room, and we lost a few shingles, but that's it- I'll take that! We also got power back almost immediately and our grocery store and gas station were ready to go pretty quickly too. Talk about being blessed.

I was thankful that Wes was okay. I was so overwhelmed with emotions over Gregory and Wes during all of this Ike stuff, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry until it was all over. We're finally getting back to normal around here and let me tell ya, normal is nice!