At the end of June I picked the kids up from school early to go to Vulcan for doctors appointments. The clouds were dark driving into town and Armin was a little nervous, he would ask if a storm was going to get us. By the time we got to the school the wind started to blow harder and rain began to fall. We dashed into the school to get Emry and Calum, and only got a little wet. Once we rounded them up and were ready to head back outside it was raining and blowing harder so again we made a mad dash for the van, getting a little more wet. We drove out of town and onto the highway but only made it a couple of kilometres down the road before we pulled over because of the hail. It was coming down so hard that it sounded like it was going to break our windshield. Poor little Armin was sitting in the front and he put his arms in front of his face and screamed, "don't break, don't break..." And from the backseat Calum was screaming and crying too because of all the lightening he was seeing. We decided to turn around and head back to the school to wait it out. The hail hitting the van made the storm sound much worse than it was, which made the kids scream in terror. We got out of the van and ran as fast as we could into the school, not quick enough though...I got pelleted by the hail hard enough to leave a welt and later a bruise. Inside the school the kids were still scared and crying but were able to get calmed down quicker than if we had stayed in the van.
Since that experience Calum and Armin have been terrified every time they hear the wind or see dark clouds. Scared to the point of throwing up. The day we took them to see the Minion movie the clouds were dark to the north and we could hear the faint rumble of thunder. Calum asked over and over which way the movie was and even though we told him it was south he wasn't appeased until we actually turned the opposite direction of the dark clouds. On our way home that night we were driving closer and closer to an ominous looking sky full of lightening, making Calum's tummy hurt worse with each flash.
The other night we took the boat out for the first time this summer, a very short ride...the clouds turned dark, the sky started to light up, the thunder rumbled and Armin started to panic, his whole body shaking. We got the boat out of the water and drove down to get ice cream, ice cream makes everything better...not so with Armin, he was just too scared. He kept asking if ice would fall down from the sky. We decided it wasn't worth waiting out the storm with how terrified Armin was so we left Little Bow and headed toward home. While driving we could see that the storm had passed further west and it didn't look like anything else was brewing so we decided to head to Clear Lake and put the boat in there!! It took a little convincing for Armin to be on board and once he was we were on our way to another lake. With our daylight fading we didn't have a ton of time but enough to get Calum, Emry and Blake on the tubes and then to have a bit of a swim in the unusually warm water!!!
Yesterday Emry had her appointment to get her retainer fitted and as soon as the boys looked outside they did NOT want to go to Lethbridge. The clouds were dark and it was spitting ever so slightly and the the wind was blowing. Thankfully, their very favourite Ama was home and was more than willing to watch them while I took Emry to the city.
The way the boys behave when a storm is brewing is just like the way most dogs behave when they hear thunder, hiding with their tail between their legs!! It is actually quite entertaining though much less entertaining when they work themselves up to the point of puking!! I do feel sorry for them and I do hope they out grow this horrible fear of storms they have or they will be in store for some very long summers.
