Having a newborn in the mix makes things hectic, sure, but things have been extra-hectic around the 804 in the first two weeks of David’s life.
August 23 – We don’t have earthquakes in Virginia. I equate earthquakes with volcanoes, they’re other people’s problems. But 5 days after David’s birth, we had a 5.8 earthquake here in Richmond. Virginians don’t expect earthquakes. We don’t know what they feel like, and we definitely have no idea what to do. As I stood with my body folded over my baby and the house shaking around me I thought, “if this is just someone outside with a jack hammer I’m never telling anyone this story.”
The same day we took our first walk around the neighborhood. A block and a half from our house we heard a loud bang and saw a bright flash. Armageddon? I was sure of it. Instead, a tree had fallen on a transformer. It wasn’t Armageddon, but it was enough to leave us without power for the night.
August 27 – Hurricane Irene. Why wasn’t I more worried about Hurricane Irene? Richmond DOES experience hurricanes. Growing up five hours from the coast, hurricanes meant rain and wind…sometimes…so I wasn’t worried about Irene. Tom started out the day by running a half-marathon (1:35.40!) and my parents were in town. We hunkered down and watched the wind and rain. Trees started falling and the electricity went out around 6pm.
Wonderful, the power’s out. I have a newborn, I’m petrified to leave the house, and all that food I stocked up on is now melting in my freezer.
We fled to Midlothian for four days later. If the Kriegers hadn’t taken us in, I’m not sure we would have made it.
August 29 – mommy’s birthday! 29 on the 29th. We had a “triage birthday” since everything was closed and we were sort of disheveled. We still had a great celebration with the Krieger clan and Tom whipped up an awesome cake.
This is David’s, “wait. why isn’t all the attention on ME” face:
cool
quirky, funny, informative. i love mother-amanda. tom seriously ran a half that fast? why did we ever wager 1000 i could beat him? ahh, love the shot of david.
love the picture of Dad at the clothes line hanging diapers!
[…] also have a “natural disasters” tag. I used it when I did an update on the first two weeks of David’s life. Remember those two weeks? When we had an EARTHQUAKE and then four days later we had a HURRICANE? […]
[…] I gave birth to a 7 lb. 15 oz. tyrant, whose arrival set off a chain reaction of natural disasters and has cracked the foundation of three homes in our neighborhood with his […]