Can't sleep for all the excitment

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, or perhaps in the wee hours of the morning, to crashes of thunder and the percussive sound of hail on the windows and roof accompanied by a driving rain. I have always loved a good storm. I prefer them earlier in the day when I can enjoy them more fully, mind you, but even being awakened I just burrow further into bed and let them lull me back to sleep. More recently, however, I find myself postponing enjoyment of the display while I run a mental checklist first: are the rain barrels set? Did we bring in all the toys? Are all the windows shut? And when all things are accounted for I think of what a measurably peaceful thing it is to be able to enjoy the storm from inside our sturdy, protective shelter—what a wonderful thing that invention and hard work have brought people to this—and then I enjoy the storm all the more.

When we woke up this morning the sun was actually shining and the clouds were moving off. The best part about the morning was seeing that the edge garden faired the storm so well. Until we got the more recent plantings in it had suffered storms with massive runoff and erosion. We're on the right track.

We created a volcano felt set today. Then he says to me "next we need to make a Roman gods felt set." Right. At some point the whole "mom can do anything" illusion is going to wear off.

And while we created felt, and later while we read books, we also watched birds. A Baltimore oriole came and sat on our hummingbird feeder today. What a delight! He couldn't eat from it, and he left, but we wedged an orange half in the tree hoping he'd come back, and on a walk a little later we found him hanging out in a puddle on our walking path. We also saw a gray catbird, so that made two new birds today.

But we spent most of our day preparing for an upcoming trip—store trips, meeting with the lovely person who stays with our dogs, cleaning, packing. When on earth did packing become such an ordeal? Clothes, books, toys, electronics...and finally we were done, but it took the little boy twice as long to go to sleep. I think I still get pretty excited about some things, but rarely does anything like that keep me from sleeping anymore. Not even beautiful thunderstorms.