Little Postcards from "Holland": October 2012

Monday, October 29, 2012

Hurricane Preparedness for Yankees

This is not my normal blog post about life with my sweet son. That's normally what I blog about. But today, after watching the Today show's ridiculous coverage of Hurricane Sandy, I felt compelled to use my blog to give advice to my northern friends who may have never experienced a hurricane before. So, for all of my Yankee friends, here are some steps from this Dixie Darling, for riding out the storm.

1. If you live in a high rise, get out. You will not enjoy being in the penthouse suite when the winds start to blow and that thing starts to sway. Find someone with a ground floor apartment, or better yet a house in case that thing topples over. You don't want to be at the bottom of that.

2. I know you have a lot of bridges and tunnels around there. Keep away from them. They will probably be closed anyway, but even if they aren't, don't be a daredevil and try to cross a bridge in hurricane force winds. In fact, stay off of the roads, period.

3. If you don't have storm shutters on your house, use ply wood and board up the windows. If you don't have time or just can't get to the hardware store, then masking tape will work just find. Just tape strips across your windows from corner to corner in an "X". It won't keep the windows from breaking, but it should keep them from shattering. That's what we like to call redneck engineering.

4. Make sure you stock up on plenty of drinking water, or soda or juice or beer or wine or whatever you use to hydrate. Also, have plenty of your favorite snack foods on hand and maybe even some bread and peanut butter, in case you are without electricity for a while and can't cook anything. Forget keeping things cold. If you lose power, even if you never open your freezer door (which is impossible to do) it will not stay cold for long and you will lose the food in there.

5. Make sure you have plenty of flashlights and batteries for them. Also, get a battery operated radio and or TV so you can hear the news media tell you when it's safe to come out again. They are, after all, the bravest of us all. They will ride out the storm and stay on the air for as long as they have power and a signal. They are the real heroes at a time like this.

6. While you still have water, fill up all of your bathtubs. If you lose power and water, you can use the water in your bathtub to flush your toilets with. Please, do not use kitty litter to dispose of your waste as was suggested on the Today Show this morning. That is just gross.

7. Some media outlets will tell you to shelter in place, but a term we like to use down here in the south is "Hunker Down." This means simply, stay inside. Stay off the roads, stay in your house, protect your pets and plants, board or tape your windows, grab all of your snack foods and beverages, and pull out all of your board games. Build a fort with your kids ( this is where the flashlights will come in handy). Turn on your battery powered TV or radio and listen for the all clear signal. Another term we use for this is Hurricane Party.

Now I know many of you have never experienced anything like this before. It can really be scary. This led the Today Show to call in a psychology expert to tell you how to handle your kids and their fear or anxiety as they watch you prepare. I can give you the same advice and I don't have a Ph.D. behind my name. I can tell you exactly how your kids are feeling and how to handle it. They are thinking that this is the most exciting thing they have ever experienced. School is cancelled and this is going to be a party. There is no fear or anxiety at all. Trust me. I've been there.

After the storm is over, you are going to want a friend that has a boat in his front yard or at least someone with a truck that has big mud tires on it. What? No one up there has anything like that? Oh well. You will be sorry. You are going to need it to rescue folks on your street after the 5-7 inches of rain you are expecting. I mean, with water that high, you might even need a helicopter to pick you up off of your roof tops. And if the high water stays around for a few days and you need something for your kids to do to keep from getting bored, check out the episode of Duck Dynasty where they teach you to build a Redneck Water Park. They have some great ideas.

If you are the mayor of Atlantic city, where the storm is expected to make landfall, I would call up the mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi to get advice on what to do with your casinos. That's your main source of revenue and you are going to need to get them back up and running as soon as you can.

In all seriousness, hurricanes are dangerous and you should take all precautions to keep yourselves and your family safe.

And so you don't feel like you are the only ones in the country preparing for severe weather, my son and I are wearing our sweatshirts today to stay warm in these 50 degree temperatures. Of course, around here, you practically need a sweatshirt just to go to the grocery store and walk through the cold section.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

A Little More Like Italy

If you read the first post on this blog, it explains why my blog is called "Little Postcards From Holland." I recited a story written by a parent of a special needs child. It explains how having a baby with special needs is a little like planning to take a wonderful vacation to Italy, and instead, ending up in Holland. If you haven't seen that post, you can click to see it here.

When I got pregnant, I had all kinds of ideas of things I wanted my child to experience. And when I found out we were having a boy, I couldn't wait to teach him how to play sports. If you know me at all, you know about my love and passion for all things sports. I started playing softball at a young age, and never looked back. Even when I was younger, I played football in the back yard with my brothers. I tried basketball, but it wasn't my thing. But I was in love with sports. I loved every part of it, especially the competiveness. When I got older, I decided to make sports my profession. So the idea of being able to share this passion with my son was very exciting to me.

It didn't occur to me right away when John was born and we found out that he wasn't typical. In fact, it took a very long time for Tommy and I to accept the fact, that he would never be typical. We kept telling ourselves that he just needed to get bigger and maybe get a little therapy help, but one day he would catch up with all of his friends. When we finally came to realize that he would never be a typical child, one of the things I thought about was not being able to teach him to play. But with everything going on and all of the issues we were learning to deal with, I still didn't think about it much. But when his friends started getting involved in soccer and basketball and even baseball, it broke my heart to think I would not be able to watch my son do these things.

Then a couple of year ago, Tommy came across something about a baseball league designed for kids that have special needs. It's called Challenger Baseball and they have leagues all around the country. So we looked into something like that here and found that Houston has two leagues. One is in the West University area, which is not near us, but there is also one in Katy. So we started to watch the website to find out when we could sign John up for it. We ended up missing the spring season, but did manage to get him in to play this fall. This past Sunday was his first game.

I knew that the basic concept was that all kids on the team would get a chance to bat and then they would switch sides. I didn't know what would be going on in the field while the other team was batting. Each kid has a buddy to help them and while they are in the field, all of the kids and their buddies stand around and toss a ball to each other. So they are staying active while the other kids are hitting and running the bases. Also, when the kids come to bat, one of the adults toss the ball to them from just a few feet away so the kids have a better chance to hit. We elected to use a tee for John to hit off of because I didn't know how easy it would be for him to try and swing a bat while sitting in his chair. Of course I helped him hold it and swing, but his favorite part was running the bases.

Some of our good friends came out to watch him play. Tommy had asked her to take pictures for us, so the whole family came out. Their daughter, Mia, is the same age as John. When they got there, Mia came to say hi to John, and one of the ladies that runs the league asked Mia if she wanted to be John's buddy for the day. She agreed and even got to wear a buddy t-shirt. So it was me, John and Mia out on the field.

We all had a blast, even though it was a little chilly. John got a cool uniform and his team is the Cubs. His number is 4. In our family growing up, my brother and I would always sign cards to our parents or to each other with our name and our uniform number. So I think I want to start that tradition with John. Also, when I was younger, playing softball, I had a coach who decided to give every girl on the team a nickname. The nickname was one that belonged to someone who had played professional baseball at one time. The name I was given was Scooter, which was the nickname of Phil Rizzuto who played shortstop for the Yankees from 1941-1956. I think it's time to pass that name down to John.

So after being in "Holland" for the past 7 1/2 years, getting to share this experience with John maybe feels a little more like that Italian vacation I was expecting when I got pregnant. I know it's not exactly what I was hoping for, but watching him have so much fun makes up for that.