Being Prepared.

Today was erm... interesting.

Riley woke up this morning and threw up at breakfast. Yes, it's official we're parents with children: our first stomach bug! She threw up and napped through out the morning...Poor girly was feeling awful. She was napping on the couch when a knock comes at the front door. It's a fireman informing me that we need to evacuate ASAP- gas leak on our block.

ASAP with 2 small children - 1 recently potty trained and throwing up "ASAP" took 15 minutes.

Getting out in the winter means grabbing clean diapers, making sure there is a reasonably clean dry bag in the diaper bag, checking for [cloth] wipes, making sure my water bottle is full, Riley's water, a snack... Dressing amity in an extra layer, buckling her in her car seat, tucking her up in blankets. Getting Riley in sock, shoes, coat, hat. Not a simple process. This process is not quick when it's cold out! Especially because the warm things I put on Riley almost always get taken off and set down (or unzipped etc) when I remember some thing and have to grab it. Eh, it is what it is.

We did all right getting out the door. Out the door with 2 extra sets of clothing for sick throw upy toddler. lugging along the potty chair (she doesn't like normal toilets- but she's been accident free for 5 days now!), sick bowl, blankets and some things in the bag to occupy us for who knows how long- and where were we going to go? The fireman said we could go to the local community center and wait there. With a sick toddler? I don't think so.

We ended up driving up to Ryan to get his phone (yeah made the morning more chaotic I couldn't find my cell phone and had to hurry so didn't have time to look). We got up to work, called my Mom and paged her at work and asked her where she thought we could go...I never thought about the scenario of having a sick toddler and being evacuated. I had friends I could have called and hung out with- but not with a sick throw uping toddler- I didn't want the throw up and I'm sure they don't either! My Mom sent us to her church- we hung out in the nursery (carefully disinfecting all toys upon our exit!) for a few hours and watched movies...It got Riley out of the house which was nice.

She's feeling better she hasn't been sick again this afternoon/evening and I'm hoping she'll sleep it off tonight.

All this made me realize how unprepared I am in the case of an emergency. Granted every thing was off kilter today. Girls have been sick, I wasn't feeling well... I haven't had a car for 2 weeks (that's a HUGE praise, Ryan carpooled and left the car behind today so I was able to LEAVE- and my car is finally back as of this evening!)..But even then I need to be prepared. If I'm evacuated again, alone with 2 small children and I don't have a phone where should Ryan assume that I am going? Do I have some food, water, clothing, disposable wipes/diapers in the car? Do I have a diaper bag packed and at least reasonably ready to go at all times?
Our car broke down 2 weeks ago, Ryan, Amity and I were on our way to a meeting. It was a bitter bitter bitter cold night and I was relieved to find that I had every thing I needed to keep Amity and myself warm and safe. Thankfully we were trapped near a Walmart so we had a warm place to wait out the problem we were having. But what about bigger problems that could be facing us with all the crazy stuff happening in the world today?

As our family walks through 2010 the biggest thing I plan on doing is being more prepared. This weekend I plan on putting together an emergency bag and keeping it in the car so that if I had to just pick up the girls and run we could do it more quickly. It wasn't a big deal this morning, it wasn't chaos or anything. But it was a wake up call that I need to be a leeetle more prepared. And hopefully if another emergency situation takes place I won't be doing it in middle of a stomach bug.

This has been a public service announcement. :0)