Earlier that night, at supper time, I kept peeking out of the bay window behind me, responding to the loud breezes I could hear outside.

"It'll be okay, it's just the wind," my husband said.

I'd still keep looking, out of human nature (at least MY human nature).

It got to the point where our two little girls, aged two and four, were BOTH also telling me, "It'll be okay, Mommy. It's just the wind."

How cute and sweet they were, to worry more about Mommy being scared, than being worried about the wind themselves. I don't know how much of that was just an act of immitating Daddy, or that no one else was as scared as me. I'm talking about one little girl (our two year old), who would try to get into the pool without mommy being close enough nearby. A little girl who is more likely to be an Astronaut when she grows up than her 4 year old big sister. I'm also talking about our four year old, who often says that she wants to be an Astronaut when she grows up (but who sometimes seems scared of her own shadow).

After supper, my husband went outside. I actually think he gets a kick out of severe weather. He does respect it, though. I mean, he wasn't out there when the REAL heavy winds started approaching. I knew what he was up to. It used to be that he would go out to smoke a cigarette. Now that he's been working overseas he can't stand the taste of the cigarettes they make available to us in the states. There's actually a conspiracy probably going on behind all of that - - that chemicals are added to the cigarettes that we have here in the U.S., but they're not in the ones overseas. Anyhow, I knew that he didn't have any on him. So he wasn't just hanging out smoking in the driveway. No, he was looking to see if any neighbors were still hanging out in their driveways. Actually, I get a little fascinated by the severe weather, too. So I joined him, and so did our two little girls. When I say the wind started to pick up, I mean that the stop sign at the end of our drive was starting to shake back and forth, but none of us were starting to get pushed by the wind. That still didn't keep me from hollering at our two little ones to stay near by. I didn't want either one of their little bodies flying away. Afterall, we weigh over 100 pounds. Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm over 150 pounds, as is my husband. They're both under 40 pounds a piece. So I was a little more concerned about them.

Our little girls got to stay up a little later than usual. We did finally put them down around 10. They usually go to bed between 8 and 9, and definitely no later than 9. We stayed up and watched the news until about 1 or 2.

Later on that night, I think it was more Mommy being more scared than anyone else. They seemed to sleep right through everything. At least, our two year old slept through everything, once she was allowed to get under the covers with Mommy and Daddy. I don't know if it was more of her kicking one of us in her sleep or the wind that kept me up. My husband says that he couldn't sleep much that night, either. However, he blames it on me startling at every sound of something hitting our window. And then I even got completely out of bed when I saw something glowing outside our window. The power was staying on steadily. We were comfortable in our Northwest Houston home, enjoying the air conditioning and our bedroom ceiling fan going. We were used to the white noise of the fish tank bubbling (also sometimes keeping me up thinking I had to go to the bathroom). After the glow outside our window, those white noises stopped. Then the glow would go away, and the white noises would return. This happened about 2 or 3 times. Then BOTH the glow and the white noise stopped. Everything started to get really quiet, except for the sound of the howling wind outside. That, and the sound of things hitting the window.

Did I mention, earlier, that my husband managed to get plywood boarded up on all of our front and side windows? Then his back began to hurt, and he didn't want it to go out. So we stopped boarding up the house around 4 in the afternoon. We boarded up all of the windows that we thought would be a target for flying debris. Then IKE shifted, and the winds were headed for the back of our house. Ha, ha, he does have a sense of humor, doesn't he? I came to find out, just yesterday, when looking at baby names, that IKE actually means "laughter," or "he laughed" or something like that. I believe this name originated in the Bible, with Abraham expecting his second son - - the one that Sarah laughed about having, because she didn't think she'd ever have a child - - especially in her old age. During IKE, I think all the jokes were on us...