Rain Rain Go Away

This morning I woke up to the house being pelted by rain. The sky was very dark and grey with thick heavy clouds that would scare the crap out of me if I were in North Dakota. But here, you’re lucky to hear one clap of thunder per summer. Well, it just turns out that today we had such luck. Not 10 minutes after I sent my girls out the door for school, I heard this enormous (well, enormous by Denmark standards) clap of thunder. First I thought to myself, wow, I haven’t heard that sound in a while. My second thought was, oh crap, my girls are outside right now staining their underwear. If you know Hanna & Eden (Hanna especially), you know that they have panic attacks so bad during a thunder storm that they’ve chewed through 3 straight jackets each. Jamestown has started us on a punch card, 10th one free sort of deal. Anyway, 5 minutes later I hear frantic knocks on the front door. Note they double-timed it back home. I opened the door to Hanna crying as if the grim reaper himself were chasing her down. Eden was also looking distraught, although I suspected by the less than serious look of horror on her face it was a sympathetic panic attack for big sister‘s sake. “I heard thunder! I heard thunder!” After a few minutes of calming her down she decided she wanted to call the bus driver. Ole (yep….you heard me) was a “very nice man” and she was sure he would stop by the house to pick them up. Unfortunately the conversation got cut short and all we heard was the empty sound of a dropped call. Anyway, they ended up working up the nerve to walk to the train station to catch the next train to Gilleleje just in time to start the school day. Of course, there was much coaxing done by yours truly, insisting that the clouds, heavy with precipitation, were indeed floating past us in the opposite direction of the station. Naturally that was a lie and just as they should have arrived at the train station we had downpour #2. And this lasted a lot longer and was a LOT like what I imagine being directly underneath a waterfall might be. My guess is that they will still be soggy when they get home tonight. They have lovely new rain coats, rain pants and boots…the whole 9 yards. BUT, when you forget your rain coat at school, it doesn’t help a whole lot. It’s funny how I send them out the door every morning in their rain gear, knowing that a good soaking will probably be in the near future (it always is). But the one day they could really truly use it, they don’t have it on. Live and learn I guess. And I’ve learned that when you go anywhere around here, always bring stuff for every weather condition known to man and MAYBE you’ll be prepared.