Poor Leta! A fear is a fear whether it makes sense or not.

But I had to laugh about the receipt.....

HAHA, tornados, earthquakes, it's all the same!
so, my daughter is gripped with the same "blowing away" fear right now.
maybe there is something to it!

I don't get it? Jon should sorta know about this. Didn't he do earthquake drills growing up? I distinctly remember being in elementary school and having the 'earthquake' alarm going off and we all had to stop what we were doing and quickly find a desk or open door frame to get under. I do remember several kids forgetting that it was in fact a 'drill' and screaming as if at any moment the earth was going to open and swallow them whole.

Pray that Leta never has to do an earthquake drill, I'm sure you can imagine.

Growing up in Colorado, tornado warnings come every single year and the teachers would all make you crouch beneath your desks for twenty minutes. It was awesome.

I grew up in the northeast, so I don't know what is entailed in a tornado drill, either. What are you supposed to do?

Fact: in Wichita, Kansas, several years ago, the county government decided that monthly siren tests were not enough, and now we test our tornado sirens EVERY MONDAY AT NOON. I teach high school, and I swear EVERY MONDAY AT NOON I have some teenage girl in my class who freaks for a millisecond until half a dozen people mutter, "it's noon, Monday." It would be annoying if we couldn't remember the suburb that blew away a few years ago that one time the siren didn't work. P.S. I go outside to look if there's a real one. Every time. I can't help myself.

Cute story. I love the sunset pic you posted. I think it will be my new desktop until we go to Yosemite this weekend.

TORNADO DRILLS! HA, I totally forgot about those!

I feel for Leta! I remember being little and being scared of things that now seem strange, like a plane dropping a screw that would hit my head and kill me.

I used to be scared of the wind blowing the curtains at my Grandpa's house so someone thought it would be a great idea to show me why they moved. My aunt or someone went behind the curtains to blow on them but then I thought the curtain wind monster was going to get HER TOO! I think I had to just grow out of it.

I'm from Alabama.

Every time the sirens went off during my childhood, my mother would load all four of the children into the back of the station wagon and order we each pick a window and start scanning the skies. I can imagine how we looked with our little faces pressed against the window in HOLY MOTHER TERROR SURELY WE WILL DIE.... while she was driving 100 mph down a back road to my grandmother's house.

I guess that explains my need as an adult to grab the vodka and run for the cellar as soon as the watch gets issued.

Duck and cover. Just had a tornado drill today at the middle school where I work.

I grew up in Iowa, and tornado drills were a regular occurence in school. We still have them at work, requiring everyone to go down to the basement and stare at each other for ten minutes.

In all honestly, the schools really should have taught us to go stand outside and watch the sky and/or take pictures. "Let's go out and watch it!" is normally everyone's standard response for a tornado warning being issued. And if the tornado path is expected to be ten miles from me? Psssht, I'm not even going to look up from my book.

Maybe Leta is trying to save the planet from pollution?

My two year old went through a phase recently when she was literally afraid of her own shadow. Her own shadow! She is also afraid of snakes in her bed. How??? Does a two year old know what fear is and what to associate it with? I didn't think nightmares about snakes came until you were older.

A tornado touched down when I was really young. For the longest time, I had visions of a giant TOMATO roaming the streets, throwing angry tomato seeds at houses and causing it to rain.

Yep, that just makes Bossy want to marry Jon all over again! Oh wait, Bossy isn't married to Jon.

I have said the same prayer before I go to bed every night that I 'created' when I was about 8 or 9- because I hated throwing up.

Every now and then, even though I am 35, I still have one of those fleeting thoughts while in a bathroom in public: what happens if some disaster strikes while I am sitting here doing my thing? Freaks me out.

I had so many little fears growing up. Shoot, I still do..hence the weekly therapy. It is great though that she has you two as her parents. You accept her for who she is..fears and all. Luckily I grew out of all of my fears except one major one...get ready.....it is crazy.....throwing up. HA! It is called emetephobia I suppose. Growing up I was constantly afraid I would throw up or someone around me would. I am 32 and I still get thrown into a panic when my hubby says his stomach hurts. haha. We are strange creatures. :)

I also have a 10 year old daughter who is terrified of the wind. We don't know what to do with her. I know that if we lived in a tornado state, she would be a raving lunatic!
A few days ago, she saw the Salt Lake City tornado on the news and cried, thinking it would happen again. Let's hope it doesn't. I'm not sure she would survive!

Ahhh isn't that cute.. A door way.. Nope huddled masses.. Grew up in Alabama and we did these.. There was always kids that hadn't showered or some boy who thought it was funny to fart. I remember riding out a storm in the hall way.. Geez that was awful. After that we got sent home for incoming storms.

I lived in Texas from 6th-11th grade, and our schools were just 1 giant building with many hallways. The middle hallways had no windows, so for our tornado drills, we all had to go to the bottom level, middle hallway, and crouch in 'crash' position - on our knees, forehead touching your knees, hands clasped behind your necks to protect it from being crushed by falling building. But the best part is that we were 4-5 students deep so that if you weren't lucky enough to already be downstairs, your nose was ass-deep in someone's, well, ass! And being kids, how often do you think the boys took the opportunity to fart on whomever was behind them? Very. F-ing. Often. For the love of God, Texas.

I teach at a school in Seattle, where we have monthly earthquake drills. During every drill, without fail, one of my first graders says in a quivering voice, "is it a real earthquake?"

My two year old acknowledges only three kinds of bugs: ants, caterpillars and spiders. However many insects we run across in our average day, he labels one of the three.

Any bug that scares him automatically earns the title: Spider. We have at least 100 false spider alerts a day during the summer when we're outside most of the day.

One evening last week, he started screaming and flailing around: "Spider in ear! Spider in ear!" I told him there weren't any spiders in his ears, but he kept screaming and flailing so I finally checked him out.

Inside of his ear lobe, a large mosquito was having a snack. I hurried the bug away and explained that it was a mosquito, not a spider. But this was little comfort to a child who knows a spider when he sees / hears one.

Since then, every day he comes sqauwking about spiders in ear! And a few nights ago, I myself had a terrible nightmare about spiders in my ears.

I finally could share in his terror.

As a side note, my bizarre childhood phobia was Santa Claus. My mother used to hate the Christmas season when I was small because my older brother once told me: "He's watching you while you poop!" Oh, I hated that creepy Santa Claus.

whoa, my daughter has the same exact phobia. i think it all started when she saw our tent in the backyard sort of floating around in the wind. she completely lost her sh*t. ever since then, she becomes unhinged when things rustle in the slightest breeze. it took me forever to figure out why she refused to draw pictures outside. (the paper might fly away, you see). she even refused to have anything to do with helium-filled balloons for a while, because the idea that they would float away if you let go of them was too terrifying to even comprehend.

Isn't Jon old enough to remember the duck and cover drills in case of a nuclear attack? Same concept. ;-)

Leta is a girl after my heart. I have the exact same paranoia over "things blowing away" and I grew up with earthquake drills, not tornado drills (Vancouver). This means I don't cope well with picnics, patio dining, or beach eating...because napkins could blow away! I'm forever anchoring everything in sight when stuck in these situations - using the ketchup bottle, salt and pepper shakers, jugs of beer/water/whatever.

I also prefer beige foods. In case you were wondering.

And I'm 33 not 5. My husband says it's just part of my neurotic control freak-ish-ness.

My kids freak out if they see a receipt start to blow away, but they caught that from me. Since I'm obsessed with accumulating CVS ExtraBucks, and that "money" comes at the end of your register receipt, along with fabulous money-saving coupons, they will guard my receipts with their lives. Once a CVS receipt with an ExtraBuck or two at the end of it blew out the car window, and I had to swallow my own distress and lie that there were no ExtraBucks on it, just to calm the crying kids.
What?

Post tornado footage always shows:

Rubble, rubble, door frame; rubble, rubble, bathtub...

I grew up in Iowa, and I LOVE storms. As a kid, I would run out to the front porch with pillows and blankets just to watch the clouds roll in. Tornado watches and warnings made me positively giddy. Also, I was a weird child...

Oh my gosh, Heather does look like Emily Haines!

Loved the story -- and husbands do say some really cute things. Now if we can just forget the 101 bad jokes they come up with in a day, too.

I grew up in IL and never had much fear of tornadoes until my brother and grandmother were picked up while in a trailer and tossed around. (Only a dog was injured, though there was extensive property damage).

My dh, however, grew up in Chicago, and when they had a tornado warning (not a drill mind you, and not a watch, but an actual we-have-spotted-a-tornado-coming-towards-you WARNING, an evil nun told a whole class of 3rd graders that "If God decides it's your time to go, there's nothing you can do about it."

Couple of years ago on the Fourth of July I went down to the SF Bay with some friends to watch fireworks, and their 6-year-old daughter at one point got it into her head that the TIDE WAS COMING IN and would swallow us all up if we didn't leave that instant. Poor sweetie. The world feels like a dangerous place when you're little, I guess.

My lovely childhood fear? That my heart would "forget" to keep beating while I was asleep. I'm not sure how my parents managed to get me to sleep for the two years THAT went on....

My elementary school in Missouri actually had an underground basement built just for tornado purposes. However, we all had to file *outside* to get there. And I'm not sure who thought we'd have a good 20-30 minutes to get 7 grades worth of kids packed in there either...

Would Mary Poppins help? Mary gently drifts up and down on her umbrella, the kids fly kites with their dad, and everyone gets sucked up the chimneys to dance on the roofs.

Or would that make her scared of fireplaces?

Good luck.

I can totally commiserate spending tornado warnings in the bathroom. I live in Illinois where tornadoes aren't common, per say, but not unheard of either, and when I was a kid during tornado warnings ALL SIX OF US would smoosh into the half bath on the ground floor (no basement) with EVERYTHING WE OWNED. I am not even kidding. We would each bring at least two pillows, a blanket, as many stuffed animals as we could carry and probably a good 7 books a piece because you had no idea how long you were going to be in there!

so i'm guessing leta has issues with piglet blowing away in the wind on pooh films?

maybe she watched pooh. ask if this could be the root cause.

we've had crazy tornado warning season here in the Denver 'burbs, my kids' school has been in lock down multiple times. What have they learned from this? The older one learned that your backpack is a trusty protector when you assume the turtle position in the hallway. The younger one learned that a tornado can rip a roof off a house at any time day or night even if you're sleeping in your 2nd story room under said roof. Awesome.

Dude,

for me... it was the moon... you know, because there's A MAN on it.

and then it was aliens... which wasn't made any better by the fact that my older brother LOVED to watch The X-Files... freakshow...

In Wisconsin, the tornado drills consist of going to the lowest level of the building, crouching in a hallways with your hands folded over your head to protect your head. When I was a kid I always wondered about the flying glass cutting my hands so I'd hide under someone's coat (usually the coats and backpacks were hung outside the classrooms.) Now I just hope for the best because I work on the 3rd story of a hospital and I know none of my ICU patients are going to make the transfer to the basement.

Word verification - velveeta. Thanks for the dinner suggestion.

fear of things blowing away = totally ridiculous.

lifelong fear of cars parked on inclines overcoming their brakes and rolling away = totally founded in science and always possible, can you check the emergency brake for the tenth time please and thank you very much.

The WORST: sleeping in a camper or motor home that's not level. Is the e-brake on? is it? did you check? all the way? sure?

I wouldn't know what to do in case of a tornado either.
When I was a kid I would spin a hula-hoop and jump in and out of it three times before it stopped moving. If I didn't succeed, bad things might happen. I would also lift my feet when passing over railway tracks. this was very serious, I would say "lift your feet!!!" so that everyone could join.

A little breeze on my yard umbrella caused my glass patio table top to suddenly shatter into millions of tiny shards on my lawn only recently.

I was reading at the table when it happened. God smited me for making fun of the Twilight novels earlier that day.

In junior high, back in 1990, in a fine Utah County school a teacher liked to give nuclear bomb drills. He would suddenly flap his hands and the students were supposed to crawl under their desks and cover their eyes. This teacher was 100% serious about this. In one of those drills he was inspecting our crouches and declared that I would lose my legs because I didn't fit under my desk very well. The class laughed because we all knew that none of us would have any legs, eyeballs or desks if the atom bomb blew.

Not having any kids or any irrational fears as one, all this post brought to mind was the earthquake we had my senior year in high school (after 12 years of earthquake drills).

While everything was shaking violently around us and we all stared at each other seated at our desks, our Pre-Cal teacher shouted, "GET.UNDER.YOUR.DESKS! How many times have we practiced this?!?!?!"

When I was a little kid in Puerto Rico, they would always feature images of palm trees bent over in the wind during hurricane season commercials. For quite some time after, I would actually become nauseous and throw up if I saw real palm trees do that.

Then my house was erased by Andrew in Miami in 1992. Now the wind howling a certain way sends me over the edge.

I remember when I was about 8, I had a fear of getting scurvy.
I was also afraid of lightning because I was tall and my mom didn't want me walking through any fields during a storm. One time my friend felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up while we were in a field - I nearly shit myself. Told her to drop to the ground....and fell flat myself. You know, just in case. Her family wouldn't let her outside if it was windy because she was a small girl and they were afraid she would blow away.

I went to high school in Kuwait in the mid to late 1990s so we used to have air raid drills. You know, just in case Saddam ever decided to come back. That's always a fun one to drop on people. (no pun intended.)

By the way, in case of air raid, get as far away from the windows as possible and find a desk to hide under. You're welcome.

I grew up in the Midwest with plenty of tornado drills, but never experienced an earthquake before I moved to Central America. The first time I felt one, I thought it was a semi-truck driving past the building that was making it shake slightly. While they're a common occurrence here now, my friends who were raised on the West Coast will still call me post-earthquakes to make sure I was aware of what was happening / moved to the doorway.

Admittedly, I thought the same thing as Jon about tornado warnings. Growing up in California you learn to duck in a doorway or under your desk; all this running to the basement I do as a Tennessean is too much for me!

I'm looking forward to moving back to So Cal next summer, if for nothing more than to watch my kids faces the first time a 4 pointer hits our vicinity.

Priceless.

Heeheeheeheeheehee! Jon is SO CUTE!!!

Having grown up in Germantown (GHS grad -- woo! But not "valedictorian"!), I, too, remember the tornado drills at school. When I was in fourth grade, our assigned place to go was the boys bathroom, where we would line up around the perimeter of the place and assume the "position." For those of you who didn't grow up in tornado-prone areas, that does not refer to anything sexual. We had to sit on the ground, put our heads down between our knees, and cover our necks with our hands (fingers interlaced).

I still have nightmares about the sound of the tornado sirens going off all over Shelby County. I always obsessed about there being a tornado at noon on Saturday (when they tested the system)...because NO ONE WOULD KNOW that it wasn't a test and they wouldn't be running for the bathtub!!!

Thanks, Heather, for bringing back all my tornado anxiety!

I grew up in New Jersey - no earthquakes or tornados. It was in the 60's and the fear instilled in all of us in elementary school was that we were going to be bombed by Cuba. We had to practice air raid drills. There were two drills. One practice drill was for bombs that might drop in the general area - we would have to sit in the hallways lined up against the walls for about half an hour. We did get to bring books to read to pass the time waiting for those bombs. The other drill was for bombs that were about to drop on your school at any minute. We had to curl up in a ball under our desk with our head down and entwine the fingers of both hands to cover the back of our neck. Some kids had a hard time with this one – they missed the part about it being a practice drill.

My knees are permanently screwed up from that duck and cover position along the hallway walls in grade school during the spring and fall tornado drills. I grew up in northwest Indiana and have absolutely no cartiledge left in either knee. True story!

There's always the sitting under your desk and hold onto the legs of the desk drill too. I was always worried that my fingers were going to get squashed when the actual earthquake happened. It never did but, hey! You never know! The West Coast will start to shake any day now!

Actually I lie. We did have an earthquake in 2002. I was in the Drama room under a big huge vent with no desk to hide under. Go figure. No worry about my fingers in that situation.

Maybe on a windy day, rip up a piece of paper and get her to throw the pieces into the wind...not sure if that would help or make her hyperventilate.

I was always the opposite. I was intrigued by the gusty winds and possibility of a tornado sweeping me up and dropping me up over a rainbow. I used to dream that of riding on magic carpets, swooping down over myself in my bed, which I shared with my sister. Even as I've gotten older I have dreams of being picked up in the strong arms of a tornado and I always find it to be great fun. Then again, I'm only dreaming.

So, does Leta have those drills at school or perhaps they showed some sort of disaster video?

I grew up in Minnesota, so we had lots of tornado drills, and I know what to do in the event of most severe weather--from lightning storms to blizzards. When I moved to Seattle the place I worked had a series of drills for fire and other emergencies, and my boss said something like "oh, we don't need to actually DO an earthquake drill, everyone knows what to do, right?" Needless to say, everyone was smiling or laughing at me when I wondered if the correct thing to do was to go outside. I still say tornados are a better foe, at least you know where and when they will probably be (and anyone who grew up in an area of tornados knows the weather change signs), and there are tornado WARNINGS. Earthquake warnings? Not so much.

You might get her "Attic of the Wind". A very cool picture book from the 60s about where stuff goes when it blows away in the wind. Gorgeous mid-century illustrations.

http://www.vintagechildrensbooksmykidloves.com/2009/04/attic-of-wind.html

The things they teach you in elementary school that are supposedly going to save your life during a natural disaster baffle me. When I was huddled under my desk as a kid (earthquakes, you know) I remember thinking that if the ceiling collapses those tiny aluminum legs aren't going to keep 300 pounds from crushing tiny 50 pound me. Somehow covering your head with your arms doesn't seem like it would prevent you from getting sucked into a tornado.

Basically, I see Leta's point.

I have to confess I would probably have said the same thing! Growing up in California, we had earthquake drills and it was in the doorway or under the desk. So out of pure curiousity, What do you do in an tornado drill?!

I loved the tornado drills! My husband and I were just talking about tornadoes and I told him about the times I've seen them and funnel clouds and stuff (I'm from Texas, he's not) and he's all, "Oh yeah, well your brass balls slow you down, so I can outrun you when we're being chased by a mountain lion, so there."

Oh, and my Grandmother and Aunt Sybil alwaysalwaysalways put on their Sunday best whenever there's a storm/tornado warning at night. I love that.

@68. June..was that the Oak Lawn High back in the 70s? I know that tornado, which did take the roof off the school made a huge impact on my parents and the elementary schools. My mom truly believed it would happen again, and since we lived across the street from the school, it was only a matter of time before the tornado came back to get us. We had drills a lot. It seems that a lot of people kneeled. We had to sit indian style, lean forward, cover our heads and necks w/ our hands. A very awkward position.

In high school moved from tornado alley Texas where I'd only experienced drills, never a real tornado, and drought (school goes on you just can't wash your car, fill your pool, or water the lawn/football field), to the east coast where school was delayed for fog, canceled for snow/blizzard, and released early for hurricanes!!! Total SCORE! 10 years later moved back to a different part of TX, within 3 days was in a storm cellar because a tornado was right outside of town. What the heck was I thinking?

Living in Minnesota, tornado drills were always a big part of my life. But the other day, somehow I got to talking with my 5-year-old about earthquakes. And he was very concerned about people staying safe during an earthquake. So I explained that it's okay, that just like we build buildings here knowing that they might be expected to withstand a tornado, the architects in California plan for earthquakes. And just like we know what to do in a tornado (head for the center of the house, duck and cover!), people where they have earthquakes know what to do.

So he, of course, asked what they do. And all I could remember was something about doorways--that they were either the best place or the worst place, because either they would withstand the quake and keep you safe, or they would collapse on you. And none of this was helpful. So after dancing around my lack of knowledge and probably scaring him for a moment, I just explained that people who live around earthquakes know these things, and if we travel to a hotel in California, I'm sure they will have a sign on the hotel room door for people who don't know. You know, fire exit and earthquake instructions for out-of-towners.

Oh god, the OCD. You could set your calendar by my daughter's OCD flaring up at the beginning of every school year. She's starting 3rd grade in a couple of weeks, and already there is the hand washing.

It's all our fault, you know. They get the crazy from us.

When I was little I was TERRIFIED of wind in the worst way...and I grew up in California. Santa Ana winds would send me running to my bedroom where I would curl up into a ball, rock back and forth and pray for the wind to stop. Ahh...the memories.

You guys have YEARS of fun to look forward to!

You mean not everyone had to periodically evacuate and sit facing the wall in an interior hallway covering their heads with their arms? What?

Of course, the one time I was in high school when it wasn't just a drill no one assumed the correct position. This is because we spent about 2 hours in that damn hallway waiting for a tornado that ended up bypassing the high school.

Tornadoes used to terrify me as a child but now that I live in what is apparently the most natural disaster prone city in the country I'm just waiting for a tornado in a "well, it's the only thing that hasn't hit us in the last year" sort of way.

PixelFish, it's always been an old wive's tale that you open the windows during a tornado (some bullshit reasons given: it equalizes air pressure) but most people who live in tornado prone areas have always known it doesn't make a whit of difference. It's only for the people who live in the non-tornado prone areas that they had to explain that, no, opening all your windows will not help in the event of a tornado.

I remember learning about Van Gogh and I was convinced someone was going to cut off my ears while I was sleeping. I had to pretend my sheets were magic and would protect me from the ear stealer and vampires.

I also thought some kind of eel was going to come out of the toilet and attack me, and someone was hiding under my bed ready to slash my ankles... I don't know what my parents were thinking when they let me watch scary movies as a kid.

We had a tornado hit when I was at girl scout camp. My friend had the brilliant idea that we should all crawl under our cabin... We spent hours in the dirt with the spiders while everyone else was toasting marshmallows in the dining room:)

Hahaha, Jon's comment just made my day. I can imagine him standing under the doorway while the tornado does his work. So nice.

I'm from Puerto Rico, where there are no earthquakes or anything, just occasional hurricanes, but we did all sorts of drills just in the case that one day there might be an earthquake, or a hurricane might just randomly decide to show up at the door, or maybe someone would light the school on fire, etc.

The best part was that the drills would happen randomly during the day and that meant classes were interrupted. Oh how I wished there was a drill during my history classes...

You can let Jon know that in Oklahoma, we just go outside and watch the tornadoes. We don't actually go into the doorway until we can feel the tornado. *haha*

Actually, I've lived here in Oklahoma my entire 23 years and I still am overly terrified of tornadoes. I mean, I have a nervous breakdown everytime there is even the slight possibility of a tornado. Spring is a very bad time for me...

As a kid I was so afraid of any kind of storm that I slept underneath five blankets (even in the summer...I had a carefully rigged fan tunnel into my blanket cave.) Now I am the exact opposite, and just a few weeks ago when there was a tornado that popped up about 10 miles away, I climbed up on the roof and lamented that I didn't have a taller roof and a telephoto lens.

I grew up in Ft. Worth and remember the yearly tornado drills as everyone described above (face and knees on the floor, interlaced fingers over the back of the neck). I now teach in San Antonio and there are no yearly tornado drills, unless there's a tornado watch/warning/in the area and suddenly the teachers have to teach the kids what to do for this. Let me tell you how much fun it was the first time to try to instruct these teenagers how to sit in a tornado drill. Then, as I'm doing this and the kids are thinking/saying "What the F***?" the administrators figure that just sitting Indian style in the hallway is good enough, no need to crouch down. Then it was my turn to think "What the F***? You Administators, obviously were not raised with the Tornado Alley tornado drills ;-)"

Worst week of my life--June 1969 in Carbondale, Illinois. One full week of tornado warnings every night. Cheap student apartment made of paneling. Lived alone. No where to hide. Electricity out every night. I thought I was the only one who slept in the bathtub. Me and my typed-on-the-portable-manual-Olivetti thesis in the tub every night. Scared of wind ever since.

Oh, and the head on the floor, butt in the air worked in 1950's to protect us all from nuclear attacks.

so how much sense does this make...? In So. Ca. they used to have air raid drills and if you were in school you hid under your desk but if you were at home you got under a sheet. A sheet. Under a sheet with my crazy Grandmother. And apparently the sheet thing had something to do with protection from nuclear fall out. Who knew that's all you needed.
It was a much simpler time.

Hmm. I had that fear for a while when I was a kid. I still can't really make any sense of it. Something to do with loss, but I can't pinpoint why. Creepy. I need a therapist.

Jon's way cute. Lucky you. Lucky Leta. Lucky Marlo. :-)

I can easily teach you how to do a phobia cure. They take about 6 minutes to wipe away completely.

My 4 1/2 year old daughter is also afraid of things blowing away. Maybe it's typical at this age?

Don't worry, Jon. I would've said the exact same thing!

I remember tornado drills in elementary school in Ohio. We never had sirens back then.
As an adult, I was in Minnesota with my two babies, and I sat in my hotel room through a tornado siren one evening going, "What's that siren thingy?" No one was around to tell me what the hell it was, they were all in the basement! Also, I had never thought of Minnesota as tornado country.

Kid phobias are truly odd. When I was 5 or 6, I had trouble sleeping because I was positive a volcano was going to erupt right under my bed. Because there's lots of volcanic action in Baltimore. Sheesh. That lasted for probably a year.

Dude, with the tornadoes? ME TOO. For me, it all started when we earned some badge in Brownies or whatever. I don't know what it was -- the Tornado Badge? Whatever, we had to demonstrate our ability to stand in a doorway or duck and cover or something and there was even a little pamphlet that we had to complete and everything and it had charming little cartoons of HOUSES being WHISKED INTO THE SKY. Riiiight. So, yeah, with the bathtub and the insane paranoia whenever the sky was... oh, let's say, "mostly sunny."

I'm more or less a functioning adult (whose house has not been whisked into the sky SO FAR), so I guess there's hope.

I think the tornado drill is well-covered already, but being one of the fools who lives in Wisconsin where we like our natural disasters to come several times a year with the speed of a freight train, I have to say the drills helped. Even now, as an adult, knowing what I'm going to do helps me feel more prepared. Heck - you guys sleep in the basement. You're safe as houses.

Fear of things blowing away makes me think that maybe she's afraid of losing something or being swept away herself. (Go go armchair psychologist!) Maybe reassuring her of her own place in the world that will always be there for her even as everything else swirls and changes and, well, blows away around her might help her worry just a little less.

Have you ever heard of Dabrowski's Overexcitabilities? You might want to look it up. Our oldest is highly gifted and has OEs in all 5 categories. It sounds like Leta might have them as well.

There's nothing wrong with OEs; it's not a diagnosis that requires pills or therapy or the likes, but sometimes it's nice knowing that the eccentricities of your child are because they're different in a good way. It's also helpful when looking for ways to help them manage these differences, especially on a school and social level. :-)

When I was in early elementary school, I lived in Salt Lake, and not only did we have earthquake drills (they're still waiting on THE BIG ONE), but we had code red drills. Which is actually kind of creepy, thinking back. Code red drills were essentially what to do if there was an intruder with a gun on school premises. Basically we locked the doors and windows and stayed very quiet. Never had a tornado drill, though. I wonder if they ever do now, now that Salt Lake has actually had one.

Even in Pennsyltucky, tornado drills were normal. Once or twice a year, we'd all grab a textbook, take it out into the hallway, kneel facing the wall and duck and cover. Ironically, right in front of the lockers that would be blown open should an actual tornado touch down anywhere in the vicinity.

And of course, someone would inevitably fart while in that position, causing us all to giggle uncontrollably until we passed out from the stench.

Ha! I've never had a tornado drill, but in earthquake country they do, in fact, teach you to stand in a doorway.

Everyone, of course, takes this as gospel. And then, one day, I looked into this and it turns out it has not been true since, oh, they quit making houses out of straw and the wolf no longer comes huffing and puffing.

So don't count on these old drills for safety. To make us look foolish, yes (Hey, why isn't anyone else standing in the doorway, huh?), but not for safety.

(And it just dawns on me; don't let your little one read The Three Pigs.)

Cheers!

My sister threw a worm at my head one time. I then beat one to death in the entry hall of our house with a tennis racket. I've never been quite right about them. Wow, that comment makes me sound psycho. Nice.

So sweet! And hilarious!

Poor Girl. I totally get where she is coming from. As I child I would pray to God every night that i wouldn't have any tornado dreams, as there was a BIG ONE in Edmonton AB when I was 5 or so which forced some family friends to move home (Vancouver, BC.) I also feared the Gulf War, and did earthqauke drills in elementary school where we would get under our desks and count to 60 then file outside...

Under a doorway...*snort*...that IS funny.

When I was a kid, we used to go to the Syracuse Orange Dome for sporting events. The force of the wind was so hard that until I was about 10 I would get BLOWN OUT THE DOOR (I was a small child.) Scary stuff.
My big fear was Ivy. I thought it would start growing wildly and choke me to death.

Oh my lord! I live in Arkansas, where the tornado sirens are regularly tested. And even if they go off in the middle of a perfectly calm and clear day, it takes everything I have not to throw up and then run away and hide in the bathtub.

I grew up in Michigan, my husband grew up in Missouri. We grew up doing the "duck and cover" drills in the hallways in school. And what did we do last week during a TREMENDOUS thunderstorm? We sat out on our covered wraparound porch to watch...as the lightning hit trees in our neighborhood - about three. With one of the dogs on my husband's lap, almost crapping all over him. It took the dog three hours to recover after that (we'd have left the dog in the house but he needed to be up our asses during the storm and wouldn't let us out the door without him) Duck and cover? No way - it's more fun to experience it out in the open :-)

When we had our second child, our first born, age 4 at the time, suddenly became terrified of things going down drains and floor vents. I mean TERRIFIED. Apparently his reaction to losing the life he thought he had was to envision everything he cared for going down the tubes. There are days I can completely empathize.
We live in Little Rock, lots of tornado. In fact they test the sirens every Wednesday at noon.

I grew up in ND, and now live in TX. Right about now, with all of this "End of the World Weather," the last few years, I think I would probably take a tornado drill and a blizzard with impending overland spring flooding over another hurricane.

Oh yeah, I remember tornado drills. The best was the year that us 1st graders (because we were in those portable trailer classrooms, yay Louisiana) were herded into this weird alley-like closet in the main building. So you had probably 50 or so 6-year-olds crammed into this windowless narrow space lit by a single bare bulb. There were several of my classmates who would have much rather taken their chances with a tornado than that closet.

Leta would definitely not making in my town. The city finally sprang for a siren system last year and, by Gods, they are going to get our money's worth. Nevermind that half the time they don't sound the "all clear" so we are just waiting for the day some poor redneck family starves to death in their bathtub.

I also grew up in Memphis and lived through both tornados and tornado drills. Remember the shame of trying to keep my butt covered when I wore a short skirt on drill day.

Wonder if they still have the Saturday beer whistle? That's what we called it when the tested the siren every Saturday at noon - which also signalled when you could start buying beer!

Like all the kids would fit under one doorway anyway..

Haha! I would probably sound just like Jon in that case. I'm not really sure how much you're making fun of him, but I sympathize with his side.

What an odd fear for Leta to have. Good luck with that one!

There must be something that happens when they turn five years old and tics become the norm.

While my son isn't afraid of things flying away (well, not yet anyway), he's developed this rather odd breathing pattern that makes you think he has asthma but he doesn't (he's been checked out).

One of his other five year old friends clears his throat constantly and yet another one of his friends smells things all.the.time. He's constantly sniffing his fingers. I caught him one day as he was crossing the road. Suddenly, he bends down to smell the pavement. Hello? You're on THE ROAD. You know, where CARS drive? Thankfully none were coming.

Anyway, all I could think of was the SNL skit where the character, Mary Katherine Gallagher, gets nervous and smells her armpits.

Kids sure do keep us entertained. Never a dull moment!

this is nothing whatsoever to laugh about ... the other day, yeah, so sunday ... my sig other and i were talking about how everything "worked out perfectly" and we were speaking about my daughter's wedding, to which i was still in the locale where the wedding took place, and he was back at our home (which we just bought ... so yeah, the FINANCING FINALLY WENT THROUGH ... WOOT!) and we started all this bullshit about how "good things CAN happen to good people, and then all of a sudden he goes, "Shit!!! Something just hit the house, I'll call you back!"

Turns out a trampoline from five properties up, lifted off during a storm, rampaged through all the yards to our house, hit the side of our house, dug out a chunk of our kitchen window frame (from the outside), and then finally landed in the vacant, yet to be bought lot, next to our house, but only after it took out my ENTIRE, CAREFULLY POSITIONED AND LOVELY FLOWER GARDEN OF VINTAGE POTS AND SUCH!

Seriously, I was all like, we do not, under any circumstances ever talk on the phone and say, either "i love you" and/or "amazing how things turn out" because he travels a lot and we are very often separated, and my gods and goddesses if a receipt ever flew out of my purse in our garage, I'D FREAK RIGHT THE F' OUT!

I'm just saying.

Otherwise, what Leta is going through is just a stage, and is so cute, I could piss myself!

If I wasn't so busy watching storm warnings on cable.

Dooce, you rock as always.

I can relate to poor Leta. Around five years old I became so afraid of using the toilet--I have a vivid memory of thinking a shark or vampire would come out of the hole and bite me, and then drag me in--that I peed behind our couch and in my bedroom closet for a year.

Like you need more advice, but has anyone suggested getting Leta a kite? Our kids love 'em. I know, I'm probably the thirty-eleventh commenter who's suggested it...

I grew up in Wisconsin and now I teach in Wisconsin. Of course, we have tornado drills every spring. There's not enough doorways for 1,200+ students and staff. But I usually end up in a stinky locker room just waiting for the drill to be over.

I also remember a student from California that transferred into our high school when I was a student. We had a real tornado warning one spring day. She was incredibly panicked and to the rest of us...it was no big deal.

So in a completely opposite but related story, I recently had a discussion like this with my mother. I grew up in Utah (Bountiful, actually...) but my mom moved all over as a kid and spent a large part in Mississippi, so she knows tornados. My husband and I currently live in San Jose, and our previous rental home was an old one, built in 1920. I was joking that during an earthquake the entire house would probably disintegrate and blow away, and she, very seriously, said, "Well, at least you have that cellar underneath the house to go to if it happens."

Yes, mother. At least we have that...

Doorways are NOT the safest in the event of an earthquake. I have been told that getting under a table is best...if the roof collapses, the table would be somewhat of a barrier to being crushed.

I can totally understand this. I grew up in Alberta, Canada. Tornados aren't unknown but certainly not common. However, long before the 1987 Edmonton Tornado or the 2000 Pine Lake Tornado I had it ingrained in my small head that one of these storms was coming to get me.

I used to collect all of my treasured possessions and rush them to the basement whenever the wind picked up over 15kts. Every tag on a dark cloud spelled certain death to me. As I grew up I started to read as much as I could about the subject.

In 2000, our family had a 5th wheel at Pine Lake and the tornado took out the trailer (my Grandmother survived, in spite of being right in the path. She wouldn't like this description, but she's one tough broad). When my Dad went out to see if he could find anything left of our property for insurance purposes, etc. I gave him a briefing of how to follow the path for his best change of finding anything. He looked at me like I was insane. All I could tell him was "hey, remember how obsessed I was with this when I was a kid? All that reading finally paid off."

Glad to see from all these comments that I'm not the only one who spent a childhood worrying about such things.

Great book and blog, by the way. I'm expecting my first in a few weeks and your honestly and humour are such a help.

I think all kids obsess about something sometime. For me, it was getting struck by lightning. My mom taught me to count 1-1,000-2-1,000 between the flash and the thunder to gauge how far away the lightning had struck. One second = one mile, right? I didn't feel safe unless I was counting out loud. Twice in my life lightning struck very close--once about 15 feet away from me when I was at cheerleading practice in middle school, and I was thrown a few feet, and another time it hit our chimney and blew out every electronic gadget in the house. I was sitting across from the fireplace reading. So I guess those experiences left me freaked out.

I still count between flash and crash. Now, more under my breath so people don't think I'm nuts.

My daughter worries about hurricanes and we live in Colorado. My stepson worries about everything, but then he's weird.

No really...what do they teach you? I'm a fifth generation Arizonan. I haven't the slightest idea why it's funny :( Doorway sounds reasonable...hide under a desk perhaps? Why a bathtub? Can't the roof fall in on you just as easily while sitting in your tub? ..and attract lightening at that? I do understand the Care Bears though...I may have brought those and some Choose Your Own Adventure books; get me hyped up for action...

Oh, my daughter who is almost five does the same thing. I wonder what it is? She FREAKED out whenever the wind would blow our 4th of July flag...like isn't that what it's supposed to do...flap in the wind?? But it freaked her out so badly that we had to take it down. She thought that it was going to blow away forever??...injure someone?? Good to know it's not just my kid with the OCD behavior, which I had my fair share of as a child too. :)

I, for one, LOVE storms. I always have. Even when there was tornado in Rockford that blew down our backyard tree, I thought it was fascinating as hell. I still like storms and wind.

I had several weird phobias and tics when I was a kid. I had a horrendous fear of swallowing things-toys, batteries, etc. I imagined it, and I was terrified that I would swallow something like that and choke on it. I was also flat-out terrified that my little brother would do something like that. That might have come from the penny he'd swallowed once... Or the purple crayon... Either way, I was absolutely terrified of swallowing a toy, a marble, etc.

I was also terrified that my bike would get stolen. I always locked it up, and I sometimes had to check a few times, or I would lay awake at night, paranoid that somebody would come in and steal my bike. Now, my brother DID have a few bikes stolen out of our garage. It ALWAYS pissed me off that he wouldn't lock his bike up. And it ALWAYS pissed me off that he always got a new one!

We had our lawnmower stolen once. O.o That did wonders for this stealing fear.

I was also scared of the noises, etc. in my house. I spent a lot of time convincing myself: "There's no such thing as ghosts. There's no such thing as ghosts!" ...Though I know better these days! :-)

And yes, I did develop OCD later on in life. I spent a good while BEYOND TERRIFIED of head lice, and my new one is cockroaches. Meh.

When I was about 5 or 6, a tornado hit our warehouse in town. "They said a door flew into the neighbor's yard and is standing straight up," Dad said. My only thought was if the stupid neighbors were going to keep the door. We need that door back!

My irrational fears as a kid have somewhat still stuck. I was in morning kindergarten and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. Every once in a great while, she would be 15 or 30 minutes late coming home from errands and I would be by myself. I would get so scared to sit on the couch because it was in front of a window. I was afraid of someone breaking through the window behind me and cutting my neck...in broad daylight. I would get a blanket, cover myself from the head down, and sit in front of the tv to watch Sesame Street until someone came home. I still don't like my husband to touch my neck. I get gribblies.

I was also scared of the kitchen door. We didn't have a curtain on that window for a while. We also had to pass in front of it to go to the bathroom. Boy, that was a treat at night. I was always scared there was a guy in one of those old timey brass diving helmet standing on the other side of the door. I think I got that one from Scooby Doo. Although, all of us were creeped out by that door at night. It was soooo nice when Mom finally put up a curtain. Dad was even happy about it, and he doesn't like anything to change.

Oh yeah...I have some friends that own a (tornado) siren company. I can't listen to anything on their site because the sound just freaks me out. I think about nuclear attacks and tornadoes all at one time.

hil-larious. he must have grown up here.

I was afraid freddy krueger was going to suck me through my bed.

Give her a bottle of canned air to play with and see how she reacts.

Irrational childhood fears?

I had a rug on the floor of my bedroom, cream with Thomas the Tank engine pattern on, but when it was dark in my room, all logic flew out the window, and I was convinced Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty (you know the bad fairy with the same voice as the Evil Stepmum in Cinderella) was about to appear from the rug a la the christening scene in the Disney Film. Hey ho.

I lived in the Midwest as a kid and was scared enough of tornadoes as it was, but luckily we moved to Germany before Mom read us the Little House on the Prairie series, with all the descriptions of How People Die in tornadoes. Seriously, at certain points it becomes, "They found his body with the boots off, but and the boots, still laced, two miles away! How'd the boots get off his body with his legs still intact?"

Then we moved back to Virginia, where not only did we have fire drills and tornado drills, we also had hurricane drills (exactly the same as tornado drills, with that odd tucked-up position), and after Columbine, intruder drills. Jon may be interested to know that we don't do earthquake drills in Virginia, but that's about it.

Would Mary Poppins help? Mary gently drifts up and down on her umbrella, the kids fly kites with their dad, and everyone gets sucked up the chimneys to dance on the roofs.

Or would that make her scared of fireplaces?

Good luck.
http://mrsaurieng.info

Oh yes, the blowing away fear. Mine started when I let go of a balloon and watched it disappear into the sky. I then realised the sky goes on forver. And ever. AND EVER. So what would happen if I fell off of the Earth? I'd be floating in space for ever and ever and my parents would never find me.

Closely followed after this was fear of spontaneous combustion, nothing left of me but scraps of my pjs... and 'planes falling on the roof of the house and crushing my in my sleep (I mean I could HEAR the 'planes up there!).

And then of course hearing that members of the government
around the World had their fingers on the button to start wars... what if they slipped and pressed the button by accident? Or Margaret Thatcher put her handbag down on it?

It's a wonder I made it to adulthood in one piece. x

I have an all consuming fear of spiders so me and Leta... we're soul mates. I'm sure that my scream over a spider the size of the head of a pin and Leta's scream over the blowing receipt were on the same pitch.

By the way... I think your last Chuck photo is my all time favorite in the whole history of Chuck photos. He does look very natural in that setting... majestic even...

I have to come out of lurk-dom to say that I, as a former Memphian (born and raised), am quite baffled when I realize that not everyone grew up having tornados, you know, like, ONCE A WEEK in the summer.

In fact, I got a running commentary in text messages from my father about two weeks ago when FIVE tornados touched down in one night in Memphis.

And then, earlier this summer, my friends and I were driving in Nebraska, pumping gas, when all of a sudden the sirens went off. I immediately went INSIDE the gas station while my friends stood IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET TO SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING. I was like, HELLO!? It's a tornado!! Turns out not everyone grows up with a tornado siren on top of their school. Who knew?!

At my school, the tornado drill was the same drill for Nuclear Fallout, I shit you not. I was skeptical that these positions would work in a tornado drill, but I am totally not convinced that crouching in the hallway will save me from a nuclear bomb.

@Wichita, I live in Cincinnati OH, where they test the sirens every Wednesday at noon.

Aww, that's too cute and hilarious at the same time. I'm also terribly amused that your husband had no idea about tornado drills. I'm assuming he probably doesn't know the extensive to-do list for hurricane season, either -- lucky guy.

I can totally relate to the phobia thing. When my daughter was 4 or 5, she would get terribly upset when a toy, raft, etc. was left in our pool. She would shake and cry and generally freak out until someone would get out. Don't ask me where this came from but she grew out of it. Now she's 17 and she's the one who leaves the raft in the pool and couldn't care less. Go figure.

My mother would have a heart attack yelling for me to get into the basement but my father and I would just stand there and smile, straining our eyes for a glimpse of that destructive funnel.

Not to sound all crunchy...
Have considered homoeopathy to calm Leta's anxiety, some things are heredity.

I lived in Dallas for two years - and I'm not sure which was more unnerving, the tornado watches or roaches the size of a sewer rat. I had to run out of a public restroom once -with my pants down at my ankles, I might add - and I didn't even care. Did. Not. Care. What's a little dignity when there's a man-eating-cockroach lurking in the shadows of your stall? EXACTLY!

I grew up within a few miles of a nuclear power plant. Now, those drills? They're something to be afraid of!

So funny. My 7 year old daughter has built a tornado shelter in her bedroom because we live in tornado central in West Tennessee. We have been fortunate this year to only see one. How ridiculous does that sound. I actually got pictures of a rain wrapped tornado. You couldn't see the tornado but the damage was just the same. Good times!

Maybe Leta is expressing some anxiety over all of the big changes that have happened in her life recently? A new sibling can be both joyous and overwhelming. And it seems a possibility, and a natural extension (to me, anyway) that she would be reacting to things flying around-forces beyond one's control, coming out of nowhere, stuff getting all rearranged and moved about...loss of control, and all that.
I bet it will pass after a while.
good luck.
Claire

I think all kids have fobias of some kind. I'm wondering what my 22-month old son's will be? Mine was a fear of things going down the drain - so hiding in the tub would be out of the question. Tub, sink, toilet, pool - for years I didn't flush!

Hey, my daughter was afraid of balloons and kittens. BALLOONS AND KITTENS. At least tornadoes are an actual threat. Leta, don't let them tell you you're crazy. Not yet anyway.

Leta sounds adorable. I'm a new dooce reader...and I am loving it.

Huh, when I was her age I was afraid of sharks coming out of the drain and eating me.

Or me getting sucked down through the drain.

I blame the same cartoon for both fears.

I blame my uncles for the land shark in my sandbox phobia though.

Leta seems to have a superior sensitivity that makes her concerned about grave consequences to everything that most kids would shrug at or not even notice. It's a beautiful gift but it makes living in the real world hard, as you know, since by the insight you reveal in your writing, you have that gift too. As a kid, I had all sorts of weird phobias too, and weird manic obsessive compulsive behaviours - one being that I'd blow the germs off my hand (or off the seat of my pants if I'd been sitting) when I touched something, like a door knob, in public, so it was touch something, blow hand from palm to fingertips, over and over, every day, for years. My mom almost had a breakdown. My rationale was that I was blowing off the fate of someone whose life I didn't want to get tangled up with mine and my family's. It was a strange protective thing. If I touched a doorknob after a woman whose mother had died of cancer than that would happen to my mother, etc etc. It took a long time before I was able to stop blowing germs and not freak out but then I just moved on to other phobias :)

Maybe someone said (she looks like she's of thin build) that she looks like she'd blow away in a strong wind. My sister and I never had that problem... we're not fat, but of good solid German American farmer build, prompting our g/ma to once say "Well, you 2 won't blow away! You're built like brick shithouses!"
I'd rather have been told I'd blow away, I think.

Ha! I grew up and still live in Wisconsin. Where we are idiots who STAND OUTSIDE and watch the clouds make weird formations. "Ooh I think that sucker is gonna touch down. Dude!"

Tornado sirens are like a lullaby to me.

I loved tornado drills in elementary school! A nice way to break up math class.

I remember camping out in the bathtub, too. A tornado was 4 blocks away and my mom was getting her hair permed in the kitchen. All the windows were open and I was afraid my parents were gonna blow away.

I love tornados, now.

A tornado hit my town in 2008 and for days my my three-year-old daughter kept talking about the "naughty tomato" that blew away the houses. Still makes me laugh. (Not the tornado, nooooo, that WAS NOT funny.)

My then-fiancee (now wife) was driving across country to join me in Arizona. She called me from a hotel somewhere in the Midwest. During the call, someone came to her door and advised her that everyone needed to congregate downstairs, as there was a report of a large tornado nearby.

The 45 minutes that passed before she called me back to say it missed the hotel seemed rather lengthy.

I grew up in suburban new jersey. Fortunately for us, we don't have tornadoes, hurricanes, or earthquakes to worry about and there zero sirens that go off EVER.

So, you can imagine my anxiety when the siren went off on the first tuesday of the first month of my my freshman year of college at 10:30 am. I am walking from one building to another and there it was, the piercing shrill of the tornado siren off the top of the building next to me. I look around wildly and all the other kids are just walking calmly AS IF THE WORLD IS NOT ABOUT TO END!!!!! This is the second week of school, before you have friends to speak of or really know anyone. I try to keep it cool and make it to my next class where I sit and listen to the siren going off while all the other kids (who somehow seem to know each other, not sure where I missed the ice breakers) are COMPLETELY IGNORING THE NOISE!!!

Being a person of some intelligence, I decided there was probably nothing wrong and I would do some subtle inquiries later and figured out that they test the sirens every month on the first tuesday morning. However, the first few minutes were the most terrifying of my life!

But, you are talking about the same city girl who had an exit strategy to save her entire family in case the house went up in flames in the middle of the night at age 8. At a younger age, I had a phobia where I had to get out of the bathroom between the time I hit the flusher and before the toilet finished flushing or a monster would come out and get me. And I remember actually feeling afraid about this!!

Why are children so afraid of the world!!

I live in Memphis, and in the last month or so, we have had 4 tornados touch down. One touched down about half a mile from my house while I was at work. I drove home, avoiding all the fallen trees and power lines, just praying that the large tree in front of my house was still in front of my house, and not in my house. It was, but we had lost a lot of branches and others in my neighborhood had lost a lot more than that. I grew up outside of Corinth, MS, and remember the tornado drills very well. I also remember that the first time I ever saw a tornado, I was outside the first grade building at my school, watching a tornado form just a mile or so away. My teacher had to come out and drag me inside. I was so scared, but could not stop watching. Thirty-one years later, I still have occasional nightmares of being surrounded by tornados. However, I love to watch Stormchasers and shows like that. I am complicated.

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hmmmm. I do remember pooping in a plastic baseball hat and then emptying it into the toilet for probably a good year as a child. I'd heard that a rat came through the sewer into the pipes and bit a man on the ass. In New York or someplace like that. I lived in rural North Carolina. Was I surprised when I was diagnosed with general anxiety and panic disorder as an adult? I'd been waiting my whole life . . .

Oh boy, do I remember tornado drills. Having grown up in Georgia, right at the end of tornado alley, it seems like at least 6 times a year we were huddled along the hallway without windows in school, kneeling with our hands over our heads to protect ourselves from falling debris, i guess.

And so many times the real tornado warnings would sound and we'd be out there, freaking out that we would get blown away and die AT SCHOOL. Awful.

My house growing up was less than a mile from the fire station with the tornado siren, and they would test it (and still do) every Wednesday at noon. The sound still gives me goosebumps.

OMG!! It's crazy to me that people DON'T know what tornado drills are. I live in a town near Birmingham, AL. Tornados hit here so often that we would have drills atleast one time every two weeks at school. We would all line up against the cinder block walls in the school halls. We then had to put our heads between our knees and I swear that was one of the worst things that I ever had to do while in school. We would all gasp for air once we got up.

I've lived in Kansas all my life and I STILL get scared every spring when I know I'm going to hear that tornado siren about once a week!

The worst is when they are just testing the sirens (as they do the first wednesday of every month) and it happens to be dark and stormy outside. You're not sure WHAT to believe then! =)

I had a number of neuroses as a kid - some of the same ones as your other readers... heart stopping at night, stopping breathing, sharks in the pool (who knew they could survive chlorine...) but the most bizarre was due to reading a kid's horror story where a hand-made doll came to life and killed people (this was before Chucky...). I was terrified of china dolls and would also have to say goodnight and kiss all my dolls and stuffed animals before going to sleep. I thought that if I missed one, it would attack me in my sleep...

In spite of this, I am leading a reasonable normal existence!!

I wonder how many kids raised in the south spent their childhood terrified of pending death-by-tornado. I was raised in Texas, and my sister and I (on more than one occasion) wrecked our mother's bathroom dragging her full-sized mattress to the bathtub after seeing tornado warnings on TV. (Because, as you know, only a bathtub and magic mattress will save you from a tornado!)

Anyone else who slept with the covers up to her nose lest Jesus' robe or guardian angel's wings brush up against you? I had feather pillows on my bed and every now a then, a little feather would work its way out and scare the hell out of me. I might have gotten a lot more sleep had I been raised by agnostics.

Did you, by chance, take her to see that movie "Up"?
Just wondering.