When it comes to ‘grandma-ing’, I’m fairly laid back. I’m all about imagination and learning. Clutter takes a back seat to creativity. Translated this means that William dismantles the livingroom on a fairly regular basis.

His latest hobby is building ‘haunted houses’. He uses couch pillows to stuff his sweatshirts. He traces his hands and decorates the cutouts with magic marker scars and blood. Balloons make heads. A shower curtain draped over the rocker makes a ghost, etc. etc. By the time that he’s finished with his creation, the livingroom has been totally re-arranged.

One Friday night though, I did mind. I minded quite a bit. We’re in the middle of a project that takes up most of our weekends, so Friday nights are spent trying to get everything done that I’d normally spend the weekend doing because I won’t be home for most of the weekend.

William said, “I have some more ideas. I want to build a haunted house.” I looked around my mostly tidy house and this time I said, “Let’s not, William. It’s nearly bedtime, and we’ve got a busy weekend.” He looked disappointed, so I attempted to appeal to his ‘scientific mind’ by turning on the television. There was a documentary on tornados on the weather channel. Grandpa came out of the office and the two of them sat down to watch the show.

I left the room to switch out laundry and take care of a few things. This was my fatal mistake because by the time that I returned to the livingroom there were toys and clothing from his backpack and magazines and books scattered from one end to another. On the couches, across the floor. It was a disaster. It took my breath away to see it.

“What HAPPENED?!” I said.

Nestled under his grandpa’s arm engrossed in his documentary, William looked at me. “I was pretending there was a tornado. The wind scatters debris.”

I looked around and said, “Very realistic.”

William talked about tornadoes a great deal in the next days. When he is interested in something, he wants you to read to him about the topic. He wants to look for videos on you-tube. He draws pictures. I knew that the tornado obsession would go the way of the Titanic if I gave it enough time, and so we were patient.

Two nights ago, we were returning from an auction. We stopped for ice cream at McDonalds, one last stop before William was returned home to be put to bed. We watched the sky get darker and darker. William had been told by an older kid on the bus that tornadoes were coming.

I don’t know what it is about older kids. I remember the “older kids” on my bus telling the little kids (me) that aliens were coming to take all the little kids away that night. I believed them. I remember my mother talking me out of it well after my bedtime that night. William has earlier been told that the sun was going to explode and that everyone on earth was going to die. We spent a long time disabusing him of those convictions. Once again, in the McDonalds, we began our work.

“See the lightning? This is a thunderstorm. It looks like it’s going to be a bad one, but we’ll be perfectly safe. We went to the car and began to drive to our house. We enthusiastically pointed out lightning flashes. “Wow! Look at that!” “Oooooh.” William set aside his fears and began to watch the skies. Armed with science, he began to explain to us how lightning was electricity and we listened as if we’d never heard of such a thing before.

When we got home, Grandpa unbuckled him from his car seat. They were switching vehicles since all of William’s school stuff was in the other car. That’s when we heard the sirens. William’s eyes went wide. I was trying to get a message to Tim without using the t-word. “Maybe you should not go just yet,” I said. And Tim carefully avoided the t-word as well. “Maybe we need to check the internet. Let me see what’s on television.”

William however did not avoid the t-word. “Does them sirens mean tornado?”He began to dance around the driveway a little in his agitation. “Tornados are bad and they can do a lot of damage. They are very dangerous. We must get in the house. Come on!”

We followed him assuring him that it would be okay.

The television reported a touch down in Youngsville and predicted it to hit Warren shortly. William became fearful. In a distracting sort of way, I asked him to pick up his marble racetrack pieces. He was not distracted although he did pick up his track.

He started getting a little weepy while he was doing it and Grandpa said in a no-nonsense voice, “Stop that now. We’re watching the tornado to see what happens. We have a safe place to go. When it is dangerous, you have to pay attention.” William climbed up on the couch to his very own safe place under his grandpa’s arm and he paid very close attention.

The storm went over us and blessedly Warren was spared. William began to relax as we learned that the tornado had gone on to harass Forest County.

By bedtime, he was explaining that tornadoes were very interesting and that he had not been scared at all, only very, very interested. “When it is dangerous, you can’t start crying. You need to pay attention so you know what to do next,” and I listened to him as if I’d never heard of such a thing before.

Grandpa had turned a tornado into a teachable moment.