My son’s daycare is two blocks from where I work.

This means that I can indulge my overprotective fantasies without the usual bounds of work requirements.  For instance, when the tornado sirens start going off at 11am, I can (stupidly) run to his daycare to be with him.

Practically, I am not sure what exactly the anticipated benefit was supposed to be from this act of self-sacrifice.  I guess if we were going to get sucked up to Oz, at least were were going together.

The net result was somewhat short of Oz.  I am not quite the kind of person cut out to sit on exactly 25 square feet of interior bathroom floor with one other adult and twelve children under the age of four – all of whom decide they need to use the potty during the half hour that the sirens were blaring.

Did I mention that I am the older parent of ONE child? 

After the sirens stopped blaring, I made the (also overindulgently overprotective) decision to take him back to my office with me, since we are anticipating waves of severe thunderstorms coming through for the remainder of the day.  Again, I supposed this was an attempt to keep us together on that Oz trip.

Net result?

My office IS Oz.  I get to work surrounded by a pile of toy cars, crayons and stuffed animals, with a leaking juice box and the scattered remains of a granola bar on my conference table.  My lovely coworker, Trixie, got to have her office invaded by a butterfly-chasing toddler during an hour and a half meeting.  This meant she was subjected to the added indignity of a “Dirty Harry” without a clean pullup in sight and a popcorn explosion on her office carpet that will stand as a test to our new cleaning company.

 Sheer mayhem, and not a tornado in sight.

 Toto, I don’t think we are in (ar)Kansas anymore.