Sometimes it’s hard to be the adult when you’re a parent. I like to act more childish than my daughter at times, though that’s only around her. I enjoy making her laugh, it lightens my heart.

These past few days we’ve been enduring thunderstorms. My daughter is frightened of the thunder…most children are. Every time there’s a loud noise or something that scares her, she’ll run into the hallway. There she finds it safe, probably because there aren’t any windows and it seems more closed in.

When I was growing up we moved around a lot; most of those places were in tornado alley. Every time we had a thunderstorm or tornado warnings and/or watches, my youngest two sisters and I would find shelter under the kitchen table. This was honestly the safest place we could find in our tiny house. We actually turned our kitchen table into a fort. We would turn the chairs around so that the backs would be right up against the table. Then we would hang blankets over the back of the chairs, then place pillows around the back of the chair legs. We made it comfortable and dark, though we always made sure to bring a handful of flashlights with us, as well as books and snacks. Meanwhile, our mother would be in the living room, listening to the weather on the TV, to which we could hear from where we were, under the table. We would stay under there until the storm went away.

That was twenty-five years ago, give or take a year or two, when my sisters and I made our thunderstorm fort. Lately when a thunderstorm comes through, my daughter and I would sit on the couch together, far from the window. I would watch TV, while she would have her headphones on, playing with her Kindle. Yesterday she kept complaining about the thunder. It rumbled so loud, it made the house shake. And each time it would thunder, she would dart off into the hallway. She finally just hung out there for awhile. She looked sad and depressed, not to mention she left her kindle on the couch, so she was also bored. I decided to join her, but with toys, pillows, her kindle, her portable DVD player, and some blankets. I made us a little pad, partially in the hallway, where we stayed until the storms left our area.