Thursday night, Northfield got pounded with a massive thunderstorm. I estimate, conservatively, that there were a bazillion big thunderclaps and at least as many blasts of lightning.
Of course, all the noise woke up Julia, who whimpered in that way of terrified kids do. Lest Julia's crying wake up her sister, Shannon and I took a gamble we've never taken before and hauled her into bed with us. I thought, as she snuggled in, that there was pretty much no way in a cumulonimbus she'd fall asleep, given the storm and the novelty of being in Mama and Daddy's bed. I was surprised to find, a couple hours later, that she was still asleep, snuggled right there between us. Moved back to her own bed, she slept through till morning.
This evening, I asked her whether she remembered sleeping with us, and she said she did, adding that thunder's not scary because it sounds "like drums" and, what's more, lightning isn't scary because "it's like wavy white hair" or "thin string cheese."
(For her part, Genevieve slept through the big overnight storm, was elated by a dinnertime shower this evening, and then needed an extra white-noise machine to get to sleep during a bedtime storm.)