Sunny day
Allison did a good job of describing the strange morning after feeling.

Lying in bed looking at the bright morning sun reflected on the half closed shutters, I wondered if Youngest and her friend sleeping over at our apartment were awake yet. Just before the sound of their chatter answered my question, I remembered last night’s terrorist attack and realized that everything was so quiet.

You somehow expect the ambulance sirens to just go on and on. But we didn’t even hear them last night. I was watching a sweet Australian romantic comedy with that Welsh guy who stole the show in Notting Hill. He flies off on a deckchair with helium balloons tied to it and comes down in some little town in Eck Velt where he falls head over heels with the only traffic cop in town.

Bish heard about the terrorist attack when the film was over and I was in the shower. My first thought when he came to tell me was, "Oh my God, what if Eldest and her friends had got bored in their sleep-over party and had decided to go out instead?"

Now the likelihood of this happening was less than slim, not even slightly realistic, but it was late, I was tired, and I’d been feeling uneasy about Eldest as it was. She had forgotten her sleeping bag and we’d been trying to contact her all evening. Needless to say she wasn’t answering her cell phone (duh!) and, bad parents that we are, we’d neglected to get the phone number and exact address of the friend throwing the party. We knew the building, but not the last name or the floor number.

Apparently she had been trying to call us as well at one point, but there was something wrong with Bish’s cell phone. It never rains.

Lesson: Just because a child happens to be a very dependable and reliable teenager (tfu tfu tfu) AND she has her cell phone with her (and you’ve checked the battery is charged), doesn’t mean you don’t need to know the telephone number at the place she’s staying.

Honestly, you’d think we’ve been parents for about three days.

And this is when I knew (nearly exactly) where she was and what she was doing. How is it going to be when she’s a bit older and really out on the town?

I know it’s selfish of me to be thinking about my own kids when other people’s kids were actually killed and injured last night. I guess it’s instinctive.

Update: More and more.