I recently bought this handmade, recycled (upcycled) “Zombie Escape Plan” journal from Etsy (the shop is tons of fun, check it out here). Though I haven’t recorded any definite escape plans yet, it did get me thinking.

Not that I think a zombie attack is very likely, of course. But there are other disasters that could happen. Hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, simple power outages, or even horrible things like terrorist attacks. Or maybe aliens, like in that movie that Tom Cruise re-made a few years ago. Whatever. I have a point here.

That point is, having a kid really changes your survival strategies. I remember thinking a lot about this right after Veronica was born, actually (it’s probably no coincidence that the movie I referenced above, “War of the Worlds,” was being shown on HBO a lot at the time). My thoughts generally fell into the category of “Oh shit, we’ll never make it.” How could I go on the run, for instance, with a baby in tow? Where would I heat her formula? How could we possibly haul around all that formula, for that matter? Damn, wish I could have been successful at breast feeding!

Even now that Bean is a little older, I occasionally have these paranoid fantasies. For instance, my kid would never remain quiet while we hid from alien invaders. She’d be up there hollering for her Dora and her goldfish crackers and her juice box, and then we’d all get vaporized.

Seriously, though. I guess we do need to make some emergency preparations in our household. Stockpile some bottled water, perhaps; some shelf-stable food; plenty of batteries and a radio and flashlights. And make all these preparations with the thought that somehow we need to keep a two-year-old occupied, calm, and safe above all.

It’s a real challenge. At least as challenging as zombies.