11 Days

11 days of indoor camping thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

Here is what a typical day looked like:
Ben up with the Sun, Emma up not long afterwards.
Ben immediately demanding pancakes for breakfast with peanut butter on top and a happy face drawn into the peanut butter. Emma would occasionally eat breakfast but more often not - she is just like her Daddy and doesn't like to eat right away. Guess who Ben takes after?
They are dressed and ready to take on the day by 7:15... what the heck are we going to do for the next 12 hours with no power?

We had lots of playdates at friend's houses who had power to charge our phones/iPad and dvd player and to wash clothes and raid their ice. There was a lot of iPad app play. We burned through the entire box of arts and craft supplies - maybe Santa can find it in his heart to replenish the goods. We watched Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns at least 20 times in 11 days - they are only 22 minutes each, the perfect length for a dvd player that is losing its ability to hold a solid charge. We ate a lot of soup, and mac and cheese. On Daddy's solo parenting days I heard there was a lot of Wendy's consumed and pizza... We made daily trips to the supermarket for fresh meat that needed to be cooked immediately as we had no way to keep it really cold. We showered by candlelight. We peed in the dark. We did not blow dry our hair (and vain Mommy had to go curly for more days than she wanted...). We were in bed by 6:30-7:00 every night because our circadian rhythms kicked in with no power stimulus to keep us up past daylight. WE ACTUALLY PLAYED WITH TOYS - like really played with them, and got along doing it.

Did you notice I am writing this post using the pas tense?? THAT'S BECAUSE THE POWER IS BACK ON! We've had it for 90 minutes now and I am feeling pretty good about our chances of keeping it.

Wanna hear something FUNNY? The power clicked back on at 5:59pm. All the lights were turned off in the house and the only reason I knew it turned back on is because the microwave beeped and the light inside the refrigerator that I have had propped open for over a week now so it wouldn't get nasty and smelly and moldy on the inside turned on. The funny part is I selfishly did not admit to the kids the power was back on!!! I wanted them to go to bed at 6:30 just ONE LAST TIME. I really needed them to go to bed. I did. I'm tired, friends. I needed me time. I am actually typing this by candlelight just in case one of them wanders out into the living room...

I am sure I am forgetting wacky wild and wonderful things that happened this past week and I will try to journal them as they pop into my head - oh, yeah, like the 3 inches of snow that got dumped on us last night with wicked winds that knocked out 7 newly fixed transformers on our street again. We heard them popping - sounded like gunshots and we could see the sparks flying. Scary.

But we are alive. We are healthy. We have milk in the frig (not much more, we had to toss the majority after 4 days). Daddy was able to drive into work today for the first time in 11 days because he scored a full tank of gas (all the stories are TRUE of people waiting 2-3-4-5 hours in line for gas!!). We now have heat and for the first time in days my bones are no longer cold. I cannot imagine how the families on the south shore are doing - the ones who were flooded out and still staying in shelters. I will take losing power any day to flood waters rising in my basement and sweeping my car away. We are blessed to be surrounded by friends with open doors and bags of ice and washing machines and working outlets to charge our electronic goodies. I'd like to send a personal thank you to Steve Job's team who invented the iPhone - it kept me in 3G touch with all my family and friends across the country - also thank you to Mark Zuckerberg for stealing the Harvard twins idea for Facebook and going mainstream with it - I may have snapped if it weren't for all the encouragement of my friends around the world via FB.