powering up my phone this morning i was assaulted by the number 1 flashing at me—marking the first day of september. how i didn’t know it was coming has mostly to do with the hurricane that tore through here a few days ago. amazing how no power in your house can discombobulate you so. frankly, it’s a date i’m always in denial about – even when my electronic calendars are working.
but these last days threw me for a loop.
i’d like to tell you a tale of family bonding and epic board games, and indeed there was some (i kicked some go-fish ass). but the moral of this story is addiction. it wasn’t the lights we missed. no, candles and flashlights are adequate (at least during the last days of august). it turns out that i’m a power junkie. my dishwasher and laundry machines provide a sweet taste, but the delicious whirring sound of my laptop was the fix i was jonesing for.
news, communication, entertainment—contact. the hand crank radio that was a gift from my ex-mother-in-law for holiday 1999 (impending millennium doom) provided some small measure, but at around day three i would have given away one of my kids for some wifi or a working cell signal.
after whining a few times about not being able to watch tv, the little one took it in stride (as they do) but the big one clearly takes after his mama. cranky, jittery, moody—classic signs of withdrawal.
three days in, out of sheer desperation, i took a risk. i gave him a job. a job that usually falls outside of the scope of stuff he does around here (stuff he does around here being a frequent bone of contention in our family). i asked him to help with the littles. and, guess what? he stepped it up. at dinner at a neighbor’s he took six children under the age of five upstairs and gave me and two other weary mamas a break. for hours. who knew that he had camp counsellor abilities hiding under all that teenage angst?
so the next day during the witching hour i asked him to do it again and crossed my fingers. five dollars and an hour to myself later he had babysat his little brother for the first time. and no blood was shed.
silver linings people. silver linings.
Ohhh I feel your pain! We were blessed and did not lose power here in CT. But Ohhh I remember losing power for several days when we lived in NH during a big storm. You don’t forget that stuff, good and bad. Hope you are back on line and on the grid. I know it would be the TV, the connection to the outside world that I would miss most.
we were without for 2 days and we were ALL doing the happy dance when it was over. How awesome that he took that responsibility and ran with it. I’ve always said I needed a live in 12 year old. Silver lining indeed.
Glad you are all safe and sound!
oh that is one sparkly silver lining. Sweeet!
It’s really amazing how young people can rise to the occasion when given the right opportunity to do so. I’m hearing and seeing such great stories lately that it makes my internship as a secondary teacher all the more inspiring…
We lost power here for six hours a couple months ago and I almost lost my mind! Glad to hear you and yours are safe and sound after Irene.
living without electricity is hard! we had a tree fall on out house a few years ago in a hurricane and it was life changing. i hope things are back to normal for you….
One of my favorite memories with my kids was a night the power went out. Darkness, games, talking. It was the talking, the extra bit of bravery to read written poetry in the dark. Precious memories. Oh and I love the silver lining too. I was glad to hear from you this morning. I am up in the mountains and have no wifi at the cabin so I come to my favorite coffee house, Mountain Sage to connect, in more ways than one. I was thinking to myself that I had missed hearing from you in a while and was going to quickly check in and there you were. I loved, the sign in the store window “check on neighbors” caused a lump in my throat. Glad you’re Ok and survived.
oh amy! glad you are back and relatively unscathed. what a week!!!
Yikes! It would have been the cooking and cold stuff that got to me. The rest of the family would have been like you.
Hope everything else is okay in the storm clean-up.
silver lining and kids growing up….
time flies. Electricity or not.
you are a genius.
silver linings, indeed.