My husband is out of town, so I was the only one in charge last night. During a sudden, tumultuous thunderstorm, the electricity went out. The lightning was relentless, but that was a good thing, because it provided light while I scrambled for candles, matches, flashlights and -- oh yes -- our youngest child.
Right before the outage, I had Gabriel, my 5 year-old, at the front window of the house watching the rain and lightning in an effort to keep him interested in a "Wow, look at that!" kind of way rather than the usual "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE" kind of way. It never occurred to me that the power would go out. Meanwhile, Nicholas, 7 weeks short of 3, was on the computer in our office playing games on nickjr.com. He was so obsessed with Lazytown games, he ignored the loud report of the thunderclaps that would normally have him filling his pull-ups. He usually comes running to me at the sound of a
garbage truck -- just to give you an idea of the hold The Computer has on him. I kept calling out for him to come see the cool lightning bolts, but he had no time for such foolishness. That is, until the lights went out.
All of a sudden, Mommy became popular again. I had put Big Boy underwear on him less than an hour before, not foreseeing an event of pee-in-your pants proportions was about to occur. After I found poor little wet Nicholas, I managed to locate some candles and matches. I'm very uncomfortable with the candles because they don't work unless they're
ON FIRE, so I wanted very badly to locate the flashlight that I had recently purchased for just such an occasion. Turns out, our only two flashlights were several feet out of my reach behind a giant wall unit in our office. Apparently, the kids (mine and our neighbor's) had tried to get our two cats to come out from behind said unit by putting light in their faces. Great plan. The cats eventually came out, but the flashlights did not. I had to snag 'em with a straightened wire hanger by the light of a votive candle with a small child under each armpit as the unairconditioned temperatures rose into the upper 80's. Good times. And my reward was one burnt out flashlight, and another one in the shape of a lion that roars when you turn it on, and then turns itself off every thirty seconds.
The rest of the evening was rather uneventful, since we were forced back in time to the days of no electricity. I bathed the kids by candlelight and read them a couple of storybooks, pausing only to turn the flashlight back on every thirty seconds. I couldn't believe it when Gabriel suggested we go to sleep! Well, no TV, no computer, no light to play by, hell -- let's crash!
I have to say, however, once I had some form of light, I enjoyed the entire evening. Those little boys seemed so much smaller and innocent than usual in the candlelight, their big eyes looking to me for comfort. They were dressed down to their tighty-whities, and their little bodies were constantly huddling around me and I ate it up. I was hugging on them right back -- they smelled so good and felt so soft -- they're the best thing that ever happened to me. The three of us piled into my king-sized bed in the pitch blackness of the then quiet night and my feelings of contentment were tempered only by the pity I had for my poor husband who had missed out on our little adventure.
