Unplanned Vacation

Last Tuesday night my friend Dee was over for dinner. She brought Chinese as I have learned that cooking for my friends while Nate is out of town is relaxing and enjoyable for neither the friend, nor I. So now my wonderful girlfriends arrive laden with dinner when Nate is travelling, and we are able to actually enjoy one anther's company, as well as that of the kids. The forecast was for storms. I told Dee as we were eating that I was scared, that I had a feeling that the power was going to go out and leave me in the dark with the kids and no Nate in this big old window laden house. We laughed at my silly fears.

The storm hit with a bang right at 7 PM. The first big gust of wind and BOOM, out went the power. While I was understandably impressed with my prescience, I was also understandably ANNOYED that the lights, the AC, the phone etc were all out. I had already gathered up two flastlights and lit some candles, and Luke had gone to bed just moments before. How he slept through the storm is beyond me, but I am grateful that he did. Dee hung around in the dark with me till 9, then had to head home. I totally confess that I was selfishly hoping that she would stay. I have no idea what her presence in the house would have actually helped with, and it would have been miserable for her, but hey, I'm not above total selfishness :). The garage door was up as it had been up when the power went out. There is a manual lever thing that you can use to close it, but as its a big heavy double door with glass I thought that I might not be able to get it back up in the morning if I was to close it. So I left it open, and checked all of the locks about 18 times.

I talked to my Mom on the phone at this point. She offered to come stay. The little scaredy girl in me was screaming YES COME STAY!!! in my head, but the daughter/mother "grown up" that I theoretically am said no, Mom should stay home in her house with electricity, and I should buck up, put on my big girl pants, and deal with it. I then talked to Nate. He had me look out the window to make sure that everyone elses power was out. When I did this I saw that the lights in Buddy's house/farm next door were on. At this point I logically deduced that the ferocious storm did not knock out our power, but a very smart stalker/slasher person had cut my power and was coming to take my babies. Logical conclusion, no? I crept into bed with Jules, acutely aware of how far away and how dark my sweet Luke's room was from mine. Nate called me back and told me that if Buddy's power was on it could just be that our main circuit breaker flipped and I just had to go downstairs and flip it back. He tells me this from a bar in Witicha Falls, KS. I was safely, if fearfully, ensconced in my bed with a sleeping Jules. I shamefully admit that I burst into tears. I said NO, I'm not going down there (to the scary basement and slasher guy :)) and leaving my kids two floors above me. He told me I had to. I talked to him on the phone the whole way down the steps (when you are carrying a flashlight in a pitch black house its simply scary, I felt like I was begging the scary slasher man to come get me, as he could see me but I could not see him. Remember, in reality there was no scary slasher man, but in my mind there sure was). Flipped the breaker, nothing happened. RAN back up to bed and baby. Felt very sorry for myself. It was only 9.30, and the house was so very dark and so very quiet. I fell asleep with one flashlight on, and one in my hand (To bash in the head of the scary baby snatcher I was worried about, of course.). I fully anticipated waking up to lights blazing at some point overnight. Never happened. I woke up at 4 AM in the pitch black, and started thinking about the things in my freezer and fridge. Specifically, I started thinking about the several gallons of breast milk in the freezer. As any Mom who has nursed knows, that stash represents my FREEDOM. And it was threatened. I could not go back to sleep.

This is painfully long already so I have to start abridging. No power the next morning. Thankfully Mom showed up with large bags of ice and a cooler, and I got the breast milk and hundreds of dollars of meat safely tucked away. We went to playgroup to get out of the hot house. Nate got home late that afternoon. At that point PECO was saying that it would likely be late Friday night before our power returned. Fabulous.
Nate quickly assessed the situation and declared it "get out of dodge time". We packed the car, took the dog to the groomer who boards him, and we headed to Cape May. We got to the house around 10, put both babies to bed, and blissfully sank into the welcoming couch surrounded by a working TV, working AC, and lights and ovens, and all of the other wonderful necessities that power enables.

We had a great two days on the beach. The weather was wonderful. Town was quiet as the kids were still in school. The dolphins were EVERYWHERE. We took walks. The kids took naps. We spent two long wonderful afternoons enjoying our kids and our Cape May friends up on the beach. Julia was a champ and loved sleeping and simply being held in a lap under the umbrella. Luke loved it when we would dig a deep hole, stand him in it, and then fill in the hole with sand. He looked so funny ~ this baby buried up to his chest in the sand, just laughing away. We got home late Friday night, and the power was back on. We threw away TONS of food. The house was a mess. And 45 people were coming on Sunday for Julia's baptism. That's another story though.

(Our neighbors power WAS on, for the record. A transformer blew and my house was the first one on that line, so it wasnt a scary smart slasher after all, just dumb bad luck that we were the first ones on the street stranded in the dark.)