In The Dark

Last night, just before 7pm, everything suddenly went dark. The power had gone out. After a shocked second or two, Melinda and Jacob quickly grew concerned about why the lights weren't working, and the fact that the computers were turned off. I felt my way around to a flashlight (thank goodness it hadn't been left in some corner by one of the kids! And for that matter, that it had working batteries!), turned it on, and dug around to find some candles to light. Turns out I only really have tea lights, and only a couple containers. Better put decent candles on my to-buy list, huh?

Anyway, Melinda was pretty scared. I stepped outside for a minute, into the apartment building's common hall, to see who else had lost power. Melinda nearly had a breakdown that I left her in with Alex, because, she claimed, she was afraid of "ghostses". So I made it a quick look. As far as I could tell, everyone in my range of vision still had power. I couldn't see the buildings that neighbored mine, but across to the front and across to the back both still had power. Odd. But I made the phone call to the power company, waded through the voice-automated reporting system, and was informed by a computerized voice that our power should be back on by 8:30pm. Great.... Not a long wait, but still. What am I going to do with my kids in the dark for that long?

Well, first Melinda decided that we needed to walk around the house with the flashlight and scare the monsters away with lights. I asked her how we would scare them - a loud noise? A phrase? No, she told me, just the light would scare them. Oh, and we should say "Gotcha!" when we find them. We got one out of the corner of the playroom by the toybox, another one out of dollhouse, one behind each panel of the living room curtains, and no less than THREE out of the coat closet. And we ran off a few scragglers who were hiding back in the bedrooms, too. Melinda was concerned that the candles weren't bright enough, and we only had the one flashlight, and of course that was fought over.

We tried making shadow puppets for a while, but Alex was causing too many problems. Even though, oddly, he was the least affect by the dark. He happily continued on playing, as if nothing odd was happening (and you wonder why this child has no problems with wanting to play in the middle of the night?). Jacob just kept trying to switch all the light switches in the house, repeating that they weren't working. Anyway... we had to quit the shadow puppets. So we tried reading a book, instead. Only, after about the first half of the chapter, Alex was not content to play anymore, and started screeching. Loudly. I could hardly hear myself over him, and I'm certain that the kids couldn't understand a word I was saying. So, book reading came to an end, too. I picked up Alex and started nursing him, while Jacob and Melinda went to the bathroom (nervously) to start getting ready for bed. Melinda about freaked out any time Jacob left her alone, even if she had a light with her.

We called the power company and their too-sensitive-to-children voice system again, to see if there was any change in the expected return to power. Nope, still 8:30. But they did include information that a maintenance worker was on their way. They didn't say that the first time!

Alex fell asleep pretty quickly, so I transferred him to his crib. Then we got the kids pajamas on, and tucked into bed. And it was still dark, and I had nothing better to do, so I sang songs for a nice long while. Had to be something like 45 minutes. Long enough for Alex to wake up again and make me rock him back to sleep while I kept singing, at least. Finally, I ran out of things to sing, and the kids seemed sleepy enough to not be concerned about the dark, so I left the room. It was about 8:15pm.

I decided to go ahead and start reading a book, since I couldn't do anything else in the dark, without power. So, I picked up my copy of Lord of the Rings. I flipped through the first few pages of forewards and book printing histories, and soon enough, I began reading the preface, Concerning Hobbits. I was almost to the point of needing to turn the first page of the preface, when the lights came back on.

Huh.
I looked at the time. 8:30 on the dot. 8:30 and 40 seconds, to be exact. They are timely, aren't they?

With my evening still open, I decided to scrap the book, since I hadn't had it open long enough to really get into it yet, and go back to my original plan of finishing up Jane Eyre. But first, I had to check a couple quick things on the computer. And while I sat at my desk, my phone rang. It was my brother, Dallis, calling. He got his mission call (St. Louis, Missouri)! My youngest sister kindly took a video and posted it on her blog, so I could experience the fun, too. After all, we only have the one brother, though who knows if Kaija herself will go on a mission? So we chatted for a couple minutes, and just after I hung up the phone, good ol' reliable Alex was waking up again.

I tried getting him back to sleep (again), but like the past few nights, he preferred to get up and play instead of go back to sleep in the nice quiet dark. So once again, he played happily in the front room until 11:30pm. At least he went to sleep without a fight... I always appreciate that! And I really enjoyed watching Jane Eyre. Enough to maybe even convince me to read the book one of these days! :)

I had a hard time falling asleep last night. It was too quiet, and the bed was too empty. I laid in bed quietly for a long time, wishing I had someone to talk to, even if most of my thoughts were completely random and unimportant. It still would have been nice to voice them and talk myself sleepy.

Jesse sent me a text message when he was finished traveling last night. He arrived safely. Which is a really good thing. Because, apparently, a US Airways flight in New York had a crash landing in the Hudson river yesterday when a flock of geese ran into them just after take-off. A little too close to home, you know? Just up in New York, just a couple hours away, on the same airline that Jesse was flying that same day. Nice to know it wasn't a mechanical problem at all, but still... not the nicest thought to go through your head. Thank goodness nobody died. And thank goodness Jesse's trip was uneventful.