Bookends

Well, we finally got our power back this evening at about 6:30 or 7.  That's 6 days with no power.  And it was 100 degrees today.  I have had many things to say this week, but decided to try to subscribe to that whole "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" thing.

I will say this.  I can think of quite a few positives over this past week, especially now that the power is back on, haha.  But seriously, it hasn't been all bad.  Nothing like a little power outage to bring a family together.  I mean, we all hung out in the wading pool, took Nate to his first movie, barbecued (ourselves it felt like in this weather!), traveled to various aimless destinations just to stay in the car air conditioning.. .  We all slept on the floor in the family room for the past 5 nights.  I would have thought it would be miserable, and in some ways it was.  Nate does not have the impulse control to lie down and go to sleep without a crib to corral him.  So for instance, last night it was almost midnight when he finally passed out.  But waking up in the morning flanked by your sleeping little boys is a very peaceful feeling.

That indentation in the pillow is my sliver :)

John and I can now declare ourselves expert extension cord runners, I am excellent at resetting the wireless router, and I have much better night vision than I had ever imagined.  The boys and I commuted to my parent's house on the eastern shore on Monday and Tuesday, which was very nice....change of scenery is good anytime, but a change of scenery with central air?  Priceless!  I was able to work from there, which came in handy because even though we had a generator, the cable was out, so no internet....kind of makes telecommuting a little difficult.  Poor John's birthday was on Monday, and I wasn't able to make him his usual chocolate peanut butter cake, but we did manage to go out for crabs thanks to a particularly loyal babysitter (oh all right she's in love with our kids) who was willing to babysit by the light of our one lamp.  We had a great time and got good and messy!!

In terms of the boys....I am astounded to say that over all they did very well.  To be honest, I don't think that Nate noticed that too much was different.  Jack definitely had some major anxiety around all of the changes, but with lots of reassurance he handled it.  As usual in times of stress, his airplane obsession has been out in full force as a source of comfort, as evidenced by the fact that I just finished singing him to sleep with "rock-a-bye baby spirit of saint louis on the hanger top".  And I'm not saying he didn't have his share of meltdowns....I don't want to gloss over the facts- both boys (and their parents) particularly hate being warm...most people are freezing in our house in summer and winter.  So the heat has definitely been getting to all of us.  Lots of pool parties and sprinkler running helped.  We made sure we kept the boys as entertained as possible during the daytime, and turned nighttime into a slumber party atmosphere.  Jack always wants to sleep with mommy and daddy anyway, so for him it was a bonus.  In fact he just complained about having to sleep in his bed tonight.  Sorry buddy, but mommy is ready for her bed!

I had so much anxiety about this whole situation.  I mentioned in a previous entry that the last long power outage we had in August (8 days) seemed to mark the beginning of a downward spiral for our family.  It didn't happen again.  Did each of us lose our tempers?  Heck yes.  Did we get through it?  with flying colors (if I do say so myself).  I was talking to my mom about it the other day (she is brilliant by the way, not just saying it either, really she is), talking about the feelings of deja vu that both John and I were having and how it was making things even more stressful.  And out she comes with a wonderful way to reframe the situation.  She said that maybe this power outage was like a bookend matching the previous one....in the middle was all of the negative stuff....and now we are entering the calm.  True?  I don't know.  But I like it, and I choose to go with her theory.  We weathered this "storm" very well as a family.  Sign of things to come :)