Our power went out for a couple of hours tonight and I learned a few things:
1) It's useless to have a million candles if you're not 100% sure where they are. Looking around a pitch-black house with a cell phone light is not very effective.
2) I will, from now on, keep my flashlights, batteries, and candles in a place that does NOT involve going down in the cricket-infested storage area. Scanning every square foot of your path with a cell phone light is, once again, not very effective. Seconds after we were bathed in darkness, I realized I needed to go down there to get the flashlights and said out loud "Oh dang it. Crickets." This frightened my two-year old to the point where, an hour later, he couldn't close his eyes to say his bedtime prayer...and, when he repeated my "We're thankful for our home," he said, "Tankful fo home...and no cwickwits."
3) All TEN of our flashlights require either AA or D batteries. I have a plethora of C batteries. Useless. So, we had to ransack the kids' toys to find AA batteries.
4) Each time we light a candle, Carson will ask to sing "Happy Birthday." I think we sang the song 40 times tonight - to the candles, to the fire, to the jar the candles were in, to the bed, to the dresser, to the fan... It's still stuck in my head.
5) Doing things by candlelight is relaxing. When the power came back on at around 10:00pm, I found myself strangely disappointed. (But, then I heard the heater kick on, and I wasn't so disappointed anymore.)
6) Three long, white candles can produce enough light so that it's possible to read a book while sitting on the opposite side of the room.
7) I love my kids. Kind of a random thing to learn from a power-outage, but we had a lot of fun tonight. When the power went out, it was already past their bedtime...but I let them stay awake a while longer to light candles, find batteries, sing Happy Birthday, call Daddy, read extra stories, and try to move their fingers through the flames fast enough to avoid pain. I realized that I often turn very selfish around bedtime - I'm excited to check blogs, or organize my pictures, or have a snack... but when I had nothing personal planned for a powerless evening alone, the night became all about the kids. And what a happy night it created! Now, will you just remind me of that tomorrow night, please? :)
I l.o.v.e. this post! Your kids are so dang cute. I'm still laughing about the happy birthday thing.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, you are the most awesome mom! I want to be like you when I grow up.
ReplyDeleteSo Cute, I almost feel deprived that our power did not go out :) I especially like the moving your hands through flames as fast as possible to hopefully avoid pain :)
ReplyDeleteWow, that sounded like a fun night. I remember having a few of those nights when I was little. I always loved playing by candlelight. I rembember always wishing our power would go out again so we could light the candles again. It always made for fun baths and fun everything. I enjoy it now too, but like you said I like it when my heater kicks back on! How was your snow day yesterday? (The letter "k" was brought to you today by Katherine. She wanted to help me.)
ReplyDeleteI've decided that we need a picture of Carson dancing in princess dresses for his posterity and we need a new updated picture of your cute belly.
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