lights out!

Last week our power went out around noon. I was home alone--well besides the FIVE children whom I was taking care of. My own four, and my baby niece. We went about our day in relative same-ness, except for the absence of white noise such as humming fridge, humming fans, and humming computer motor. It was very peaceful and I was struck hard by the fact that we use too much electricity (duh, but still...) and that I wanted to really push this to a new level once we survived whatever it was that we were about to survive.

I wanted to call someone, DTE energy for a start, then Steve to complain/commiserate..but our phone was out, since it plugs into the wall. We had an old-school phone but since we just moved (haha August) it is in some box in the garage in the dark cold. I have a cell phone, but darn it, it was in Steves coat pocket at work. I had no car to take us all out of there, as our van is dead. Hmmm. SO we played simon says. Charades. I'm thinking of an animal that starts with ___. And so on. We started to get a little cold around 3 and we did excersizes. Jump jump dance dance, again, I wanted to try to remember to do this all the time, it was fun and funny. The sun was still shining and we were pretty ok. My niece's feet were icy in her socks and so I wrapped her in a blanket. Charlie had a cold nose so I put his warmest sweater on him. He kept wanting to nurse, which he is prone to do if things are "weird" for comfort, and I was getting less and less excited about lifting my shirt in the cold room---brrr!

A main reason I did not freak out about the prospect of the part of the day that was fast approaching called DARK, was that my friend Amanda was on her way over for a scheduled visit around 4:30. She had a cell phone, and she had a car. Not that we could have all legally fit in it or anything, but I felt great comfort at knowing she was on her way. Steve worked until 5:30 that day and so woulndt have been home until maybe 5:45 and we would be in complete darkness by then. Do we have flashlights? Do we have candles? No.

So she got there and we told her the whole thing, and she immediately went to the dollar store, and invited Casey and Mickey to come with her, which they loved. I got to use her phone to call Steve, who immediately got on the case of DTE through his work phone. We lit ten vanilla jar candles and it smelled really nice, despite the coldness that was just starting to become noticable. Again, if we had a car, we would have all made a fun night of it at the mall or restaurant or something, anything!

We didnt beg Steves parents to come rescue us, nor would my parents have without elaborate and grand to-do, I can only imagine, and we didnt have enough money for a hotel, which would have been soooo fun and nice, so we just settled in. Amanda was here and her husband arrived seperately from his work, and we lit a fire. We have a great fireplace, but I couldnt do it with all the little babies and tots. It is right on the ground, you can walk right into the fire, and it takes more than one grownup to tend and guard, similar to camping.

Since it got dark at 5ish, we sort of tricked the kids into going to bed at 7:15, and after 2 hours of pitch dark fire-gazing, they were ready to sleep. It was so awkward having NO white noise of any kind, and keeping the big kids from waking Charlie was hard. Charlie had a fitful night, waking and nursing almost hourly, and he was really cold. It was so dark, so cold, and so scary and tense. He didnt understand what was going on and neither did Casey, who woke at 4:50 am and started talking loudly to us--waking the baby whom there was NOTHING to do with---think about it, his life is crawling on the floor--cant do that---playing in his highchair with toys---not really the same in blackness, eating--we didnt have much that didnt need to be cooked---so he nursed and cried and hit me and tried to go to the fire and I had to wrestle him...tensions were now climaxing, sleeplessness settling in, and I all of a sudden barked at Steve to call his parents (at 6 am)and ask them for the use of their minivan for the day. They said yes, and I suggested to Steve that he take the little boys and drive them to his moms. I needed them out of here, they needed to get warm in the car, and so they went.

I called my sister around 645am who was bringing her baby back at 7:30 am to say through chattering teeth that, ummm, you really cant bring your baby here it is like 40 degrees. I told her we were going to have use of a minivan today and so she suggested we spend the day babysitting at her place---hooray!!! If she wouldnt have said this I was going to maybe try to go to Ann Arbor or Great Lakes Crossing or something far away with the kids for the day---although the logistics escaped me, with my niece needing warmed bottles for formula and special nap routine of dark rocking chair and silence...I was afraid of how to do all that at a mall???!!!

I woke up Greta and Mickey and had them come sit by the fire while we waited for Steve and the little boys to return, I fumbled for toothbrushes, outfits and girl scout vest in the dark back rooms for them...

Steve returned with a gloriously fancy minivan (Leather seats, DVD player, 100 gadgets and buttons, OnStar, rear heaters, etc) and we all piled in. Despite its fanciness, GOD is that van a pain to access the third row! I am sure the makers of it thought if you have more than 2 babies then maybe you should get a different car. We have two "babies" in carseat-speak, meaning needing to be buckled, etc, but with Ava, we were going to have three.

It is the kind of van where there are two chairs in front, two chairs in middle, and a bench in the back. (MY minivan has two benches with easy walking access to all spots) But how do you reach the back? How can a grown up get back there to do up a baby or toddler's seatbelt? It is SO HARD! You like blow out your spine, how would an old person do it? Do they really expect you to like crawl back there like some insane cave dwelling gymnast? What if I had nice clothes on, some little work dress or heels-n-hose? With my big butt sticking out, popping buttons and bulging my eyes out? What if we had multiple errands and had to get in and out many times??? Maybe this is why the wierd rich people never take their kids anywhere, maybe they have captains chairs in their fancy vans hahaha

We had Greta and Mickey go in the back row. They can do their own seatbelts. We put baby Charlie and Casey in the 2 captains' chairs. Yay. We drove dada to Panera with us and I ran in for a sack o bagels for us all in the car. We took him to work and then headed east 20 minutes to my sister's house. We spent the morning in welcome warmth, playing with someone else's toys, and kind of just relaxing. We didn't do any real school work that morning, but we did watch a great show about these boys who raise up puppies to get adopted out, and how hard it is for them to let them go. We ate lunch. Then we got to experience the thrills of three "babies" in the magic leather van. OH MY GOD. First of all, I had two non-walkers, so I had to run out to the car and back in the house for various babies. I didnt know who to seat where in this idioticlly designed thing! DO I put the baby Ava in her bucket in the third row? How will I get back there to put the seatbelt all on her carseat? To do so I would have to uninstall my little boys' seats. So I could kneel on the seat to lurch over the back of it to do all this, with my bum smashing against the ceiling of the van...Do I put baby Ava in the middle row in one of the captains chairs and have Casey go in the back row and see if Greta can shimmy back there to do his seatbelt???ARGGGG

The place we were going to was about 4 miles from there, thats what really stunk. We made it, and Greta learned tons about weather and made a barometer. She even emerged in a good mood when it was all over. I will spare you the rest of the ordeals, but we did not go to mcdonalds like is customary during girl scouts. We already ate, we spent too much at Panera as it was, and I looked about as good as you would expect me too from esentially pulling an all-nighter in my living room with yesterdays makeup and yesterdays tiny ponytail and well we just werent going to mcdonalds with 2 babies who cannot walk.

By the time afternoon rolled around, after many phone calls to our house, the answering machine picked up, and so we knew we had power again! It was fantastic to come home to warmth and lights, and we all cheered and danced and shouted.

I have been fanatical about turning lights off now, and have lit the candles every night as a reminder of what we went through, and what we don't "need" and what we do. Who knows, maybe our energy bills will decrease, but thats not the point. I was so disgusted by the thinking about comforts that we all can SO quickly and easily take advantage of, warmth, light, electronic products, little conveniences like nightlights and remotes, fans and CD players...I felt greedy, guilty, somehow lazy and spoiled. I am going to do more soul-searching about this, and apply more of whatever it is that I need to discover, to our lives.