Roughing It

We got a notice in the mailbox over the weekend that our power would be out today for about 3 hours. I of course forgot all about it in the chaos of dealing with a sick household. I was brought back to reality real quick this morning at 9:00am when everything went dead.

I instantly had two upset children who got cut off from Blue's Clues. So what was I going to do?
EEK! I would really have to be creative for these guys.

I've never been without power in the middle of winter with 2 babies before. This was going to be fun. No tv, playstation, computer and no phone to call for reinforcements.

After 90 minutes of playing blocks, dress ups, doll house, pretend with the teddy bears, making up games with Madelynn and a episode of chase. I was spent. They only toys Aidan and Madelynn really don't care too much about are the battery operated ones. But not today it's the ones they wanted. Maybe they were craving anything that was operated by some sort of "juice"? Sadly, most of them didn't have enough battery power to run. Since they don't normally play with them I don't replace the batteries and they don't seem to mind.

Around 10:30, I decided to bundle them up and go outside. I thought, they can go and play with the swingset, the slides, trike etc...maybe even go for a walk. I hauled out my load of laundry to go on the clothes line and out we went. Sadly my enthusiasm was short-lived.

The garage door is electric. No way to get toys. Then I remembered the left side garage door was a key and I raced inside to get them. No luck, I could get the one lock undone but I just couldn't reach the top lock and nothing could help me reach it.

Off to the swing set I said and they raced to the slide. I thought well these guys like to help me hang the laundry so I grabbed my basket and then realized all my pegs were in the garage.

Oh, we can go for a walk I thought, I'll just grab the pram...strike three, I'm out. Pram in the garage and the other in the van which Brendon had taken. These kids were looking at me like I was the Grinch who stole Christmas.

I got brave and took them for a stroll just up the street to stretch their legs a bit. Can't go too far as Aidan is just too little without a pram.

We came about 11:30 for lunch. It's amazing how quickly one can forget the electricity is gone and how we take it for granted. I had no way to heat up the left overs or canned food in microwave or the stove. I managed to persuade Madelynn that it was fun to make our own sandwiches out of left over cold corned beef and cheese. I even let her make me one so it looked more appealing. She really had her heart set on chicken nuggets. After scrounging for a lunch for them. I realized after lunch there would be no way to heat up Aidan's milk.

So I put his bottle in the window sill while we ate. It still wasn't warm enough for him and I managed to get enough luke warm water out of the tap to take the edge off it and sent him to bed. Where the highlight of my day was he took a 4 hour nap! He must be trying to catch up on all the sleep he's missed out on since being sick for a week.

No toys, no electricity, how the hell did our ancestors do it? We are one spoiled society. I think I could handle not having the dvd player, vcr, tv, computer, phone etc....I wouldn't WANT to live without them but I could do it. Just please don't ever take away my stove and microwave!