Things to do when Daylight Saving Time ends

I think one of the best gifts for a mom is.. when Daylight Saving Time ends. Seriously.

I'm pretty sure every mom on the planet has wished for extra hours in the day (and sometimes a few less hours when the power goes out) at least once nine thousand times in her life.

And don't think I didn't return the favor, I did. (Honestly, I think it was completely unrelated to the getting 7 hours of sleep instead of 6, but whatever..) I swept AND washed the bathroom floor (after duct taping down the edges around the missing section of flooring. Oh ya. Really.). I also did 2 loads of laundry, washed a sink full of dishes and baby bottles, and cleaned both the kitchen and bathroom sinks/counters.

I also did the minor task of watching two small people for half the day while Jason went out to buy a cell phone he didn't buy and went Christmas shopping after we'd had a "conversation" about stuff we shouldn't be buying. Oh ya. Really.

what we did this week

1-2. Waiting for Hurricane Sandy.
3. It rained a little. It was windy. A few trees lost medium size branches. And we lost power for 25 hours. Oh ya.. you better believe I kept track of it.
4. Thanks to the hurricane I had to trash everything that was in the fridge. It took hours to throw it all out and clean the entire thing from top to bottom. On the up side.. it looks better than the day it was born. Seriously.
5. Halloween pumpkins courtesy of Lily.
6. The amount of candy this kid got was unreal. This is just what she got from school. Multiple that by about 3.5 and that was the total haul. I think we're all set for the next 12 months.

Field trip number one

Lily went on her first field trip last month. And I didn't go. Her teachers already had enough parent volunteers by the time I got around to expressing interest. Aaand they kind of definitely didn't want me to go anyway. Because, as they put it, they don't really want the parents going on their child's first trip.

I had sent an email to the school offering to go, expressing my concern about Lily going on an excursion without one of her parents (the people that know her clever ways best), etc. The response I got was- "we'll talk to you when you drop her off." Great.

Do you know how many times I heard "she'll be fine!"? About 15. Lily's teacher just kept saying it and saying it. While I was feebly trying to explain Lily's tendency to try do her own thing (which they should know about by now anyway). In other words, taking off.

She'll be fine, she'll be fine, she'll be fine, there's x amount of adults going, and blah blah blah. THEN she turns to the mom behind me dropping off her child- and in not so many words, tells her I'm an over-protective nutcase that's flipping out about my child going on a field trip. They chuckled together. While I just stood there. "She'll be fine," the other mother says. "Blah blah blah, I run a daycare- and I'll be going." Pff, so what? Who the heck are you? I smiled weakly- kinda feeling like I was in the twilight zone.

So.. obviously (first sentence).. she went. And I felt sick. And refused to think about it at all while she was there. For fear.. that maybe I would follow the bus.. show up and spy from the parking lot.

Good thing I didn't. Because how much would I have freaked the f-ing heck out when they never showed up where they were supposed to be? They went bowling instead. And never let me know. In some ways I can understand why they didn't call parents (what if they got to one parent that said no? after all the others said ok? then they'd have to call them all back again and say never mind). But at the same time I didn't really like that for a couple of hours I didn't actually know where my child was. I thought I knew where she was.. but she wasn't actually there. I didn't care for that.

BUT.. she was so excited to have ridden a bus. She was so excited to have gone bowling. And she was returned to me safe and sound. So.. that's all that really matters. (Right?)

Life with Sandy

Days before Hurricane Sandy arrived my husband was.. being.. his usual overreacting, over preparing self. And I was mostly blase about it- just boiled extra filtered water for Noah's bottles assuming the electricity would probably go out at some point (electric stove) and made sure all the laundry was done.

Jason wanted me to buy bottled water- I bought 2 gallons and a 6-pack of SmartWater because it was on sale. He wasn't happy- he went out and got another 3 gallons and a 24-pack of single serve bottles. Because Armageddon.

He wanted me to buy cans of soup and pasta (gross) and vegetables and I don't even know what else. So I did. When he went to work on Monday he texted me freaked out messages.. Fill up the bathtub with water. No, wait, don't fill up the bathtub because Lily might drown. Fill up a giant plastic storage bin instead. And put that in the bathtub. You know when the power goes out you can still flush the toilet right? But just in case. Because xyz. Whatever.

Do you think I should get more water on the way home? Is there anything else we need? Blah blah Armageddon much? Don't open the windows because the pressure will blow the roof off. I think he was kidding, but I'm not sure.

Once he was home, I caught him several times trying to clean out the kitchen sink so he could plug the drain and fill it up with water. Just in case. I told him to hurry up and take a shower before the power went out.. and make his (hot) lunch before the power went out.

It was a little windy. There was a little bit of rain. And poof- out went the power at 4:30pm.

I finished up the bottles I was washing, grabbed a few things out of the fridge (milk, juice, cheese, hot dogs, yogurt, ketchup) then shoved them in the freezer, and gave Noah a bath with some of the remaining warm water.

Meanwhile, Jason went crazy making sure all the flashlights had batteries. They did. I thought at one point he was actually changing out working batteries with fresh-out-of-the-package batteries, but I don't know. He even went so far as to make a flashlight. Yes, he MADE a flashlight. Out of broken flashlight parts and a Pringles can. And gave it to his brother, because he was afraid he was going to burn the house down (candles). But I also think he wanted to show off that he made a flashlight out of a Pringles can.

We ate cheese, bread and butter, pickles, and frozen yogurt for dinner.. whatever probably wouldn't make it through the outage. Lily played with her PlayDoh, Noah took a long nap. By the end of the night Lily, Noah, and I were just together sitting on the couch. Lily was playing a game on her iPad, Noah was sitting on my lap watching Oswald on Jason's iPad, and I had my headphones on, watching a movie on my laptop. Jason walked by and told us we were a bunch of nerds. He is a Master Nerd, himself, so I just laughed and asked him what he expected to see instead.

Then we went to bed.

Then we woke up.

And the power still was out.

So I trashed everything in the fridge. Miserably. And cleaned the f-ing heck out of it. It took hours. Hours. And now? Looks like the day it was born. Seriously. It looks so nice- the first person the spills something and doesn't wipe it up immediately is never going to be heard from again. Possibly.

My children actually did fairly well without the power- Lily had her iPad afterall- but by the end of it all I wasn't doing so good. Thank goodness for phones with internet access is all I'm saying.

And then around 5:30pm (after 25 hours. TWENTY-FIVE), poof- on went the lights. And I watched more tv than I could handle and used more than my share of the internet. Because I could. And I was so f-ing grateful for electricity. Honestly.