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.