Thursday, 21 January 2010
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Surviving a Blackout
Yesterday we had a rare occurrence in Southern California; storms that packed upwards of 75 mph winds. Now, I am used to these kinds of things back home in Texas, but in the eight years I have lived here, I have never seen anything quite like this.
By the time we got back from picking everyone up from school, several trees had toppled knocking out power on our block. Papa Pig is out of town and I was at home with six piglets and no power. I was starting to feel like this was some kind of test that I was destined to fail.
My piglets are computer age piglets. Even my four year old knows his way around the computer better than most adults. What in the world was I going to do with them in the pitch dark for the several hours until bedtime?
After the panic wore off and I realized this was going to be a long term situation, my mind started reeling. It was too dark for board games and E was bound to just try and eat any game pieces anyway. First thing on the list was to find as many candles as possible. That in itself was hysterical. The sounds of "Ow, who put that wall there?" had me laughing so hard that I was really not much help in the search department.
Once the candles were in place and lit we decided to play our version of Survivor. Poor J2 got voted off the island four times (twice voting himself off) before we tired of the game. It was decided that we needed to attempt to build a fire in our fireplace for warmth. Off J1 and I head to the bedroom where the fireplace is located to do our best Boy Scout impression. We failed miserably, but the other piglets had a good laugh at our feeble attempts.
Papa Pig called to give us detailed instructions on how to build the fire. I did what every normal person does when faced with a challenge, I loaded the piglets up and we headed to Target for some fire starter logs. I then used Papa's directions as stuffing for the fire. Hey, he has his way and I have mine. The end result was a fire that lasted well into the evening.
Once the fire was going strong, we all retired to my room for a camp-out. We told scary stories, played flashlight tag (which I wouldn't recommend in a small bedroom with eight people) and just enjoyed our evening. I can honestly say I haven't enjoyed myself that much in a very long time.
The piglets ended up sleeping in my room near the fire and power was restored at around 6 this morning. They are still talking about how much fun last night was and hoping that the power fails us again tonight. I am thinking maybe we will do a "lights out" night once a month or something and relive the fun.
Finally, to my fantastic piglets; you guys rock. I have never been more proud to be your mom than I was last night. You all could have made it much more difficult, but instead embraced the adventure and made me remember why I wanted this job as "mom" in the first place.
How have you survived losing power? Do you have evenings when you turn off most electronics anyhow, if so what types of activities do you do?
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About the Author
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- From: mamapig
- Name: mamapig
- About Me: Hello everyone. I am Mama Pig. I am a very busy mom of eight children. Five by birth and three my marriage. While it is a busy life, it is one I wouldn't change for the world. Our oldest is 18 and will be graduating in May. We are even in the boys/girls department with four each. Two just turned 14, two just turned 12, one will be 10 this year, and the babies are 4 and 2. There are no twins in the mix, just step siblings that happen to be close in age. You will read alot about Down syndrome when you read my blog. Our youngest daughter was born with Down syndrome as well as a congenital heart defect. These are two issues I am extremely passionate about. I just resumed classes at the local community college. My goal is to someday reach law school with the hopes of focusing on family law.
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Comments (9)
Yay, Mama Pig is back!! Thanks for bringing 'em back, Momaroo.
@Luv2BMama@xanga - LOL, I think we all made enough noise and they finallly relented. I am glad you are happy to see me. I am sure there will be others that just want some bacon.
I'm in California too, and it's INSANE! I'm glad your power was only out for less than a day. I think some houses are still without! It's so cute you had so much fun!
cards and iPod. a book if it's still day time... and lots of candles and flashlights! XD
You definitely should do this from time to time, sounds like you all had a blast! I remember losing power one Christmas Eve, my mom and I stayed up playing boardgames by candle/flashlight. It was so much fun!
Thunderstorms knock out our power a few times a summer here in PA, so we've always had flashlights in a few places. My sister and I had them in our room that were rechargeable and glowed when the power went out. There's always one somewhere in the kitchen and in the laundry room, too. (We also tended to have one with each of us if it was storming, just in case.)
Hide and seek is probably a better dark game, just limit it to one room or floor. Shadow puppets, silhouettes, charades--have them ask Gramma for games she played as a kid. Most of them are adaptable to the dark.
I remember losing power a few times on my block, worst thing about it was that it was in the summer~! I understanding surviving without computers, but.. but... without AIR CONDITIONING!?!? I don't even want to imagine such a horrifying world xD In the end we took my dad's spare car battery and attached it to some wires and then to an outlet and plugged in the fan ^-^ since nothing exploded, I would say that was a pretty epic win :D
...
PS my dad is a professional electrician so even tho I made it sound like we were doing something dangerous, it was actually done safely and success was inevitable xD
We live in Southern Florida, and having hurricanes and whatnot...our kids are well prepared with things to do in the dark. I stockpile coloring books when they are on sale, and fresh crayons & watercolors. We have 4 large camping lanterns, all powerful enough to light my home when the electricity goes out. We even play that we are campers or explorers on expeditions to the North Pole, South Pole, Africa...that sort of stuff. A good thing to also have on hand in a car power adapter/inverter. What it allows you to do is run an appliance off of the car battery. We brewed a pot of coffee with no problems last time we had a hurricane and were without electricity, phones and hot water/air conditioning for 4 days in the middle of August. You gotta make do with what you got!
It's a long-standing habit to have a flashlight and utility candle near the phone, the one thing that enjoys being accessible at all times so it's easy to get to all three with minimal or no light. I've had kerosene lamps with paper bags over the chimneys to keep them clean and ready to light. Right now, we have a storm alert radio and a couple of wind-up flashlights. I grew up where there were power outages during the winter.
My thinking is that you could just turn out the lights and have a pretend outage party from time to time for the experience as well as the enjoyment, kind of like a fire drill. Knowing what to do takes the fright out of emergencies. Anyone, including children, who has practice is less likely to panic so is better able to cope. It really pleases me when I hear or read of a little one making a 911 call successfully.