Not Laughing Yet

Overall, the holidays were wonderful...new baby, healthy family, E's first understandable Christmas morning. But we had one glitch that goes in the file under the heading, "We'll Laugh About This Someday." On December 23rd, in the middle of a SMALL windstorm, we lost power...and we didn't get it back for almost 24 hours. Okay, it doesn't sound like a major crisis, but a two week old baby and no heat, the day before Christmas Eve (read: LOTS of holiday crap left to do) is at the least quite annoying.

When the lights went out, we were cleaning the house to get ready for a family visit...Christmas movies and pizza. But when it became apparent that the electricity wouldn't be back in time for that, we moved the party over to Grandma's house. Comfortable and warm at Grandma's, watching Polar Express and Elf, a call to the electric company confirmed our fears...it would be the next day before our power was restored. Thankfully, M's very kind brother and sister-in-law volunteered to put us up, so we went back to our rapidly cooling house to feed the cats and pack for the night.

It was sort of surreal, actually...being mildly sleep deprived, immersed in the holiday whirlwind, cold, and temporarily homeless. If not for Baby M, I think we would have just built a fire in the fireplace and camped out in the living room. We've camped in much colder weather than 52 degrees (the temperature that the house bottomed out at). That might have been fun, and we might have been laughing by now. Instead, our night was one of the most miserable in memory. The bed was comfy, the house was warm, but E was "out of sorts", so to speak. After just a couple of hours of sound sleep, she woke up screaming and thrashing, inconsolable even with pacifiers and milk. M had to resort to bringing her on a midnight drive, just so the rest of the household could get to sleep. When they returned, E was calm and slept for another few hours...then a repeat performance. Sprinkle a few of Baby M's feedings in there, and it adds up to this...we got no sleep. I mean zero.

So Christmas Eve remains pretty hazy in my mind. I know at some point I took a shower in my freezing cold house, I had to transport a couple of chilly goldfish to a warmer climate, and sometime later in the day I ate ham and sweet potatoes. Somebody might have given me a present. Other than that, I don't recall much. Our power came back on and the house warmed up, and Christmas happened, as it always does.

With babies, kittens, and goldfish all without a scratch, I suppose I should be laughing after all...so hee-hee. Sincerely.