The No-Power Hours

I must re-cap last week.  Just in case I forget - the next time the power goes out for 3 days - what to do.  Arrrggghh!!!!

Monday:  Best day of the week.  Got up at 6:30am, did my Tracy Anderson workout, out the door by 9 to drop Griffin off for his 1st day of camp (big day!!) and then to work for myself.  Griffin did great at the drop-off, acted like it was old-hat.  See ya later Mom!!!

Had a quick Wonder meeting, then sped downtown to be a guest speaker at Frankie's Fashion Camp - held at the darling tween boutique in Lincoln Park, Frankie's on the Park.  I was so honored to have been asked to speak to the girls at Fashion Camp, and they were great listeners and asked some mature questions about the fashion industry for their ages of 10 and 11.  I was wowed!!  By the way - how lucky are these Chicago girls that there is such a thing as 'Fashion Camp,' right?  Within a week, they work on what it takes to design your own line, listen to guest speakers who work in and around the fashion world, do fashion shows...the list goes on!  My 10 yr old former self is JEALOUS.

Tuesday:  Seemed to be a normal day - went out to dinner with some friends from Madison who are moving to the Chicago area soon, came home, put kids to bed, and had just gotten out of the shower when my husband announced that we were under a Tornado warning.  Joe gets pretty amped up about these things - I admit they worry me too, but a little less-so since I grew up in Kansas City and we did go down in the basement a lot when the tornado sirens went off.  Lo and behold, the sirens went off at about 9.  I in my robe grabbed Gemma out of her crib (she was NOT happy to be woken up), Joe grabbed Griffin, and we went into the basement with the dogs.  All would have been fine had there not been a large 'CRACK!' sound and when that happened the power of course went out, and the insanity began.

Griffin started panicking about the power being out and kept trying to turn the lights back on, Joe was doing his best to maintain his composure yet still freaking out, and I was holding Gemma, who I soon realized had a gigantic poop in her diaper.  Mmmm.........so stinky I brought some wipes and a fresh diaper downstairs and attempted to change it in the dark.  Of course since I couldn't see much by the light of my IPhone a big ball of poop rolled out of her diaper and onto my leg.  Since it was my own kids' poop I wasn't super grossed out - it was pretty funny actually.  Griffin was like "Gemma's poop fell out Mommy!!!!"

Anyway - long story short - no tornado.  But 80 mile an hour winds which knocked out the power all over the suburbs.  Hence, no power that night.

However the Tuesday night adventure does not end there.  Bella, my endlessly nervous cocker spaniel, started crying from the mudroom at about 3:30am.  So, I trudged downstairs, only to be greeted with a smell reminiscent of the bottom of a garbage can.  Downright nasty.  She had thrown up and had you know what all over the mudroom - and then walked all over in it.  Poor Nani (our other more laid back cocker spaniel) had also walked around in it and was looking at me like - get me the hell out of here!!!  At the time, I thought she had kind of lost her cookies b/c of all of the beeping (the house alarm would NOT stop beeping even though the power was out) and the lack of routine from that evening.  Anywho - spent about 30 min cleaning up you know what and barf from the mudroom, letting the dogs out, putting barfy/poopy towels in the garage, and went back to bed.  4:30 rolls around - and it's time for round 2 of barfy/poopy mess.  Seriously.  I cleaned the mudroom twice in one hour.

Wednesday:  Wake up, no power.  Dangit. At this point, we know everything in our fridge was a goner.  What a colossal waste!!  Still went to work though (we worked out of the local Courtyard Marriott b/c Wonder didn't have power either).  Came home from work, threw out entire contents of fridge, along with the nasty towels from the dogs' episode the night before, and went to Whole Foods for dinner.  Oh - gave the kids a chilly bath - which they didn't mind really.

Thursday:  Still no power.  But Joe and I needed to shower.  So I took an ice cold shower at 7am which really works in terms of waking you up, fyi!  While he showered I was amused by the pre-pubescent 'aaah's' and 'ooohs' coming from the bathroom, that's for sure.  Again, went to work and came home - still no power.  That night I paid bills by flashlight.  I had to do something!  Didn't even have our wireless network, so I couldn't browse on my laptop or anything, and couldn't use my phone b/c playing on there would drive down the battery which we couldn't charge anywhere except the car.  Good times.  At this point - totally over it.

Friday:  6:30 am - still no power.  Had to drive Griffin to an appointment, and decided that no one cares what my hair looks like.  Or at least if they do, I don't care.  3 days without any kind of styling product or hot iron or shower - it was reminiscent of what my hair looked like as a kid!  Frizzy and in a ponytail.  Must mention that I got downstairs and ready to leave with Griffin for the appointment, and smelled the bottom of a garbage can again coming from the mudroom.  Turns out Bella wasn't nervous on Tuesday night - she must have had a bug - b/c this time Nani had covered the mudroom in poop.  Sweet.  This time though - Mommy didn't have to clean it up - we had to leave - so I went upstairs, and quietly whispered this to Joe in his half-awake mode: "Honey, Nani barfed and had diarrhea all over the mudroom.  It's horrible.  But I have to leave so you're going to have to clean it up.  Bye."  BAHAHAHAHAHAHAA...............I later learned that he didn't appreciate this - but what was I supposed to do??  Go in there and freak out and yell about the mess in the mudroom?  No! I figured a quiet whisper of the details was all he needed at that time of the day.  I'm still laughing.  

Got home from the appt at 9 - AND GLORIOUSLY - the power had returned.  Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!  I must admit this little adventure afforded me the opportunity to clean out the fridge (and actually clean it, you know, with windex and stuff), and restock.  Went to Costco, the grocery, had a grand ol' time.

Thank you old man weather - you threw us for a loop this week!  We learned that we don't HAVE to watch TV every night, or play on the computer, but it sure is nice.