I’ve been meaning to post Dan’s January photos of M’s lego club, and I had not photos of this story. So they don not match, but the kids are still cute.
The power went out during poison hour. K ran to her bedroom inspired because her desk lamp holds a charge for a few hours after being plugged in, so she set it up on the kitchen table as a light center. M grabbed the Battleship set, and they began to play. It was a wonderful change from the usual pre-dinner squabbles.
“K, an F is the letter with one vertical line and two horizontal ones. Is it a hit or a miss?” Sometimes there are serious inconveniences with having taught cursive first and emphasizing lower case letters in preschool. Ben set up his history text on the table, and I quickly slid the pizza dough into the oven that had just preheated – hoping the pizza stones would hold the heat long enough to cook diner.
Dan was delayed a little in getting home by the detour around the power line that fell into the middle of County Street. The sun had finished setting when he arrived, and he found us comparing flash lights and candles. I dislike oil lamp stink, even though for Dan its a happy memory trigger. Sigh. The oven did in fact have enough heat to melt the cheese, though it never got spotty brown or crispy. The sausage still was nice, and Dan was able to leave on time for deacon’s meeting.
Everyone is coming down with a head cold and or intestinal trouble, so sleeping was going to be sketchy, but I hoped for the best with early darkness. At bedtime, I used K’s lamp to read some more of Wolf Story until my throat hurt. We’d already realized that with no power, K could not fall asleep to a cd. No Narnia, no music, no Jesus Storybook Bible. In an attempt at cheerful distraction, I pulled Dr Seuss books from her shelves, some BabyBug magazines saved from when Ben was a baby, and a Pup and Pop reader. “Here, K, you may be able to read these to yourself.” We arranged her lamp so she could see, and I crossed my fingers.
When Dan arrived home from his meeting, K was reading Pup and Pop out loud to herself, the boys were reading silently by backlit Kindle or flashlight. She read a few pages to Dan as he came up the hallway, then went into the bedroom to read it to her brothers. M came up the hall to tell me that K was reading to herself, could I believe it? K came up the hall to tell me that she was reading to herself, could I believe it?
Dan congratulated me on getting them all into bed, but warned me that K was so excited about reading, she’d never settle down. Then she burst into our room, “Mom, I can read to myself now! I’ll never be bored again!”
She did actually go to sleep, but Dan was right, it took her a while.
