First and foremost, we are all fine-- dry, warm, and safe. We know we are incredibly fortunate in that regard, as this was one of the most devastating weather events in history for the mid-Atlantic region... and I would be lying if I said this storm didn't scare the living daylights out of me. Between worrying about my own home and children, worrying about Anthony's safety in DC, and then worrying about all the implications for my students and staff at Villanova, I was a nervous wreck! Because Liam picks up on pretty much everything these days, though, I knew I had to keep my game face on.
After Uncle Tim left to go back his base in NJ on Sunday afternoon, I took the boys to campus for an emergency staff meeting to prepare our response plan for the hurricane. I figured this was probably our last chance to get out of the house for a while, and both kids pretty much ran out the door at the very suggestion! They were clearly happy to have a change of scenery, and I was happy to let them run around and play with some of my students for a while.
After the boys fell asleep on Sunday night and as I was busy preparing for an inevitable power outage once Sandy came to town, the phone rang-- Uncle Tim! By the grace of God above, his training program was put on hold until after the hurricane, and he was given permission to leave until Tuesday. And truly, it could have only been divine intervention to have postponed that training, because his program is otherwise utterly relentless! Tim let me know he'd be back at the house in a couple of hours and we would weather this storm together. I literally cried out of relief.
On Monday, the four of us did our best to pass the time while the effects of Sandy began to rage outside. Since we weren't sure how long we'd have power, I let the boys go "swimming" in the bathtub while Uncle Tim supervised (and did his best to keep the water in the tub-- good luck!). We played games and watched movies. We made "dinner" for lunch to make sure we got a hot meal. We were thrilled to still have power at dinner time, so we made "dinner" for dinner too! We watched as the winds and the rain got progressively worse. Then our neighbor's tree, the big beautiful one right along our property line, split like a banana before Sandy even made landfall. So we told the story of the 3 Little Pigs and reassured Liam that the big, big storm was no match for our strong brick house. We maybe even believed it.
After we got the boys to bed (together in Joergen's room, where the noise machine would help drown out the sound of that awful storm!), Tim and I headed down to the basement to check for any water damage. The walls in the utility room were a little damp, but otherwise fine. Tim found a little puddle of water on the window sill, which I snapped a picture of to show Anthony later:
and then...
Blackout.
We made our way back upstairs, lit a candle, and just stared at each other. The storm screamed outside, and we decided there was nothing left to do but just try to get some sleep.
The next morning, I woke up at dawn to check the basement again (dry! hallelujah!), and went back to sleep. The boys slept in until 8 am, which is a miracle in itself, and we went downstairs to survey the damage. Poor Ms. Susan's tree took another hit-- unbelievable!-- and there were roof shingles all over our back yard. I was pretty sure they weren't ours.
The power was still out, so we got busy keeping busy! We checked in with family and friends, and after learning that Aunt Doreen's power was in tact, we ran some stuff over to her fridge. We made up some games to help burn off energy indoors. Behold the Game of Lap:
Joergen spent an impressive amount of time throwing beer koozies down the basement steps (this pic was taken the day before when we still had lights, but the game continued relentlessly throughout the outage):
We snuggled for warmth under blankets:
We did many, many other things too to try to stay busy. We played balloon volleyball. Liam and I made an outfit for "Bony", his toy dinosaur skeleton, who was cold without heat (!). We struggled and strained to put together a puzzle in the fading daylight. We sadly said goodbye to Uncle Tim, so grateful for his help and our time together.
At dusk, I packed up our pajamas and toothbrushes, took the boys out to dinner (Liam: "Look Mommy, Old McDonald's has lights!" Ugh. Desperate times...), and drove in a rather roundabout way to avoid all the closed roads to Jen and Pete's house for our nighttime routine. The boys fell asleep in the car on the way home, and I returned home to find our porch light on. Our power, and most importantly our heat, had been restored. Thank you PECO!!! I am in awe of the way they've been working to get everyone back up and running, and couldn't believe ours only took a day.
On Wednesday morning, life began to return to normal... for us, anyway. Back to work, back to Aunt Doreen's, back to preschool. Oh, and Happy Halloween! Ms. Susan's poor tree is still a mess:
While I was making breakfast, I noticed the guy who replaced our roof 5 years ago walking around the yard, completely unprompted. He came by just to check on us and our roof and make sure we were doing okay. He confirmed the roof shingles weren't ours and said he'd come back next week to secure a loose something-or-other on the side of our house free of charge, and then plucked every one of those shingles from our backyard and took them away. He's amazing.
And best of all, Anthony came home that afternoon! Normalcy is a blessed and beautiful thing. I handed him the kids and crawled into bed.
We were truly lucky to have been so minimally impacted by the storm, and just pray for all those who are now working to put their lives back together-- especially in New York and along the Jersey shore.
No comments:
Post a Comment