The Polar Express - Part 2

With the rolling blackouts and the temperatures continuing to drop, we were having a hard time keeping the house warm. So, we decided to close off all the extra rooms, and confine ourselves to the den. Unfortunately, we were also running low on firewood, so we couldn’t use the fireplace to heat the house either. I attempted to venture out to the store to buy some, but no luck. Out of desperation, I decided to go into the garage and cut up all of my scrap wood to burn, which actually kept us going for a while.

Since the bedrooms were freezing, we dragged our king-sized mattress out into the middle of the floor of the den, so we could sleep in front of the fireplace. Last night, we all slept together with Troy sandwiched between us. We started out with equal thirds of the bed, but my section quickly dwindled to a fourth, as Troy decided that I was a good source of heat and snuggled up next to me. With one hand under my pillow and the other laying on my neck, he passed the night peacefully snoring in my face.

The power kept going on and off all night. It seemed like the temperature in the house would drop 6-7 degrees every time it went off, and only go up 4-5 degrees when it came back on. So, all night it was slowly, slowly getting colder and colder. But I’m generally considered to be the hot water bottle of the family, so I kept the bed toasty warm under the covers.

The working part of the day was more of the same as yesterday. Catch moments when the power was on to rush to the office and check in. But I’ll be honest, I didn’t rush as fast or stay online as long today as yesterday. There was nothing useful going on. With everyone in the city dealing with the same issues, nobody could get anything done. Besides, it was more fun to be playing with my family than working.

We had to come up with some creative ways to entertain Troy. I give major kudos to my wife, as she was truly a superstar today. At one point, Troy and I were playing with his balls upstairs, and my wife came up to see what we were up to. He wanted her to join in the fun, so he handed her a ball through the rails while she was still on the stairs. She put it down and flicked it across the floor with her finger. For some reason this tickled Troy to no end. He ran and retrieved the ball, brought it back, and handed it to her to do it again. Over and over again, my wife would flick it, and Troy would laugh hysterically.

Later in the day, I caught them doing a Congo line around the den and kitchen. My wife was doing the boom-boom hip wiggle, while Troy walked behind her with his hands on her backside. Every time she’d stop to do the boom-boom hip wiggle, Troy would laugh uncontrollably. And consequently so would my wife. They had so much fun together today. It was great to see after some of the tensions of being cooped up in the house for several days now.

My wife decided that she was tired of eating “used” food, so she scrounged around until she found some things that she could cook on the stove. Luckily, the gas had not gone out during this time, so if we could get the stove lit, then we could cook! So a charbroiled burger and some pasta it was.

We went out again today, but this time we attempted to walk on the icy, snow-covered mixture of a sidewalk. Troy showed his inexperience traversing this type of surface, taking off at a full sprint...and then promptly slipping and falling right on his padded backside. It didn’t deter him though. As soon as I helped him stand again (trying to do so on his own proved impossible in his thick winter coat), he was off at a run again. Which meant I was off at a run again, while my wife slowly and carefully brought up the rear. We made it halfway around the neighborhood like this, until Troy hit a particularly bad patch of ice and fell hard. At that point, he was done with the outside. He crawled into my arms, wrapped his shivering arms around my neck, and put his cold hands down the back of my coat. And I carried him back home, trying to adjust with his added weight as I tried not to fall on the icy sidewalk.

With a fire to warm his cheeks, and a snack to warm his belly, he was even able to catch a little bit of Camp Cretaceous before the power went off again.