the lantern

I'm not perfect....faaaaaar from it. But the good thing is that usually learn something from any situation, good or bad and become better prepared should an event (good or bad) reoccur. One such event, sure to reoccur at some point in time, is a power outage in the middle of the night. Let me refresh your memory HERE about the last one.

I'm not even sure what caused last night's outage, light wind, no storms, no rain, but needless to say, the power was out for quite some time. Now for one deaf child, this went unnoticed, and even if he did awake to sheer blackness, he'd snuggle down deep in his covers and enjoy the silence and darkness. Oh but not the other deaf child!

One minute I'm talking to some lady at the park while kids play and eat snow cones, and the next minute I hear Brook screaming from across the park. I was about to put my book down and run towards the child who has climbed too high on the monkey bars and needs mom to rescue her, when my body jerks and I awaken to a semi-reality state. I'm not sure why I can't open my eyes so I stretch my lids as far as they will go when the cool air stings them and they begin to water. My eyes had already been open, it's pitch black, power must be out. I spring into action. I reach to the bedside table and grab my battery operated lantern that has sat there since last year when this very same thing happened. I grab it and begin to walk towards her room which is connected to my room with what I call the skier's slide. I never actually lift my feet because I know that her room is never in tip top shape and the last thing I want to do is press my bare feet down on a baby doll's fork or a colored pencil, so I slide forward one "ski" at a time while frantically searching for the darn button to cut the stupid light on! Finally I found it and there were those streaming tears of fear with a look of 'why did you do this to me' behind them (every thing is my fault if you didn't know, lol). I put the light next to her tv which is usually her source of light, and made my way back to my bed without further distraction. We went right back to sleep.

And before any of you suggest I give the child a flashlight to keep....we tried that with Gage. We removed the flashlight from his possession after random and repeated episodes of peaceful sleep was interrupted with a bedroom door flying open, flashlight burning my retinas and a voice shouting with urgency just like a Cops episode, "Mama, mama, my blankets fell off my bed."

Like I said, I've learned from past events