Blackout!

We woke up this morning not to a loud noise, but to the absence of one. One of our little parenting tricks is using white noise machines (an actual one for Lily, and just a noisy fan for Zosia), which does wonders in helping the kiddos sleep well at night by blocking all of the noise we make. But sometimes our little home starts to sound like an airplane engine or a wind turbine or something. This morning, I woke and thought, "Hm. The house is so... quiet." And then I heard the trash truck, which I normally sleep right through. And then the rain. And realized that the power was out, right before I heard my toddler waking up-- way too early (I think we're addicted to those machines).

Thankfully, Ben snuggled Zosia right back to sleep, and we just finished a lovely little morning without any electricity. We read books, played with stuffed animals, dressed up in Halloween costumes (Zosia a mouse, Lily a frog). We lit candles around the house, and I was almost sad when the electricity came back on (but then I remembered those wonderful electronic appliances that will help me get all the housework done today). But for a couple of hours, it was perfect!