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Powerless
The battle continues here at the Ricks residence. This seemed a particularly difficult week for many reasons. Kira was coordinating a baby shower at the end of the week, which took up much of her brain power and added little errands and many phone calls to our already overloaded schedule of begging children to eat. It finally took place yesterday, so she and I are thrilled to have it behind us.
Another unexpected challenge to our sanity was our electricity. The flow of electrons we usually take for granted to charge our phones, cool our home, light our path, and entertain ourselves and our children was disrupted twice in one day. They were brief outages of just a few seconds, so were no more than an annoyance. However, the next day near dinner time, without warning the power shut off entirely, and remained off until about 9 p.m. We had to light candles to see our books, and Kira had to cancel her plans to do laundry. The worst part was that the boys’ room got warmer and warmer in our summer heat, with no air conditioning to relieve them. Carver slept right through it, but Hakan woke a few times very cranky and sweaty. Thank goodness we didn’t need to deal with that all night!
Perhaps the worst part was that we thought we had the power issues all behind us, only to have it shut off again two days later! It was in the middle of the day this time, again for several hours, limiting our functioning significantly. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the problem is solved now, and are thankful that this particular luxury is normally a given.
In other news, Merritt rolled over unassisted twice this week! We were practicing tummy time like always, and he managed to do it. He is no doubt inspired by the Olympians he’s caught occasionally on the television. He’ll be crawling in no time!
Carver had a couple of particularly funny moments this week. Just this morning, as we were at the breakfast table, he seemed deep in thought for a moment before turning to me and saying, “Dad, I bet a DVD would not float on water.” I’m not sure it sparked the intellectual debate he sought, but we all weighed in. What goes on in that boy’s head that he doesn’t say out loud?
Avey has been into pranks recently, and decided to plant a few signs on people’s backs. She put one on my back that said “Kick me!” I pretended not to notice, and then went to help Carver with something. Carver, aware of the prank, and not wanting to ruin it, shot a glance at my back, and then his eyes darted right back to mine. A tiny smirk appeared in his cheeks as he fought the urge to giggle, and just to make sure that I did not suspect anything, he said, “Dad, there’s nothing on your back.” I was glad he told me that, because otherwise I would have been suspicious.