Coping with a 3-month-old baby during this week's extended power outage
1
2
3
WEST SPRINGFIELD - I was in the shower when the lights went out.
"Power's out," my husband Brian's muffled voice came through the door. I could hear our daughter Cleo fussing. Brian fumbled in the dark for her bottle.
Sometimes the power goes out during a storm. It was no big deal. Electricity would be restored in an hour, two tops. Brian brought the 1,000-watt generator we use on camping trips out of the basement and started it running outside. He hooked it up to a lamp and the TV, but there was no cable. We watched the Simpsons on DVD.
As Cleo's bedtime approached and the frosty air from outside was slowly sucking the warmth from our bedroom, it began to sink in that this was no ordinary power outage - and that we were going to experience this crisis with a 3-month-old baby.
Brian and I are first-time parents. This was a trial by snow of our fledgling provider-protector skills. The hardest part wasn't taking care of Cleo, it has been agreeing how to do it and trying to quiet the inner fear that prodded me until the power was restored: Will I fail her?
We made a bed for Cleo using her play mat. The rainbow arches from which her toys hang would also prevent us from stepping on her, Brian explained. She went to sleep in her warmest pajamas under three quilts.
Then Brian and I argued about the candles we'd lit earlier.
Brian wanted to let them burn while we slept: they would provide some kind of heat, he reasoned. They'll burn our house down, I countered. Years of reporting taught me how a single candle can bring down an entire home, and has made me wary of leaving them unattended.
What would I do if it got too cold?
I would put Cleo into the car and take her to my mother's.
With the downed power lines, snapping tree limbs and unplowed streets, isn't that more dangerous?
I don't know.
Eventually, I got my way. Not because Brian conceded, but because we were getting headaches from the scented candles. That night a Springfield home burned down. The cause? A candle. Later, I savored an "I told you so."
In the morning, Brian said he considered calling the police to stop me if I tried to take Cleo to my mother's in the storm. I was silently impressed by his dedication to her safety.
I got little rest that night. Cleo is a noisy sleeper. She has these wheezy little snores, talks in her sleep and occasionally makes a high-pitched yelp. But I would have been up anyway. I often felt her hands, making sure they hadn't turned to ice - which they did some time in the early morning.
I was scared. I put her in a heavy snowsuit. She looked like a starfish trapped in an afghan net.
Shivering, Brian endeavored to connect the generator to the heater, but couldn't get it to work until Sunday afternoon. Throughout the night, the generator would start and stop and sputter out when the heat kicked on. So he would check on the generator and I would check on the baby.
The morning brought no relief: we were almost out of Cleo's formula.
In my sleep-deprived, anxiety-soaked mind I decided that I would walk 5 miles to my mother's house to get the formula she has. Impractical? Sure, but I felt better having a plan.
Then came the boredom. There was no Internet, no TV, no going outside. The generator was powerful enough to run the heat, but little else. Brian alternated between running the heat, the refrigerator and the TV. Cleo worked on getting her fingers into her mouth and grabbing our clothes.
The quiet was broken Sunday night by a string of calls: First, Brian's mother, then my mother, then my dad, then our sisters. Cleo is fine, I would say, we have a generator. If the power doesn't come back on, we said, spend the night over here. We thought this was an idle invitation. Of course it was not.
The sun had melted the snow to a point where the roads were bumpy but passable. My mother, who brought formula from her house, slept on the couch and Brian's mother, his sister and her dog slept on an air mattress in the living room. My mother obsessed over Cleo. Brian's mother had laryngitis.
Cleo slept in her crib. Brian woke up often to turn the generator on and off in an effort to make our inadequate gasoline supply last. Even with the donation of some gas from a reluctant neighbor ("For chrissake, Roy, they have a baby, give them the damn gas," his wife said), we didn't have enough to run it through the night. The only gas station open in town had a line of cars eight blocks long.
By now Brian was exhausted, trudging back and forth from the generator, bouncing Cleo on his knee when he wasn't outside.
On Monday morning, we gave up hope of the power coming on anytime soon. We needed gas and we weren't alone.
I promised I would return with gas for Cleo, even if I had to drive to Hartford. I didn't know at the time that states of emergency had been declared in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and parts of New York.
On my way to work, I turned in to the first gas station I saw, which had a line of 10 cars. When I got to the pump, it was dry.
I felt like a failure, but I moved on.
At the Pleasant Street Shell station in Northampton, cars were pulling in and out of the parking lot with barely a line. My figurative fingers crossed, and stuck the pump into the canister and the gas gushed out. I felt triumphant.
When I parked in the Gazette lot I covered the canister with a bag of clothes I'm donating to Good Will. I was paranoid, worrying the tank would get stolen. It was foolish, but what if I couldn't keep my Cleo warm?
That night felt like it had been going on for days. Without electricity, regular heat, light, the Internet, TV and sleep, the power outage has felt like one long, stinky day. Did I mention we don't have hot water?
It was dark. It was depressing. Brian and I called out of work on alternate days to take care of Cleo. Her day care program didn't have power, either.
The only light in all this was Cleo. Brian dressed her as a bee for Halloween even though we weren't going anywhere. She was all droolly smiles to see me when I got home from work.
Every moment I was home I would think, "This could be when the power comes on." Every text message, every phone call I received was someone who's going to tell me we have electricity.
On Tuesday, I got an automated call from Western Massachusetts Electric Co. I had thought we would have electricity by Thursday, but now it sounded like we wouldn't have it until Friday or Saturday. My heart sank. My head dropped. Then I looked over at the picture of Cleo on my desk. She's naked in a field of flowers.
It felt wrong to rely so heavily on a baby, but I needed her to keep me going.
That night, the lights came back on.
Kristin Palpini can be contacted at kpalpini@gazettenet.com.
