Night Light

Tonight the power went out.

It's amazing how electricity, or lack of it, changes everything.

Zack came home from a business trip today. Instead of coming home and going to sleep, like he should have done, he came to school and helped me get ready for end of level tests next week. He took things off my walls, watered the class plants, sharpened the pencils, and created an Olympic chart that all the other teachers were jealous of. They even took a picture of it! If another teacher takes a picture of something you've done, you KNOW it's good.

What makes all of the things he did even more amazing than they sound was that he should have been sleeping. He had just finished training a night shift in Mexico, drove across the border, and caught a flight back home. He'd been awake for over 24 hours when he got to my school.

My plans for him when we got home were to feed him dinner, put on a movie, and then coax him to sleep as soon as I could. ("I'm not tired!") With the power going out, those plans changed. We didn't watch a movie, instead we just talked. :) When I finally coaxed him to sleep around 8:00, I went in the kitchen, found all the candles I could find, lit them, and put them on the table. Then I read. I read for two hours by candlelight.

At 10:00 the power came back on. I was glad...kind of. I turned on a light. I put the dishes in the dishwasher (I pre-washed them first. I know! I think I'm addicted or something) and started it up. Then I turned off the light, sat down amongst my candles and read some more.