I woke up this morning when Jack started calling from his room. “Daddy? I woke up! Come and get me out of bed!”

I couldn’t move.

It doesn’t help that we’ve been sick this week and that we’ve been burning the candle not only at both ends but in the middle too. It also doesn’t help that Jack has been waking up earlier and earlier each morning even though he’s going to be much later than we want him to. We’re realizing that his nap may soon be a thing of the past.

Ann was in worse shape than I was so I dragged myself out of bed to go and get Jack up and dressed.

After he was dressed we went out into the hall and I turned on the light. It immediately went off. “Oh great,” I thought, “the bulb’s gone out.” Then I realized the heat had also stopped at that same moment.

The power had gone out.

I know it’s a contradiction, but the house has never been so quiet. And yet so loud and annoying. See, all of the things with fans (refridgerator, computer, tivo, heat system, etc.) were all off and the silence was amazing. But at the same time, the smoke detectors which are wired to the central power (and which do not have batteries of their own) started making little chirps to let us know that they weren’t happy.

After a few moments the chirps became plaintive. And then they became whiney. And finally they were making this sick droning sound which seemed to get louder and louder and bore into my skull.

Meanwhile, my own power had still not kicked in and I lay down on the couch while Jack had his yellow-truck-a-thon (he’s gotten all of this toys which are (a) trucks and (b) yellow) on the floor near me.

He was getting very annoyed at me that I wasn’t on the floor playing with him and started asking for tv. I had a very hard time explaining to him that the power had gone out and that I felt lousy myself. I finally just gave up and got on the floor to play.

Then the lights came on.

I always swore I would never be one of those parents who would use the tv to do what I, as a parent, should be doing.

But right now, the power’s out in Daddy and Mommy and the TV is working just fine.