Baby Burt: January 2014

So. Oliver's first Christmas was.... dark, icy, a blur. Instead of quiet and food and some chaos, it was instead a flurry of trying to keep the house warm enough, keeping Oliver entertained, shuttling back and forth from home, my parent's house, a hotel... Sigh.

The power went out on Sunday the 22nd from an ice storm that started Saturday evening (it came back on for a few hours only to go out again late Sunday night). We were forecast to get a trace to 1/4" of ice- and coastal Hancock county was supposed to be mostly spared. It was supposed to be worse near Bangor. Well. Nope. Instead we ended up with almost an inch of ice covering everything. An inch of ice is so, so much worse than even 2-3 feet of snow. Monday the freezing rain picked up again and that is when the trees started coming down. I went home at lunch time and that is when I got kinda scared. I had to swerve around fallen trees and branches. Daycare was cancelled, so he was home with my Mom (Peter's work was also closed, but he went in anyway for a few hours). I went back to work for a bit, but then at 3 I packed it in to head home and gather some clothes while I still had daylight. And also becasue this happened:

1/3 of a tree narrowly missing the office

I slowed down to pull into my driveway and that is when I saw the power lines- they were across my driveway. Some large branches had fallen and taken down the lines that ran from the road to our house. In the process they ripped the mast (this metal pipe that sticks up above the roof so the lines connect to the house up high and then run down to the meter) off of our house and damaged our meter.

Ugh.

My aunt and cousins had arrived for the week (lucky them!!!), so I turned around and brought my car back to the office since I had no where else to park.

Oliver and I spent the night at my parent's house and Peter slept in our house trying to keep the generator running. No one slept well.

Christmas Eve arrived and Peter and I went in to Ellsworth to see about a new generator. No luck. I followed him to work so I could take a shower. My mother decided that we were going to go to the Hampton Inn for the night, so I packed another bag and we went over to the hotel that afternoon.

At this point the "worst case" scenario for restoring power was Friday. We were still hopeful that power would come back on before then, but it was cold out and the ice wasn't going anywhere. The outage numbers grew that night...

Peter and I had planned to have a quiet dinner after Oliver had gone to sleep Christmas Eve. We were going to have sandwiches, maybe some wine and sit on the floor of our living room with the Christmas lights on and our Radiant Fireplace II dvd playing on the TV. Well, we sorta managed it:

Our feast!

My plan for Christmas day was to open presents at home, let Oliver take a nap and then head next door for crazy festivities. Instead we opened a few presents at the hotel, then took a drive to see the ice while Oliver napped in his car seat. Not what I had planned, but the sun had come out and the ice was magnificent. Everything sparkled.

Trying on Dad's new Christmas socks

We got to Blue Hill and had our traditional Christmas crepes. Oliver was a fan.

Mmmmphmmmfff

We opened presents, which was fun, but actually kind of a blur. Oliver was fussy and it was kinda overwhelming. It took me several weeks to sort thought his gifts and really get a chance to look at everything. I know, I know, this is a terrible problem to have! He got some really awesome stuff. I'm writing this here for posterity (this blog is for family to see Oliver, but it's also a sort of digital baby book for us). Early favorites are: the Laugh and Learn puppy from Grammy Anne and Papa Jay (his face lights up when it starts singing), the Fisher Price cell phone from ~~Grandmere~~ Santa, his V-tech sit to stand activity center from Peter and I and the nesting cups for the bath that my cousin Grace got him. He's been wearing the new clothes- he looks smashing in his flannel onesie from Aunt Noonie and my Aunt Marian and Anne and Jay got him a whole bunch of clothes- some he is wearing now (Elmo shirt and socks are in heavy rotation), some are for later (Disney shorts for Florida and some Star Wars undies for when he is much older!). :) Lot's of new books, too. He's starting to be more interested in books, but mostly he grabs them and tries to chew on the corners. This weekend I put him on the giraffe rocking (not) horse that Anne and Jay sent- his feet don't quite touch the ground, but he still thinks it's pretty awesome. And last night I got out the Tickle Monster kit that Jason and Jennifer sent. He can't quite sit through the story (which is awesome and funny) but he got a real kick out of the monster tickle mitts. I can see Peter chasing after him with those on and attacking him with tickles!

So confused...

This picture sort of sums up how we were feeling.

Classic "baby is more interested in the wrapping paper" picture!

We ended the day with a candlelight dinner (filet cooked on our gas grill!). Oliver was happy to get a little taste, too.

Steak and mashed potatoes (so much better than strained baby peas!)

We headed back to the hotel that night, put Oliver to bed (he had a whole queen mattress to himself!) and watched the Doctor Who Christmas special.

That was our Christmas... We spent the next 4 days without power (7 days total), but Anne and Jason pulled some strings and we had a little Christmas miracle- a new generator! We were able to sleep in our own beds on Friday night and the generator was some nice white noise for Oliver. The power came back on Sunday (they were telling us it could be New Years's day before power was restored, and it was for some people). We got the house cleaned up and back in order and were able to have our floor picnic in front of our fake TV fireplace on New Year's eve (no Christmas lights- I had ripped the tree down the weekend before- I was feeling kinda bitter about Christmas and didn't want to look at the tree anymore. I know, real mature, but I was exhausted.) New Year's day Mom came down with a Stomach virus, which Peter caught on Friday and I succumbed to it Sunday night. Thankfully Oliver was spared. My birthday was spent in bed, barely able to move (turns out that if you are nursing a baby and can only eat a few crackers, you feel pretty terrible).

Last week we had a January thaw, saw the sun and the temperatures crept up into the 40's. I finally felt like I could breathe a sigh of relief. This past weekend Peter and I hung out at home and were able to actually accomplish some chores around the house.

Oliver's toys have been sorted and we are having so much fun playing with the new stuff. The blurry fog of the past few weeks has lifted, and life is back to normal. In the midst of all the craziness, Oliver was busy learning new things. He can now get every single Cheerio into his mouth, he is sort of clapping, he's making new sounds and he has just started to put his blocks into the bucket (as opposed to just dumping them out).

I'll end this post with a big THANK YOU to our family for making Oliver's first Christmas so special. He's a very, very lucky boy to have you all.

Oh, and just for good measure, some more pictures of Oliver!