Ben has always enjoyed a warm bath and tub toys as part of his bedtime routine, and because I have found it helps him unwind and go to sleep more easily, I try to let him have some extra tub time. This is usually one of the easier parts of our day; however, one day last week this was not the case. Not at all.
At about 8 something pm, Ben was in the tub happily playing with ducks and boats, and I was sitting on the bathmat with my back against the wall trying not to fall asleep when it happened: the lights went out. Ben immediately began shrieking hysterically, "It's dark! It's dark! Fix it! Fix it!" so I scrambled to get up (smacking my forehead on the bathroom door in the process) and grabbed him out of the tub. It was indeed dark, pitch-black. All of my lights were out, and my neighbor's many porch and side lights were out while his boxers barked their heads off and my son screamed like a banshee while flailing his arms and legs. He was wet and weighs 42 pounds, and I was terrified I was going to drop him or fall with him and break a bone and then where would we be? Both of us screaming on the floor in the dark and not a thing to do about it.
So I gripped him as well as one can grip a sopping wet, flailing about 5-year-old and inched out of the bathroom, through my little twist of a hallway, and across the dining room, being as careful as I possibly could not to smack his head on anything, when I hit my toe on the door facing. I yelped, then sucked it up and kept the string of obscenities inside my head so my son wouldn't repeat them, and then we continued inching our way into the kitchen while he continued his screaming and twisting. We finally found the rechargeable flashlight in the kitchen, and I managed to hold it, Ben (who would not let me put him down), and my cell phone and called the electric company using the magnet on the fridge. The outage had already been reported, and when I looked outside I knew why: there was no light. Not anywhere. Not on the Interstate that runs past my house, not as far as I could see.
I tried not to panic or show Ben that I was a little freaked out myself, lit candles, and then took the flashlight to the bathtub to finish bathing him, and then gave him the flashlight to try to quiet the shrieking and calm the panicking. I resolved to buy more flashlights while helping him dress in his jammies as Ben aimed the only light directly into my eyes the entire time, and we headed to the living room to call his dad to tell him goodnight and read our bedtime stories by flashlight.
Ben stopped screaming and crying, but he would not go to sleep. He would not. He continually talked about how the lights were out and the electric company needed to come fix it. Ben is not much of a question asker, but he repeatedly asked when and who would come fix the electricity. When? Who? When? Who? He was very anxious about it, and nothing I tried calmed him. Not stories, not the weighted blanket folded in half, not back rubs, not snuggling in my bed, not singing. It didn't help that the house was completely silent. He was very distraught by the whole event. I was trying very hard to remain calm and patient but the whole time I was imagining a truck flying off the Interstate in the dark and landing in my living room, so it was very possible he could sense my anxiety. I swear he has antennae for that.
About two hours or so after the electricity went out, it came back on. I had enough fore thought to turn off everything except the porch light I leave on anyway, and only missed one lamp in the living room. But as soon as the porch light came on, he sat straight up in the middle of my bed (having still not been to sleep yet) and anxiously said, "They fixed it! The lights are back on. When will they go back off?" and he said it over and over. He didn't shriek, but he seemed almost as distressed as when the electricity went off in the first place, which confused me.
I'm not sure if this was so upsetting because of his sensory issues or because of the abrupt change in routine or both, but that child did not go to sleep until after 2 in the morning. And when the electricity went off again two nights later at 2 something a.m., I woke to him shrieking and he did not go back to sleep that night, even when it was fixed an hour later. Again, he was distraught and no amount of reassuring and snuggling could soothe him, even after it was all fixed. Zombie Mommy returns.
We are now the proud owners of a variety of flashlights stationed all over the house just in case, but my main concern is how frightened he was and how stressed out he became over it. He gets obsessive sometimes, but even after the problem was solved he was still just as distressed as when the lights went out. And now, a full week later, he talks about it regularly, especially at bath time, and he is now afraid of the dark.
I don't know what the answer is to this one, and I didn't see this kind of problem coming at all. I think it could upset any kid, but he is having an awfully hard time getting over it and is still afraid of it. Nothing bad happened (not to him--just Mommy) and I did my best to calm and comfort him. It might just take some time, and I do think that he will make peace with it eventually, but I sincerely hope we don't have to deal with it again for a long, long time. Like never. Never would be good.
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