Power Outage Survival





We live in New York State. Where in a course of four days we can experience Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. We do it frequently where I live. It's April 17th and it's snowing outside. It's snowed on Mother's Day (in MAY) here. And snow can and will start in or before October. Truthfully, I wholeheartedly believe that I am not meant to live in this state. I belong somewhere down south but that's a different post for a different day. 

Anyhow we have been experiencing some crazy weather here and that caused the power to go out for a total of 12 hours yesterday (between two outages.) I have a Wild Child 2-year-old and an Adventurer of a 5-year-old I knew it would be interesting. 

Here are a few tips I have for getting through outages whether they are long or short.

First here is a list of essentials that I highly suggest having. 
1. Flashlights and/or candles.
          We have these, but we can always use more. Our apartment is pretty dark even when the sun is up, especially in our living room and our kitchen as there is one tiny window for both areas.
2. Batteries!
3. Water and nonperishable food.
          The CDC recommends you have at least 1 gallon of water per person/pet per day. As for food, with kiddos, simple things like PB& J, granola bars, fruit snacks are huge hits here. We were set on food, as I do have a gas stove, but we went simple...sandwiches and crackers.
4. Portable phone charger
         For a little while I did use my phone for watching Hulu and I wish I had charged (or remembered where it was) my portable charger. Lesson I took away? Get another one.
5. A battery powered or wind up radio.
It's never a bad idea to stay informed in case you lose cell service or can't access the news. You search for wind up radios on Amazon, some include flashlights as well for as little as $19! You can find yours here!
6. Blankets
Well, blankets are a must if it's cold, obviously. BUT my boys love making tents and forts with them as well, so even when it's warmer these are still essential as they can build or make beds inside the forts.
7. First Aid kits!
I always have first aid kits ready to go, and during any type of storms these should always be easily accessible because you never know what could happen!

Activities that that would keep my Wild Child and Adventurer occupied for the duration of an hour on a normal day is tough. But on a gloomy, no lights, not a lot of sleep and restless with no TV time (don't judge) was going to be a challenge. Now, it wasn't impossible, it was relatively easy, but what drove my absolutely bonkers was not being able to leave a room without the boys screaming they were scared, I wasn't allowed to leave etc. They aren't normally like that, especially Adventure Boy (5 years old) but I think they were just nervous about the wind being so loud (and it was) and we live right next to a fire station where they could hear the sirens going off a lot.


Anyway, (quickly because Wild Child will be waking up any moment and I still have lunch to clean up from before starting dinner) here is what occupied them!


1. Play Doh. An hour! Not even kidding, it was amazing. They (mostly) got along too!
2. Books. I'm a book nerd, and they seem to follow suit, especially Wild Child, our 2-year-old.
3. Hulu. I put a movie on and we laid for a bit watching it.
4. Arts and crafts. I wanted to keep the mess mostly contained so I opened for just paper and markers/crayons for the 5-year-old, and Crayola Color Wonder for the 5-year-old.
5. Dice, cards and board games.
6. Forts and rest/naps. They slept horribly the night before so this was a much-needed activity.
7. Shadow puppets! They always love a good puppet show.




This is just a quick post about what we did during our outage. I will be for sure going over the CDC's guidelines among other resources to double check that I have all my steps taken and in working order for the next time we might lose power.

Also, I am in no way, shape, or form any type of expert at any of this. I was pretty proud that I made it out alive. We don't need TV or internet all day BUT lights for sure would have been nice, haha! 

Take care of yourselves out there!
~AM*~ 

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