Let there be light!

This past Sunday we had a moderate snow storm. No big deal really, I have seen worst. But then at about 3:50pm the lights flickered off and then came back on. Whew, that was close. I'm sure any parent dreads the loss of electricity as almost everything our children do now requires it. But for my child with autism, no electricity isn't just a minor issue, it is the end of her world. You see right now, Kassidy finds her calmness, her relief, her relaxation in using the internet. She puts on her headphones and spends hours there watch other peoples "puppet shows" of her favorite characters or funny clips and cartoons. So when the lights flickered and then went out for good around 4pm, I thought for sure the world of Kassidy would be spinning out of control. Luckily, daddy was smart enough to hook the TV and satellite up to a backup car battery so at least we still had TV - for a while. Oh, sure there was a lot of complaining about no computers and that is was the worst winter ever and how could this happen to her and what was she gonna do and then with frustration she said, "That's it - I'm going to bed!" Then the TV battery died and now things were gonna get really bad because now Shane had nothing to keep him entertained. Until mommy came up with the idea of playing with their leap frog game consoles.  There actually was some excitement in the air until Kassidy went to turn hers on and it just flickered and turned off .... dead batteries! (Curse you batteries!)  The fit was about to hit the shan when wouldn't you know it, the lights came back on. Kassidy was so busy being upset that she didn't even notice we were not in the dark anymore. I had to get her attention and tell her to look around. As she surveyed the room, a smile started to creep up on her face and the next thing I saw was a blur of what I supposed was my daughter finding her calmness, her relief, her relaxation in using the internet. Whew, the electricity gods were on our side that night!