Dawn gleams upon the freshly fallen snow. A coo sounds from the tiny warm body beside me. A smile. A laugh. Even a giggle or two. There is no artificial light today. There is no heat except from the small kerosene heater the in the kitchen. There is also no way out. The road clean up crew still hasn't made it's way through. But he smiles at me anyway. That little grin makes it's way deep down into me and bursts somewhere inside with joy. Picking him up, I pretend that he is a rocket ship and we make our way through the house. We stop at a window and he squeals with delight at the white world outside. Two feet of snow covers the other houses, the ground, and the trees. I cannot help but to be happy too. He reminds me every day to be happy even when it seems like there's nothing to celebrate. In his eyes almost everything is wonderful.
I make a raspberry on my baby's cheek, change his diaper, and someone in the kitchen flips on the battery powered radio in hopes there is any kind of important news from the outside. Today is day four without power. I haven't had a shower in what seems like forever but I don't really feel like it matters whenever I squeeze him. We play in the kitchen floor until it gets dark.
He stares at the candles and the oil lamp being lit. It all seems so foreign and interesting to him. He doesn't want to go to sleep and I let him stay up to watch the family play scrabble in the the flickering light. We make hot cocoa and coffee over the kerosene heater to go with our game. We laugh and complain about the power outage. Some neighbors have power across the train tracks already.
Soon he is falling asleep on my chest, listening to my heart beat and my slow even breaths. I bundle him up, put an extra layer on, and we curl up in bed. His father comes in from working outside and plops down too. The cold doesn't stand a chance of penetrating our many blankets. It's comforting to be so warm. I drift off to sleep with my son in my arms, thankful for so much. He can't even talk and somehow he reminds me of what it means to feel human in a whole new way. He reminds me of the bliss of being a child and he's shown me the joy of being a mother.