Sunday morning started early for us, with all the rain, thunder, and lightening a severe storm blowing through the Tennessee Valley could muster. Inside the house our dog Maple was nervously looking for her happy place and Fuller was asking where the umbrella was. Nevermind that we weren’t leaving for church for two hours, the placement of the umbrella was high on Fuller’s priority list of “things to obsess over.”

While we were getting ready for church, the power went out. The TV, which had previously been showing Curious George, suddenly became a blank box sitting on a piece of Ikea furniture. Our lighting overhead went dark. And suddenly, Fuller’s whole world was turned upside down, spun in a 45 degree angle, and then thrown again to hanging by his ankles with no orientation with which to guide his three year old mind.

Fuller ran to his room and started crying, almost collapsing in a heap of despair, when his light wouldn’t come on. Fuller’s list of “things to obsess over” added another bullet point: there is no power.

As luck would have it, Fuller’s morning toy of choice was a light-up Spider-Man wand. So when the world went dark, he had light in his hands.

We dressed in our rain gear, grabbed the umbrella, and ushered Fuller into the car as quickly as possible. When we arrived at church, which was also suffering from the same fate as our own home. Fuller had to tell everyone: there was no power.

As his parents, we tried to calm his fears. We showed him how his Spider-Man light was helping him, we had a flashlight in our own hands, and still, he obsessed. He kept telling us (in sixty words or less) there was no power. Finally we had to tell him, “Fuller, do not mention the power again.”

It didn’t really sway his determination to obsess, he still talks about the power being off yesterday. The bullet point right above the power being off? Going to the museum to see Clifford. Guess where we are going tomorrow?

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