The Land of Noa: Hurricane Sandy....

So, yes, we were in the dark zone for 4 days following Hurricane Sandy. For those of you who don't know, we live on the 19th Floor of a high rise, right across the street from NYU Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital (both of which were evacuated after the storm). Just below the Halloween Post is a post that explains our logic for staying home when so many left (less than 50% of our building was here by the time the power came back on Friday evening).

In addition to being prepared, we also had Noa's good spirits in our favor. She really was a trouper and I think she liked all the Mommy and Daddy time (though she was very happy when Jess L showed up to spell us a few hours today - thanks Jes!)

Noa did a great job climbing up and down the stairs - as you can see in this clip. This was our final ascent, and this is the 18th floor - you can see she is still going strong. As you can imagine, this game it a bit tedious for Mommy and Daddy. It's 19 floors, but each floor is two flights of 7 steps each PLUS the first floor is really a double level (4 flights), which adds up to 40 flights of 7 steps each.

Going down was much easier - going up often involved a lot of coaching (we were on a pretty fast track in this clip) and often one of us would go ahead to drop off bags and then come back.

Going down and up the stairs took up a lot of the day - we just brought her stroller down once and left it in the lobby - and then we'd go up to Ben's office which had electricity where we'd charge our phones and the ipad and ipod, and I'd drink tons of coffee. Noa was great at sitting at the table there playing with books or fans. She seemed to get that it was a special time and that she had to be a big girl and not bring toys to the potty, or just get by with the book that was there, or whatever was necessary.

And of course she loved the shower at the YMCA and the hairdryers there. In the end, I think we all had a pretty good experience and a huge part of that was due to Noa staying patient and open to what was happening, and of course her general good disposition which made things like getting up and down the stairs bearable. In fact, the stairs even became a counting game that I think Noa really enjoyed.

Below are a couple of photos from our Hurrication Period - most have been on Facebook but I wanted to add them to the blog as well. Thanks to everyone who offered us a place to stay, or to come bring us food, etc., we are very grateful - and we're very lucky of course to have only been inconvenienced.