We live in a wind tunnel. It must be something about the way our neighborhood sits on the hill, something about the fact that it’s a relatively new neighborhood with very few mature trees to ‘catch’ the wind, something about the way the surrounding hills are situated. All I know is that when a storm front moves in, the wind whips through our neighborhood with incredible force and lots of noise.

(Surprisingly, the sellers never mentioned this fact when we were buying our house. There was nothing on the disclosure form letting us know we should nail down anything we put in our yard.)

I could tell you stories about me being seven months pregnant, chasing boxes (which had been set out for the garbage men), garbage can lids, and flower pots down an icy road at 2 a.m., because a mighty storm had picked up and my husband was out of town. I could tell you those stories. But I won’t. Not today, anyway.

I’ll just tell you what happened two weeks ago.

It was a Wednesday night, and the four of us were enjoying some family time in the basement. The kids were running around, I was relaxing, and Chad had settled in to watch the U.S. Men’s National Soccer team play Mexico. Before I knew it, it was 7:30, time for L. to go to bed.

“Okay, kiddo. Give daddy a hug and a —”

Darkness. And Silence.

Just like that, the lights went out, the TV went off. The power was clearly and utterly out.

As we all stumbled up the stairs, we quickly realized something: the cold front predicted by the local weathermen had arrived in full force.

The wind was howling around our house like a hurricane. Our wind chimes were clanging and banging against the house. And the entire neighborhood was dark.

Somewhere, a tree had gone down, or a telephone pole had toppled, but surely the power company was handling things.

We figured it would all be resolved in half an hour or so.

But we figured wrong.

I decided to let L. stay up a little later, since he was a bit concerned about the fact that it was “very, very, very dark!” We lit candles, and then we did something that amused me.

If you guessed D, you are correct.

C. went to get his new-to-him Palm and keyboard. L. requested “his iPod” which is really my iPod, and asked to watch some Wow Wow Wubbzy video podcasts. Chad got out his portable speakers and we plugged in another iPod, putting on an audiobook (Rikki Tikki Tavi) for all to enjoy.

And we all settled in to enjoy the technology. At least until the batteries ran out.

Look — here are my kids, in the dark, with their electronic devices all aglow:

Clearly, we are not cut out for pioneer living.

The closest thing to any kind of old-fashioned living we did was this: Chad picked up one of our candles and headed to the basement to check on things. And since I was suddenly struck by the thought that he reminded me of Charles Ingalls when he was holding a candle, I asked, “Where are you goin’, Pa?”

Chad was not amused. But L. thought it was hilarious, and at least once a day since then, he bursts out with “Goin’, Pa!” and giggles hysterically.

The power did not come back on for about 10 more hours. Chad and C. slept fine. L. and I…not so much. Howling winds and lack of heat made L. restless. And as for me, well I’m just crazy. I laid awake much of the night, convinced that the power would come back on any second now, and I’d need to go around the house turning off lights and re-setting clocks. So I stared at the ceiling, waiting, and waiting, and waiting… and finally got about 90 minutes of sleep before the power came back on for good early the next morning.

We were all glad to have electricity again. It meant we could have warm showers, toaster waffles, and a functional garage door.

And, of course, we would be able to recharge our electronic gadgets.

During my sophomore year of college, I had a roommate who was a Sleep-Talker.

And when I say “Sleep-Talker,” I don’t mean someone who occasionally mumbled in her sleep, or who shared deep secrets in the middle of the night.

Instead, I mean that I had a roommate who subconsciously viewed 3 a.m. as the perfect time to begin panicking, screaming, and otherwise freaking out. While she was sleeping.

Surprisingly, though she could sleep through her middle-of-the-night ravings, I could not. And since she conveniently slept in the bunk above me, I regularly found myself jolted awake by the sound of her [very loud] “attacks.”

I never did figure out what she was upset about. But I quickly learned that the best way to handle these little adventures was for me to calmly say things like, “It’s okay. It’s gone now. Time for sleeping.” or “Shhh… Go back to sleep… Everything is okay.” Slowly, her screams would subside to whimpers, and she would eventually curl up under her covers and go back to sleep. Meanwhile, with my heart pounding a mile a minute, I remained awake for quite a bit longer.

Needless to say, when morning arrived, she had no memories of her explosive episodes.

Perhaps when God put me in a college dorm room with a sleep-screamertalker, He was preparing me to one day be Mom to my 10-year-old, C..

Thankfully, though, C. doesn’t actually scream in his sleep. He doesn’t panic, or freak out. And his “incidents” only happen occasionally. In fact, they’ve become an endearing occurrence that I don’t mind at all.

It all started when he was about four years old and I heard quiet sobbing coming over the monitor at 2 a.m. I crept into his room to see if he was okay, and there he was, sitting up in his bed, looking heart-broken.

“C., sweetie?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s…it’s…it’s too old,” he replied.

And try as I might, I couldn’t get any more information out of him. Just that IT was too old. And that C. was devastated.

Just like with my former roommate, I resorted to vague assurances that everything was going to be all right, and before long, he was again slumbering peacefully.

C. went through a period of time where he woke up after midnight once every couple weeks, talking about something. Sometimes he was coherent; often he was not. But he never remembered our middle-of-the night chats and I got a quiet giggle out of the whole situation.

But then it all seemed to stop.

Until a few weeks ago, anyway.

It was 10:45 one night, and I was in bed, reading…thinking that I should turn off my light and get to sleep, when all of a sudden, C. walked into my room.

“What’s wrong, bud?” I asked.

“Oh.” he said. “Nothing.”

And then he just stood there, smiling at me. Which was my first clue that something was up. After all, he’d been asleep for two hours, and then just decided to walk into my room and stand next to my bed? Not exactly normal behavior.

Then he continued: “I just thought I’d tell you about a good dream I had last night.” Ah-ha! He thinks it’s morning already.

“Okay,” I said, “… but just so you know, it’s still night-time. I haven’t even gone to sleep yet.”

Suddenly, he looked concerned. “Oh, are you having trouble sleeping? You just CAN’T get to sleep?”

“No… I’m just settling in now.”

“Oh.” More silence. More smiling.

“So,” I prompted, “what was your dream about?”

“Well, I was doing lots of multiplication problems — you know, the easy ones with one digit times two digits? And it just kept getting easier and easier. And then, all of a sudden, it was like it was heaven all around.”

“Oh…that’s…um, interesting.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how it changed from multiplication to heaven, but it was just nice.”

“Well, I’m sure it was. And I’m glad you had such a nice dream.”

Silence. Smiles.

Me: “Well… I guess you better get back to bed.”

“Yeah, I guess so…”

And off he went. I followed him, tucked him in. All was well. And in the morning, he had a vague recollection of being in my room, but nothing more.

I don’t think I’ve ever been much of a sleep-talker (though I had an incident of sleep-walking when I was young, in which I woke up crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, with my parents at the top, asking me if I was all right). But that’s probably for the best. With the kind of crazy dreams I usually have, I’d probably be more likely to “talk” like my roommate did, rather than with the cute-but-a-bit-out-there approach C. takes.

Are you a sleep-talker? Are your kids? Did you have a crazy college roommate, too?