Dog Is His Co-Pilot

Last night, the power and cable went out at 7 p.m. after storms brought down a honkin' big tree right on a transformer box three doors down from our house. Whole street - dark. It was actually kinda cool. Kane got ampy and ran around in his little-leg way, and Phil and I sat around and had a nice, candlelit stream-of-consciousness talk about everything and nothing that you usually only get with one another when your're out camping or otherwise disconnected from all the cell phones and the televisions and the computers - you get the idea. It was also interesting because, without that extra stimuli begging us to stay up late and do more more more, we all kinda wound down early - Kane went off around 8:30 (he first went down around 7, but woke up for an hour and played in the dim light), and, after some snuggling, Phil and I drowsed off around 9 p.m. I got a shower in before the hot water cooled down in the heater (the heat went out, too, for some reason), and climbed into bed under the flickering light. Pretty cool. Well, it was downright frigging cold around 4 a.m., when I woke up to howling, because Kane's candle sputtered out, and he was scared of the weird lights outside and the men shouting commands at one another. I soothed him, fed him, and put him back down, but he woke up frightened again at 6:30. This time, I nudged Phil (okay, elbowed him) awake to go get him, because Phil was planning to get up around then anyway to go to the gym. Well, he brought the boy back into our bedroom, but couldn't leave, because PG&E had their trucks blocking our driveway. So we hung out in bed for about fifteen minutes - which mostly comprised of us wrestling to calm Kane down, since he was cold and unhappy and squirmy. Finally, the lights kicked on at 6:50 a.m., along with the tv that had shut down 12 hours earlier. We flipped to PBS and caught the end of a kid's show with some safari animals on it, which Kane completely mellowed out for - he snuggled in right between Daddy's legs with his blanket and his binky. Then, get this. Phil goes in to shower, comes out, and Clifford the Big Red Dog - an insipid, but relatively tolerable cartoon about dogs that can talk (John Ritter used to play Clifford's voice, and Fonzie played a guest dog in this episode) - comes on as Phil's getting ready and I'm trying to change clothes. And Kane points to the tv and goes "dog." His first word, other than mama and dada! Holy crap! And it's - dog. Dog? But, we gave him initials for KAT, Cat, kid. Meow. Which he says, sure, meow, but, that's not the same as a bonafide word. And it's dog! Phil and I looked at each other, and I replied, "Yeah, Honey, ruff, ruff! That's a dog!" "Dog," he replied, never to speak it again (today). Right on, Kane. Keep on talking, boo-boo.