…I had to call the fire department at 4am. Fun times!
Everyone is fine and the house is fine so now it is just a funny story to tell. Kind of like this one.
Around 3:30am, our fire alarm started going off. Awesome. It has done this before…in the middle of the night too.
Why is that? Why does it always seem like fire alarms act up or run out of batteries in the middle of the night? It is cruel.
Anyway, I obviously jumped out of bed and went to grab my screaming kids. See, we have 8 fire alarms in our house.
Does that seem like a lot? Kind of feels like a lot at 3:30 in the morning, since they are all wired together and all screaming FIRE, FIRE along with a pretty annoying beeping.
I pick both kids up and we check out the house. I didn’t smell anything so I wasn’t super worried about an actual fire. I checked the whole house and then decided to head to the back porch since Aedan was begging to get away from the “beeping”. So there I am, holding Adelaide, who by the way, isn’t crying anymore and is just looking around like this is something we do all the time, and holding Aedan’s hand as we freeze outside in the middle of the night.
When the alarm did this before, it went off twice and then stopped and was done. This time, it just keeps going off. It stops for about 30 seconds, only to start back up again. I figured it was probably a low battery or one of them just acting up, but being home alone with two little kids, I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to get out the ladder and start checking each one. I could just picture me telling Aedan to watch his sister outside on the porch while I go back inside. Totally would not have gone over well.
So I did what I think any wife would do…I called Jon. I’m not even sure why I tried him. I knew he was in the middle of a 15 hour flight from Hong Kong to LA. So I did the next best thing…I called my dad. Yes, I totally woke my parents up at 4am, they have assured me they didn’t mind. After talking with my dad (while the fire alarm is still going off), I decided to call the fire department.
I made Aedan run through the house (he hates the loud beeping) and we hung out in the garage while I called 911. The 911 operator asked me a series of question, one of which was “do you know why your fire alarm is going off”. Um, no. That would be why I am calling. I made sure to emphasize that I didn’t smell any smoke or see anything that made me think our house was on fire. I really didn’t want to wake our whole street with fire sirens.
Luckily, a few minutes later, when the fire truck did come, it came without lights flashing and sirens going. The guys checked the house (while the alarm was still going off). They didn’t find anything so they started checking each alarm. They narrowed it down to the one in Adelaide’s room and unhooked it. Apparently it was low on batteries and instead of giving off a little chirp every now and then, it tripped the whole system.
The firefighters were really nice and even offered to come back the next day and change out the batteries for me. Once the beeping stopped, Aedan was pretty excited to see how they took down the alarm. He was a little disappointed that they used our step ladder instead of their own ladder. Once they left he kept asking why they had to borrow ours.
After they left, I changed Adelaide’s diaper and put her back in her bed. I watched her on the monitor and I kid you not, she literally rolled over and went right back to sleep. I would love to know what was going through her head that whole time. She is definitely the more laid back kid!
Aedan on the other hand was wired. I let him lay in bed with me, but I don’t think he ever feel back asleep. At 6:30, I rolled over to find him staring at me. He immediately asked if I thought the beeping was going to come back. Since then he has pretty much told everyone that will listen and he now insisted on pretending to be a fireman and wants us to call him and tell him that the fire alarm won’t go off and he needs to come fix it.
I was just thankful it wasn’t anything serious and that it was the night before Jon came home. Because after that, I was pretty much DONE with the solo parenting gig!
-Lauren-
