Smoke Detectors and Other Helpful Helpers

They say you should change your smoke detectors batteries every 6 moths. We have lived in our house for about 9 months and haven't checked them yet. I know, I know, slap on the wrist for us because I know that all ya'll check yours every 6 months to the day right? I kept putting it off because honestly I just kept forgetting. Growing up I was obliviously oblivious to the fact that they were checked and then when I moved out and lived in apartments the friendly housing people came twice a year and took care of it. Well, I can assure you I will be an on time changer from now on (maybe).

If you know me well you know that the only thing that I am truly particular about is my sleep. I love my sleep a little bit less than my family so when it's compromised I'm a little bit cranky. It's already had some problems the last few months with Rusty getting home so late and waking me up when he does (not that I complain because I get to talk to him for a min before I pass out again!), Conner not sleeping well because of missing daddy, and my pregnant bladder exploding every few hours. But about a week ago we added fire alarms! Rusty came home at about midnight and he came to bed and I quickly almost fell back asleep when I heard it. I was just at that point where I was about to fall into the pit of sleeping when I heard "chirp." I'm a light sleeper so I woke up immediately and brushed it off when I heard it again and thought "this thing better not chirp all stinkin' night!" I was almost asleep again when the full fledged fire alarm went off and I swear all the smoke alarms in the house were shrieking and this calm automated female voice saying "fire, fire" But after about 10 seconds it stopped. What the Heck! I counted it as a false alarm since I detected no signs of a fire and started to sleep again when it went off AGAIN! lame! We turned on the light and decided to check things out just to be safe. After looking in every room and the basement it was safe to say there was no fire, but now my baby was awake. Thanks non-existing fire fire alarm! So we hung out with Conner for about 30 min until he remembered he was tired and then put him back to bed. I did another once over the house because now I was paranoid and went back to sleep sure that it was all false alarms. But then it went off AGAIN! ugggggg! and then it chirped 2 more times. after the last chirp we decided that if it made so much as another peep we were taking out the batteries all together and would just take the risk of dying in an inferno.

Our problem? We don't have a ladder (we have vaulted ceilings and the nice instillation guys put one at the very tipity top), and I'm not a very good at jumping. I started coming up with all sorts of safe ideas of balancing chairs on tables and step stoops on chairs to make us tall enough. Lucky for us they didn't go off any more that night.

But then then went off the next night! (luckily at like 8:00pm and not the middle of the night) So Rusty's nice daddy came down with a ladder the next morning and changed the batteries for us. Don't worry, we're not so spoiled that he came down just for that. He was planning on coming anyway to spray our pretty weeds in the back yard so we can put our lawn in soon. (yay) I would have done it myself, but it's generally frowned upon for women in my delicate condition (Sighing as I put a hand up to my forehead and pass out) to handle toxic poison. Not sure why...and Rusty is only home between the hours of 1:00am-7:00am and it's kinda dark during then.

Anyway that was quite the tangent! So we hadn't heard anything for a little over a week when what happens 2 nights ago? It went off at 2:45am in the morning!!!(yeah, yeah, I know that's redundant, I'm just emphasizing the time.) Rusty wasn't home yet so I called him to let him know because it was lame and I was "just woken up from my princess sleep" mad and it went off again when I was talking to him!! He got home about an hour later, meanwhile it had gone off one more time a chirped a few others. He was super investigator when he got home and noticed that one detector we hadn't changed the batteries in was blinking red we changed all of the other batteries that we hadn't yet (we have a lot of smoke alarms in our house. we're super safe) and haven't heard anything since.

Ok, so that was reeeeeally long and more of just a rant at stupid smoke alarms that wake me up. Sorry if it was boring but I'm just so annoyed! And why do they always pick the middle of the night to tell us about non-existent fires? One of the great mysteries of life I guess...