This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Crazy Night
Dec
4
2008
Tuesday night was crazy. It was one of those nights that wouldn’t let me go to sleep.
I went to bed around midnight. At 12:15, one of the neighbor’s dogs starts barking. Very annoying. It’s not a constant barking – somewhat intermittent, so I am able to start drifting off to sleep. At 12:30 however, the dog is joined by a chirp from the smoke detector. It has decided, just now, that its battery is getting low.
I remember that the smoke detector emits a short chirp every minute when the battery is low, but I also remember that it can be on the edge for a while. I don’t want to leave my warm bed, so I gamble that the next chirps will not be very regular, and maybe I can fall fast asleep and will miss the next chirp. I win that bet, and am back asleep.
At 1:00 my wife wakes me with a “What was that?” She then described a chirp-like sound. I tell her it’s the smoke alarm telling us it thinks its battery is running low. She asks how often it makes that sound. I tell her “once a minute”, and the alarm chirps again, and again. I give up and get out of bed.
I go downstairs and get the step stool, since our bedroom ceiling is at 10 feet. The step stool is not tall enough – my reach is probably 2 feet shy of the smoke detector. I try remembering how I did this before. Then I recall that I use the small ladder from the garage. But the small ladder isn’t in the garage anymore; it’s in the shed. There’s no way I’m trudging through the snow to get a ladder just to change a 9V battery.
Ah-ha! We have tall stools in the kitchen for sitting at the counter. I bring one upstairs, and now my reach is only 1 foot shy. Hmm… I grab an end table from the upstairs landing. The kitchen stool plus the end table is tall enough, if slightly unsteady. But at this point I don’t care. Swap the batteries, leave the stack of table and stool, and turn out the lights. Finally back in bed, heading off to sleep at 1:30.
The kids wake up at 6:30, at least an hour earlier than usual, and they’re hungry for breakfast. If nothing else, that was a training run for when the new baby arrives.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
– Matthew 11:28
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 10:38 pm and has been carefully placed in the Family category.
