Good Practice

It was sometime after 4 AM today when Nate and I were awoken by a loud, strange noise. He sat up and asked if I heard that. I told him maybe it was the alarm clock. Zach and Brandon mess with it sometimes and they could have turned it on. Nate checked. Nope, it wasn't on. Hmm, weird.

Then it happened again. Maybe it was the smoke detector and the battery was dying. Yup, it was the smoke detector, but they started going off over the entire house. That's not something that happens from a dead battery.

I ran to the kids bedrooms. Riley and Brandon were crying, Zach, was sitting up, and Jacob had to be woken up. It was time to get out of the house. They were scared. It was so loud. I gathered the kids together in our entry way so we could all go out together. Then, I went to get my purse. I know, I know, just leave, but I wanted to have my cell phone.

I was pretty sure there wasn't a fire because we have fire sprinklers and they weren't going off. But, the noise was too much and I turned on the lights outside and the kids and I went out the front door to the sidewalk in front of our house. Thankfully it was a fairly nice night. No rain or snow, but it was chilly. We were all barefoot and the kids were freezing.

Nate didn't come out with us. I decided to go back in and get a couple blankets to wrap up in. I saw Nate and he was going around checking for the cause of the alarm. Again, breaking all the rules. I asked if we should call the fire department, but there was no fire, no emergency, so I just went back out to keep the kids warm while he stayed inside.

As I was wrapping up the kids, a police officer stopped to ask if we were ok. I told him what happened and he called for a fire truck then went inside to help Nate. I was curious to see which direction they'd come from since we live between two fire stations. They came and checked the house with some kind of infra red tool looking for heat. Then they checked for carbon monoxide. Negative for both. One firefighter went with Nate around the house checking all the smoke detectors. They found the one in our bedroom has a bad sensor on it.

While we were outside it was a good opportunity to review what our family plan is in the event of a fire. We also talked about keeping something warm and a pair of shoes by the sides of our bed. The smoke detectors did their job. They woke us up.
The police officer came by at just the right time. I am grateful to him and the fire fighters that were woken up to respond to our non-emergency. They are there, willing to help, even when it's to find a faulty smoke detector.

We were let back in our house around 5, so if my family seems a little tired today, you'll understand. Especially Jacob, Riley, and Brandon. After all that excitement, who can sleep?