{sMokE aLaRms}

Do you get that sick feeling when your stressed and haven't had enough sleep? Almost like you are going to throw up at any given moment. This is the general feeling Chris and I had early this morning and I'm still not feeling great.

At 2:am our smoke alarm went off. Our house has the relay alarms (hardwired), so when one goes off they all do and the one in the hallway loudly says something about a Fire.

Chris literally bolted out of bed and took off down the hall. I quickly threw on some jeans and a jacket and Chris was back, saying he didn't think it was a fire and in the same breath said I have to sit down ... something about a head rush. The alarm only went off for a few seconds, by the time Chris was back it had shut itself off. It was the strangest thing.

I asked if he checked in each of the kids bedrooms downstairs. He said he hadn't so I did. Ally was not awake, although she was very restless, probably if the alarm had gone off a few seconds more she would have been up. I checked Keyan's room, he was sound asleep. This makes me a bit worried. Sammy was sitting up in her bed. I told her it was the fire alarm, and we have checked the whole house and there is no fire, so it's ok to go back to bed. Next, I check Landon. He is awake, but laying down on his bed. I tell him the same thing.

I checked the garage, etc. I can't for the life of me figure out why the alarm went off. I even cracked a window just incase the alarm was supposed to be for carbon monoxide, since the talking detectors are combined in one unit.

I'm completely stressed. Even a half hour later my heart is still racing. I was afraid to go back to sleep. I just couldn't settle myself.

We talked about what we need to do to get our kids out safely. We have a plan and the kids all know it, but actually putting it into action is a completely different story when you are coming out of a dead sleep. I was stressed that Keyan and Ally didn't even wake up. I wondered if maybe we were up for another reason. You know how sometimes strange things like that happen. It was just disturbing for some reason.

While laying back down in bed we noticed that the smoke detector in our room was blinking red occasionally (I found out later that this happens when your detectors are hardwired and it blinks so that you can know which detector set the whole thing off). We changed the battery, wondering if that would help. I know when the battery gets low the alarm chirps, but it still didn't make sense that it would completely go off because of the battery. After that the light still blinks. Chris changes the battery again, thinking maybe it was a bad battery. This seemed to do the trick. After an hour we were finally to a point where sleep might be possible! Chris was completely asleep and I had looked at my clock 10 minutes earlier, but was lightly asleep, by the time the alarm went off again at 3:30 am. This is ridiculous.

However, this time Ally is completely up, coming out her door and ready to run outside to our safe spot, by the time Chris turns the alarm off. Sad as it seems, I was really happy by this. I was happy that she didn't sleep through it again. I held her and talked to her for a minute. All the while I'm racking my brain trying to figure out why this is happening (is there a fire in the attic, no the house would have burned down by now and so on...) She was scared. She wanted to go with me to check on the other kids.

Keyan again was sound asleep. I had to tease him a bit this morning. He literally had no idea that the alarm went off. I'm going to have to check the alarm in his room to make sure it really works. All the alarms were tested when we moved in so I know they all worked at one point. Landon and Sam were up. Again had to explain what happened and told them to go back to bed. Once Ally saw that they were all ok and heard Chris tell them to go back to bed, she went back up to her room. Chris checked in on her when we got back up and she was on her bed kneeling in prayer.

While I was checking online and not finding what we were looking for, my computer internet wasn't working, so I was just using my phone, and it's too slow when your tired and stressed!!! Chris had removed the detector. At least now we know it won't wake us up again this morning.

When I got Ally up this morning she said that she was scared that there was really a fire. And when I got Landon up he says, "do I get up for real this time?"

My poor kids. I know I about had a heart attack, seriously my heart was racing so fast for quite awhile, I can't imagine what they were thinking. I'm going to have to go to the school and talk to Landon and Ally's teachers so they can understand if Landon falls asleep in class and if Ally freaks out about something strange.

After all this, I am so thankful that my house did not burn down. I'm thankful that my little family is healthy and safe. I am thankful that I now know that there is no way I will sleep through the alarm and I'm thankful for the reminder to talk to my kids about fire safety.

Too bad I can't go back to bed right now. I sure could use a good night sleep!!!