Firemen...Part II

As much as James and Daniel adored our recent fieldtrip to the fire station, they were absolutely NOT thrilled with a visit to our house by the fire department!!!

Since we moved into our house, we have had trouble with one of our smoke/CO detectors. It went off several times in the first year we lived here (always on cold nights) and we had to have the fire department come check out our CO levels - always with normal results. We finally had the offending device replaced, and we haven't had any trouble since.

Well, on Tuesday night just as Art and I had drifted off to sleep, the alarm suddenly sounded. Knowing this particular alarm has always been false, we were both annoyed. Art got up to turn it off. The blasted thing would not shut off though. Instead, it triggered the whole system...every single alarm in the house suddenly went off. Needless to say, it was deafening! James woke up immediately and was hysterical. Art was frantically alternating between poking at the alarm, reading the instruction manual, and trying to call the fire station to ask them what to do. Meanwhile, I was desperately trying to calm James down. Bless little Daniel...he just slept through it all.

Finally, Art got in touch with the fire station. We woke up Daniel and bundled up both boys. I went out into the garage and sat with them in the Tahoe while we waited for the fire truck to show up. It's always so entertaining to sit freezing on snowy night as a fire truck pulls up to your house and the crew piles out to inspect the scene. Yet again...a false alarm due to a faulty alarm. Time to call the electrician!

James has since declared that fire alarms are "horrible" and our house must be "old and broken". It's fine to visit the firemen, but he doesn't ever want them coming to our house again!