Why is it?

that alarms can never malfunction at . . . say 2:00 on a Wednesday afternoon?

Last night, our Explosive Gas alarm went 85 dB blaring at 2:50 in the morning. Wow, that will really wake you up. We ran frantically through the house. We could not smell any gas. We opened all the windows (to let in the 98% humidity air into the house) and then I looked up the owners manual for the alarm on the internet.

Mainly it states, "Never ignore an alarm." Also, if it is an alarm for GAS (as opposed to CO) we should evacuate immediately and not even use the phone or any electric appliance and then call the fire department.

So, that is why I was on the computer. We just could not smell anything (and our heating oil and propane both have that dead animal smell added into them.)

Then I got to remembering chemistry (from way back in the day) that propane is denser than air. Meaning if you have a leak it will be along the floor or sinking down to the basement. Since it is our stove on the main floor that is the only propane appliance we have -- it began to seem unlikely that the propane gas could float up the stairs.

Same goes for the heating oil which was way down in the basement.

So . . . being pretty certain that we weren't about to explode, we called the fire department. I explained to them that our GAS alarm was going off -- (although now it had stopped) and that we opened the windows and never smelled anything and how it was the alarm upstairs and the propane stove was on the main floor and the heating oil in the basement. And they asked if we could smell anything. We said NO. They said, yeah, those alarms malfunction all the time. Go back to sleep.

Too bad we had just spent one adrenalin filled hour running frantically through the house with screaming children or maybe we could have gone back to sleep.

The kids were back asleep fairly quickly. Not me. Not Trent.

3:30 a.m.
3:45 a.m.
4:00 a.m.
4:15 a.m.
4:30 a.m.

at 4:35 Trent finally sounded like he was asleep.
at 4:45, I gave up. Seeing as my alarm was going off at 4:50 to go running. Trent said I woke him as I left and so he got up after that.

When I got back from running, Trent was ready to head out the door. I figured the kids would sleep in some and was hoping that after a shower I might get a little nap.

Just as Trent walked down the stairs, Adam started to cry.

I got him back to sleep and hopped in the shower. As soon as I was dressed, Madelyn came bopping in at 6:30 -- wide eyed, ready for morning.

AAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Why????

Why me?????

On the plus side, all the kids have been really good so far this morning. Sometimes I think they can just sense that mom cannot put up with too much. Maybe they have an internal Mom explosion alarm????