Yesterday I was operating like it was a typical Sunday. I helped the 7-year-old with his homework, and filled out the parent survey and wrote a check for the toddler’s daycare fees. It wasn’t until later on in the evening that I remembered this is a three-day weekend for everyone except the hubs. So, I let the 7-year-old stay up later than usual and the hubs and I agreed to meet on the couch at 11 p.m. to catch up on the shows we had recorded.
I noticed that it was getting colder in the house. I wrapped myself in a blanket and took my place on the couch. The hubs silently walked upstairs, then downstairs, then upstairs, then outside, and back downstairs again. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“The furnace is out,” he said.
“No wonder I’m so cold. I had blamed the chill on the cold glass of milk that tasted so good.”
“I’m going to put the space heaters in the boys’ rooms. It will get pretty cold through the night. Then I’ll join you.”
He came back down and grabbed a blanket of his own. The new “Modern Family” episode was worth the wait. We were 12 minutes into “Grey’s Anatomy” when the fire alarm went off. Before I could even look over at the hubs he was already up a flight of stairs. I jumped up and followed. I didn’t smell or see any smoke. We unplugged the space heaters. The hubs had to unplug three smoke detectors and remove the batteries to get them to stop beeping. The boys slept through the whole thing.
We placed an extra blanket on each kid and returned to our DVR party. It was 11:52 p.m. We finished the Grey’s episode and the “The Office” when we decided to call it a night. It was almost 1 a.m. As we were crawling under our electric blanket, it happened again. Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said. “I’ll get the baby. You get the alarms.”
I went into the toddler’s room. This time he was awake. “Too loud!” he said. I rubbed his back and tried to get him to fall asleep. “My want Daya!” (That is what he calls the hubs instead of Dada.)
“He is fixing the alarms. Let’s lie down and go to sleep.”
“My Daya!” he cried.
“It’s OK, shhh, don’t cry,” I said as I rubbed his back. The alarm stopped.
“Daya fix it?”
Then…Beep! Beep! Beep! I could hear the hubs getting angry. He yanked the alarms back down again. Ahhh. Quiet.
“All gone,” the toddler said.
“All gone.”
“My want Daya!” he started to cry again. I went to find the hubs. I stopped by the 7-year-old’s room. He was still asleep. The hubs went into the toddler’s room. I took him a sweatshirt before climbing back under the electric blanket. My nose and fingers were freezing cold. The heat from the blanket helped my muscles relaxed. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth. Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Not again! I looked at the clock. It was 1:34 a.m.
I stopped by the 7-year-old’s room. Still asleep. I went into the toddler’s room and he was wide awake. I stayed with him as the hubs yanked the alarms out again. This time the toddler was scared and the dog’s nerves were shot. The dog was shaking and whining at my feet. The toddler wanted me to stay so we camped out on his floor. He eventually fell asleep. I woke up periodically throughout the night to make sure he was covered. My thoughts were still with the electric blanket that was now keeping the hubs warm.
At 6:30 a.m. I went back to my room. The hubs’ alarm clock was going off. I couldn’t take another alarm. “Please turn it off. No more alarms.” A couple of rounds of snoozing the alarm and the hubs was up and off to work. I fell back to sleep. It seemed like minutes but it was two hours later when I heard the garage open and the hubs run up the stairs. He was fiddling with something before I heard…Beep! Beep!
“What’s going on?!” I asked.
The hubs chuckled. “Just testing. I think we have to replace our smoke detector. It’s the one in our bedroom that is malfunctioning and setting off the others. Someone is coming over at 9 a.m. to fix the furnace. And, you have a visitor.”
The 7-year-old came shuffling into our room, wrapped in the blanket that we had added to his bed last night. “What in the world? Why is it so cold in here?” I caught him up on the latest. We flipped on “Scooby Doo” and snuggled under the electric blanket. The toddler woke up and joined us in bed, too. I don’t get many snuggles from my boys so this was the best morning I’ve had in a long time.
The furnace has since been fixed and the house is warming up from its 55 degree low. I made pizza for lunch and found myself lingering in front of the warm oven. As of now, the smoke detectors are still unplugged. They don’t seem to care when I glare at them. I’m sure everyone will turn in early tonight. I hope he house sleeps, too.
Laughing is required. 