BEEP!.........................................................BEEP!...

Our local fire department recommended changing the batteries in your smoke detectors when you change your clocks.  I guess I should have listened.  3:12am - BEEP!

I woke up thinking it was my husband's pager.  He was on call but didn't wake up.  60 seconds later - BEEP!

I realized it wasn't his usual pager alert, and dozed off again.  60 seconds later - BEEP!

Ok, ok, I get it now.  Smoke detector in our bedroom needs a new battery for the battery backup.  But at 3:14am - NO.  I kept willing it to stop, and thinking it had, and then, BEEP!

The only way to reach the smoke detector is to turn on the lights, get the step ladder and a battery and change it.  Not happening - BEEP!

I keep hoping my husband will wake up and at least remove the battery.  Then I remember since all the detectors are hard wired to each other messing with one, can set off the others.  Don't want to scare the kids by waking them up to the fire alarm - BEEP!

I consider taking my comforter and sleeping on the sofa, at least I'll be far enough away that I won't hear it.  BEEP!

But, I'm too tired to get up and move, so decide to suffer through it, figuring it will stop eventually.  BEEP!

Finally it stops and I doze off.  6:50am, my husband leans down to kiss me goodbye before he heads off to work.  "You need to change the batteries on the smoke detector when you get home", I tell him.

"Why?"

"Didn't you hear it beeping last night?"

"No"

"Oh, well, the battery is low, so we should change them all"

"Ok"

It started beeping again around 9am, I told Little Man that he could help me change all the batteries in ALL the smoke detectors.  Little Man - who like most little boys loves firefighters was all over it.  I got the step ladder out, and realized I still couldn't reach.  Little Man was disappointed but I told him he could wait and help Daddy do it when he got home.

We spent most of the morning in the basement so we didn't have to listen to the beeping and the rest of the day out of the house.  My husband got home a little late and grumpy but Little Man and I convinced him to at least change the battery in our detector.  The rest will be taken care of this weekend.

Moral of the story - if you haven't changed your batteries yet, do it NOW.  In my experience the damn things always start beeping in the middle of the night, and sometimes give scary spoken warnings, but that's a story for another time.