It's 6:22 a.m. on Saturday morning. I'm supposed to be on my way to my twin club yard sale to work. The only thing is, I'm lacking a babysitter.
I called the intern from our daycare about a week and a half ago, and she agreed to come over today at 6:00 a.m. She's back at school now—a junior in college—but she'd told me that she was available for weekend sitting if I needed it. I asked if she wanted me to call and confirm, and she said no, it would be fine. She's really responsible, so I left it at that.
Now here we are, 25 minutes late at this point. Why don't I call her? Here's why I'm a dope. Her number is sitting on my desk. At work. I don't know anyone else who knows her except the woman who runs my daycare, and it's too early to call her.
I was hoping that by writing this message, she'd magically show up, but no dice. I'm annoyed with myself for leaving that number at work. I'm annoyed with her for not showing up like she said she would. Argh.
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Two nights ago, I put a pot of rice on the stove to cook. I went in the other room to check my e-mail. (You can see where this is going.) About 30 minutes later, I smell something funny. Oh! The rice! I race into the kitchen to discover smoke coming out of the rice pot. I immediately turn the pot off and start opening doors and windows . . . but not before my smoke alarms go off.
My smoke alarms are wired into my electrical, so when one goes off, they all go off. I have alarms in my kitchen, hallway, entrance way, my bedroom, and . . . the twins' room. It was 9:15 p.m. and the twins were sound asleep.
I tried everything to get the alarms to stop going off: fanning away the smoke, turning the fuse off and on, pushing the reset button, trying to get the backup batteries out (I couldn't find the batteries). Finally, after about 10 minutes, the smoke dissipated enough for the system to reset.
The amazing thing? The twins didn't wake up! I still can't believe it. I'm grateful that my fire alarm system works so well, and I'm also grateful that the babies kept sleeping.
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Still no babysitter. Crap.
Moi
- Snickollet
- I'm a mother and a widow, and a whole lot of other things. Here, though, I tend to write about parenting, grief, and their intersection.
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11 comments:
6:44am.
Not a dope at all! The babysitter is old enough to have an alarm clock right?
As for the rice, I once served my daughter a pile of starchy goo that was supposed to be whole wheat pasta. She looked at me like, "you were reading that blog again, weren't you?"
I hope your day gets better.
Not a dope -- I do this kind of thing ALL THE TIME. I hope she is there now!
I hope the sitter finally showed....And that you find a rice cooker at the yard sale (it's such a wonderful invention--no more burned rice/fire alarms!).
Wow. I would be so mad when she got there, I'd be tempted to tell her not to even bother. Unless something bad happened to her, and then we'll all feel guilty.
I hope the babysitter arrives soon. I do stuff like that all the time too. I find it harder to keep track of details since I became a mother.
Nothing like burned rice to stink up the house. I second what brooklyngirl said. Rice cookers rock.
Babies' sleep cycles are strange. They will sleep through big noises, then wake up for no reason at all.
Several years ago I saw a big news story about how kids just don't wake up to smoke alarms--for some reason that sound doesn't penetrate when they are sleeping. The local news channel I saw this on filmed a family of kids (ages 3-8) doing fire drills before bedtime, then the kids went to bed and once they were asleep they set the smoke alarm off deliberately. Not one kid woke up. It was pretty scary! (The newscaster who did the story had a daughter at the school where I worked at the time.)
Sorry about the babysitter troubles. I hope nothing happened to her, and that your day gets better.
Yeah, I remember hearing a story about a study that showed that, not only did lots of kids not wake up to insanely loud fire alarms, but those same kids DID wake up to an alarm which was their mother's voice telling them (urgently) to wake up and get out of bed! Isn't that interesting? Those little filters are always working...
I also have hardwired smoke detectors. Every once in a while one goes off and, like yours, sets them all off. In this case you probably know which one set them off, but if you don't, just look for the one with the flashing LED on it. You need to disconnect it from the system to get them to turn off. To do this, turn the unit about 1/4 turn COUNTERCLOCKWISE to remove it from the mounting plate. Then unplug it and take the battery out, if you don't then the damn thing will still shriek on its own. Once it's off the wall you'll have easy access to the battery.
Thank goodness the babies slept through the noise.
Oh, the trials of boiling rice: you reminded me of a lovely scene in "Operating Instructions" by Anne Lamott. It's a journal of her son's first year (and also the loss of her best friend to cancer), and she talks about how he was colicky, and how she tried to make him some rice-water as a home remedy. She hadn't tried it before, but had been told that you boil up some rice, but not all the way, and you drain off the water, let it cool, and give the water to the baby in his bottle. OK, she says, sounds easy enough. She then proceeds to go through wo or three batches, because she's so tired and distracted that she keeps letting it boil unti lthe rice is fullly cooked and there's no more water left. She ends up never managing to make the water, but her brother comes over to play with the baby, and cheerfully eats three enormous bowls of rice, with butter and teriyaki sauce.
Hang in there -
Our smoke alarm goes off all the time, practically every time we cook. Our toddler thinks nothing of it. I'm a little concerned that if there was a real fire she wouldn't run out of the house, instead she would just think it's time for dinner.
Love that the twins didn't wake up! aww, they were sound asleep. :) Hope the babysitter showed up soon after this post!
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