EEWWWWIIEE! EEWWWWIIEE!

A week or so ago we had a battery that needed replacing in a smoke detector.  In the middle of the night suddenly there was a blaring, EWWWWIIEE!  EWWWWIIEE!   (If anyone knows how to spell the sound that is the alarming smoke detector, please let me know.)

I know you know the sound though.  It's above a reasonable pitch that's comfortable and yet it's not high enough to bother only the dogs.  It's impossible to ignore, even if you've taken a hearing aid out to go to bed and not be bothered by, "those noisy young'ens."

The sound wasn't for long.  It was long enough for us to bolt out of bed and be thoroughly confused if we were being burgled or burned down.  Five seconds and it stopped.  Blissful silence and then ten seconds later another brief burst of sound.

Now awake, my husband looked around the house at all the smoke alarms.  We have a lot.  Far more than any single house merits.  But code, you know?  There is an alarm system.  There are smoke detectors for that system.  But by code, you still have to have one in every bedroom.  So we have even more.  And these alarms are all buddies.  When one goes off the others hear the keening sound and join in the party.
 
So we're confused.  There is no fire. The smoke alarms are all wired to the house power so they're not in danger of running out of power.  But one is giving a red light like it's unhappy. 

There is a battery backup in case the power is out and you catch fire at that point.  But if it's the backup battery that had issues, then why didn't it just do the replace battery annoying beep?  You know the beep I mean, the beep that starts shortly after you've gone to bed and beeps in long intervals that are about how long it takes you to get to sleep.  It only does this when you're out of spare 9V batteries in the house too.

We don't know what the issue was.  I slept fitfully for the rest of the night expecting to be rousted out of bed at any moment to console scared babies.  Amazingly, they never made a sound through the entire event.

The Big Boy Update:  Bubbles!  Without a doubt, the word of the day is "bubbles."  He knows the word and he's said it from time to time, but when I brought home a great big bubble jar with a large wand did he start chanting it.  He saw it on the counter and said it; I tried to hide it but he figured out where it was and said it.  He said it the whole time we played with the bubbles.  Both whole times.  By the end of the day his enunciation was spot on.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Such a good sleeper.  She can sleep through anything.  Her brother had a tough start of the night last night with gas (or something) that he moaned and wailed through for two hours while we tried to figure out what was going on.  Eventually he went to sleep and didn't make a sound until morning.  She shares a room with him.  The wail/crying was waking me up on the floor below but she slept through the whole thing.