Fifteen Smoke Detectors?

It's been about two years since we've moved in this house and it's starting to be time to replace the smoke detector batteries.  We had one go into beep mode a few months ago and another one two nights ago.  Instead of waiting for them all to go out incrementally, we went for replacing all the batteries at once.

My husband got six nine-volt batteries and we started the process yesterday.  We started this with a very upset dog.  She does not like beeping things.  This stems from a traumatic experience she had many years ago when a solenoid went out on one of the alarm sensors on a door.  For hours and hours she sat in a house with a, "beep beep beep" that happened anywhere from ever ten seconds to every two minutes, but was usually closer to ten seconds.  We fixed the door, but she takes personal issue with any beeping things in the house.

When the smoke detector went beep in the middle of the night, she did something she never does, she went in the house.  And when my husband went upstairs to fix the problem, he stepped in poo, in the dark.  He wasn't happy.  The dog was even more unhappy.

Current problem fixed and all is well.  Carpet cleaned and no beeping.  That night we start the battery replacement process.  My husband on a tall stool or ladder, me handing him the new battery and taking the old, my son repeating, "this" and pointing to the old battery so he could had it to the already full stack he had in his hands.

Then, we ran out of batteries.  Now I know there is a good reason for code purposes to have a smoke detector in multiple locations across the house.  But we had more than we realized.  One for every bedroom, one in the hall, no, wait, two in the hall?  That's interesting.  And then there were the ones by the master.  There is a four foot hall leading into the master.  Code says you have to have one in that, "hall" and also one in the bedroom.  We have two smoke detectors three feet apart.  We also have additional, redundant smoke detectors that are with the alarm system.  And then there's a bonus one in the mechanical room.

We had to find more batteries.  We still didn't have enough because we have fifteen smoke detectors?  If there is smoke, we're going to know about it, I feel sure.

The Big Boy Update:  The ubiquitous "this."   Just like the word "green" means every color, the word "this" means everything.  He says it all the time.  He points.  It's not that helpful.  Usually we can figure out what he's saying, but it's commonly not until after twenty or so "this's."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   She understands, "sit down."  Her brother likes to stand up in the tub.  He's not suppose to.  We ask him to sit down and he does.  We didn't realize that she knew what we were saying and what it meant until she recently started standing up in the tub.  You ask her to sit down, she looks a little guilty and sits right down.  Every time. 

Fitness update:  Fourteen mile long run with my neighbor.  This time, she had one of the gel/goo packets and I didn't.  I can say now that they do help.  I was more tired at the end of the run and much more tired after than I was when I ate the energy boost packets.

Someone Once Said:   Kettering’s Law: Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.