Tuesday, October 10, 2006

So why does she wake up if I sneeze on the other side of the house?

Cooking dinner one night last week, I heard a double beep. It sounded like a smoke detector, but less insistent. That's it, a polite smoke detector. I looked around, heard two more beeps. After a moment, two more. I kept cooking, and Chris headed upstairs.

Chris heard the beeps, and thought they must be coming from our bedroom. But no. Beep Beep. Chris realized the sound was coming from Ada's room. Beep Beep. Turns out that putting a humidifier directly under the smoke detector isn't a great idea.

Ada's room is pretty dark at night, so Chris turned on the light to get at the ceiling mounted smoke detector. Amazingly, Ada did not stir. She didn't move at all, not with the beeping, not with the lights on, not with Chris moving around making noise. This from a child who wakes up from a nap if I just think about walking past her room while she's sleeping. Chris said he knew she was alive because of the snoring. Now if only she could sleep this deeply when she's not sick, I could learn to clog dance during her naps.

7 comments:

  1. Remind me of this week, for some reason I had a bum battery in one of our smoke detectors and it was beeping sem-softly every two minutes--just enough to keep me awake. So there I am at two in the morning on a stool going through the house trying to figure out which darn one it is that's beeping and having to wait every two minutes for the beep to come. AAAAGH! Drove me crazy.

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  2. Totally amazing what they will and won't sleep through. Kids partying next door, bass thumping through our walls, doesn't wake up. Me stepping on the creeky floor board in the hallway and calls of "mama" come out of the room right away.

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  3. I usually nap with the squeaker. Inevitably, after he's been asleep for 15 minutes, I find that I absolutely MUST pee. NOW.

    He'll be totally asleep, and I'll slip out of bed and creep towards the door. As I reach for the knob, I'll hear this clear little voice: "Mama, where you are?!?"

    Sigh.

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  4. Hee. Hailey has some of those slee-of-the-dead naps and I totally want to pinch her to make sure she hasn't slipped into a coma or something.

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  5. When B was about 6 weeks old the fire detector went off in the room where we were sleeping (low battery). The dog began to howl, on top of that K was smacking the thing with a broom trying to get it to stop (the detector, not the dog). B didn not stir! Last night I covered him with a blanket and he woke up, it must have been one of those really loud "explosion blankets"...

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  6. They just did a study that some children sleep through smoke alarms, when they're going off full blast. But that children can wake up at the sound of mom's voice. My brilliant idea was to make a smoke detector that recorded mom's voice and told the kids the get the heck outta the house... We should do it and make millions! Who's got my investment capital?

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  7. this, *this* is what kills me about my days. I can't do certain things while Jack's awake, b/c he wants to do them too, like play the piano, which sort of defeats the purpose. but -- I can't do anything remotely noise-causing during sleep hours, either.

    if the sleeping ever becomes deeper, wanna take clog-dancing lessons together?

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