And....

Once in a while, an event happens that desperately needs documentation, or else it will be lost forever. These moments remind me that I need to laugh at the present, not hate or dread where I am currently. It will not be like this forever.

  Last night, all four little boys were sleeping in their correct beds (a feat in and of itself), and I was happily sleeping. Note: The hope of getting at least 8 hours is always present, but at this point I am really happy with the measly 6 or so that I am actually sleeping well.  At around 2:30 the power went off due to a huge storm. Generally, not having power in the middle of the night is no big deal. It was hot, so the husband got up and opened windows. About the time I was drifting back to sleep, there was an obnoxious "beep" closely followed by another coming from some other nearby source. Ugh. The battery of the smoke alarm was crying out in a near death state. NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!! You see, the smoke alarm in our room is at the very top of a vaulted ceiling. Like 15 feet off the ground. I guess that the alarms near our room are linked, because every minute or so, one would give off its annoying death moan, followed quickly by the other. After the initial state of denial- you know "maybe if we just leave it alone it will eventually stop"... nope- we got up to figure out (in the complete dark) if we had any batteries for the stupid thing.
Nope again. Middle of the night, no power, no batteries, really high smoke alarm- Jesus, you really think I am stronger than I am.
   So, the loving, amazing, patient man I wisely married, got dressed and made the rainy trip to the gas station to get batteries. The alarm continued to inform me of it's near death state, and the baby decided he didn't care if I was exhausted or not. He wanted to he held, RIGHT NOW! (sweet child, don't you like sleep like everyone else???!!!)
     Wonderful husband returned 30 minutes later, right after I had convinced the kid to get over his little episode and cling to his blanket as tight as he could, and brought in the giant outside ladder from under the house. Up the ladder, battery changed, down the ladder, other battery changed... We waited.... BEEP. For all that is good and holy in the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After and hour and a half of the mess, ain't nobody got time for that.
He just took them both down and put them by the bed to be dealt with in the morning.
5 minutes later we are comfy, cozy, and happy to finally be ready for the little bit of sleep we'll get before the natives get restless and want to be fed.
BEEP. Seriously? I wanted to die a little bit.

The end result was taking the tiny little demon possessed pieces of equipment that continued to mock our sleep deprived minds to the garage. Yay. Sleep... at 4:30. Needless to say the baby, once again, really needed me to be there for him, like a kid going through a bad breakup, at 6:00 on the dot (precisely 2 minutes after the power came back on).