False Alarm!

So as most of you know, we just moved into our new house in February. It was built in 2003, it has smoke alarms wired into the house, and I just passed a fire inspection. All of this made me believe that we had the whole fire thing under control. Wednesday morning however, the alarm went off! It was not just a little beep either, every alarm in the house was going off. The fire department asked me which one it was, they are wired in! They all go off at once! They said they would come out, but only because I have a daycare. Um, I guess that means anyone who does not run a business from their home which involves other people's children is just going to have to forfeit fire services. After waiting outside with all of the kids for about 20 minutes (I would use exclamation points to finish every sentence, but I think you get the idea), they arrived. They informed me that I had a low battery. A low battery!?!?!? No warning!?!?!? Who invented that function? We had to leave our house, I did not have extra batteries, and the alarm was above two sets of stairs on a vaulted ceiling. So they at least brought in a ladder and replaced my battery for me.

1 1/2 hours later, the alarm started again! I went and got Anthony's ladder from the garage and pulled the entire detector off the ceiling. We went today and bought new batteries for every detector in the house (and then some). The positive outcomes from this episode; the kids thought it was great to see the fire truck, we got in one of our mandatory fire drills, and we are now prepared when it comes to batteries.