Noise at Night

Yeah, I still feel bad.  Final diagnosis - pill induced ulcer of the esophagus.  Not a pretty thing.  Thanks to so many of you who told me what it was - you were right!  Also, the long awaited Great Wolf Lodge post is finally up!

While we were away for the weekend, we went to bed pretty late Friday night.  Fairly close to 1.  so, technically, Saturday morning.  My husband had to get up at 5 to drive home, so he elected to sleep on the fold out bed that was separated from the main area of our room by a 6 foot tall partition.  I set his phone alarm for him and then went to bed.  I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, and didn't hear him wake up, which is odd.  Typically, I am a very light sleeper and hear everything that goes on, and have a lousy time going back to sleep. 

For whatever reason, that wasn't the case this time. 

At 6:23 I was jolted from my sleep by a blaring alarm.  I sat up, completely disoriented.  I had one daughter in my bed and two others in the bed next to me, and everyone was still asleep.  (The other kids were in a different room next door with my mother.) I am blind as a bat and usually keep my glasses on the table next to me, but I wasn't at home and didn't follow my usual patterns.  The alarm continued to blare and I stumbled around the room, falling over stuff and wonder what, exactly, was going on.

Beep!  Beep! Beep!

I made my way around the partition and fumbled around, looking for his phone, thinking that maybe he'd forgotten it.  I couldn't find it.  I walked back around the room and slapped the alarm clock, thinking it was going off. The alarm continued, and I tried to follow the sound of it, finally realizing that it came from a box on the wall.  The fire alarm!  It was going off! 

"Girls!  Wake up - it's a fire alarm! We've got to get out of here!"

They jumped up, voices tumbling over each other.  "What?  Why is it going off?  What do we do?"

I opened the door to the room and peered out into the hall, completely forgetting every thing that I've ever been told about fires in hotel rooms. You aren't supposed to do that until you determine that the door isn't hot.  Seeing my mom and others, we quickly determined that we'd get clothes and meet outside.  Dumb mistake number two - you aren't supposed to do that. Rules of a fire clearly state that you are supposed to just get out in what you have on, but there was NO way I was doing that in just a flimsy man's white t shirt and undies. I threw on a bra, shoved my legs into my dress pants, and grabbed my laptop and camera.

What?

I know, I know.  Not supposed to take anything either.  Whatever.  There's no way I was leaving my laptop or camera to burn up in the fire.

I turned around and saw the girls.  Two were ready and one was...

BRUSHING HER TEETH.

I scolded her and we all left the room, thanking the Good Lord that the resort we were at has the room keys coded into the wrist bands, so I didn't have to worry about remembering a room key.   I led the group down the hall to the stairwell - at least I remembered that little tidbit.  We passed a boy, maybe 11 or so, who was clearly on the spectrum.  He lay in the middle of the hallway, screaming, hands held over his ears as his father pleaded with him to move, already.  I looked back at Riley, knowing that she struggles with loud noises, but one daughter had beaten me to the punch and was carrying her, as she held her hands over her ears.  We went outside, waited for a few minutes, and we told that it was all clear and to go back to the room.

It was scary, knowing that I was so unprepared and seeing that my kids really didn't know what to do either.  Methinks we have some teaching to do here.

Comments

[ggroszek]

I would rather pass a kidney stone than go through what you did with that pill! Hope your feeling better, and glad there wasn't a serious fire.

[sue]

Mom,

ALERT…do you still consider your children to be YOURS.

Most of us are not aware that a threat to our parental rights is close to being ratified in the U.N. under an International Treaty Law. The whole story is too complex to post in forums. Suffice it to say that you will no longer be in charge of your children’s education, discipline and more. I urge you NOT to ignore this. Please check it out here:

http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?Type=NONE&SEC={520635A0-D52D-4DA9-8AE7-CA574A3228F0}

And PLEASE share this info too.

[girlsmama]

We started having fire drills after an experience similiar to yours! We go the whole nine yards: sounding the alarm, climbing out windows, etc. Hopefully we'll never need the skills, but if we do maybe they'll remember.

[Headless Mom]

Yikes. Not exactly the way you want to start a vacation day is it?

[KG]

So what did they tell you to do for your ulcer? Probably a whole lot of nothing right?It makes my throat hurt just thinking about it!
Ohhhhhh, no fun with the fire drill... Hope you got a few minutes rest after that! ZZzzzzzz

[A]

That happened to us on vacation once...A young boy had pulled on the fire alarm. Of course, going back to sleep is never an option after that!

[Nikie]

We have a one at the lodge in February while we were in our bathing suits! We stood outside in our towels fro twenty minutes.

[amy]

do they have you drinking a maalox/benedryl mixer like they do for kids with hand/foot/mouth ulcers?

Talk about painful. You should go and whap the box doc in the head with your diagnosis that s/he allowed you to suffer 24 hours longer then s/he should have.

scary about the firedrill stuff. at least no one jumped into the shower first!

[Laura V.]

Glad you know what's ailing your throat. Hope it gets better quickly.

We had a fire situation similar to this at the gym in February. My kids were in the 'child watch' class and I was upstairs working out. The fire alarm went off and I just grabbed my jacket (which held my keys, ID, etc.) on my way down the stairs. When we got outside, the kids were coming out with the teachers and they had no jackets/blankets. Thankfully I had my keys and could get my baby (then 5 mo.) a blanket from the van - my other 2 had to suffer thru the cold b/c their jackets were inside! Fire dept. came and everything.... Turns out someone had left something in the oven in the employee kitchen and it caught fire. Grrr.

[kyoot]

I hope that this passes quickly!! ouch!
As for the firealarm, I'm VERY impressed that one of your other daughters thought to think about carrying her sister out, that's impressive!

[mm]

Ok... I got chills and the willies and all that reading that story. Thankfully all worked out and it was basically a fire drill for you all. But I do confess to getting a tear in my eye when I read about one of your kids carrying a sibling. Well done. There was a shining moment in the middle of all that!

[FishyGirl]

Ick. I have a similar story (and thanks for the blog prompt, going to go write it up) but at my inlaws house, not in a hotel. I was the first one up. My FIL? A firefighter. Glad it was nothing.

[Amy W]

Um, sadly we didn't even leave our room. We looked outside and saw no one leaving, and stayed.

But yea, that sucked waking up that early. My husband stood in line for 30 minutes for donuts after that.

[Young Wife]

That's always been one of my fears. That the fire alarm would go off when I'm in the shower or in my underwear or something. Love your blog!