It is just under 4:00 a.m. on Halloween. What the hell are you doing up, Jake? Good question. I'll tell you. It may seem humorous next year or maybe even next week, but I tell you this in disgruntled, sleep-deprived pissy-ness.

Went to bed at 9:00 p.m. yesterday. After consoling Emma from "something" scary in her room, thanks to the holiday decorations somewhere, and soothing the lingering hunger pains from Ellie, I slithered into my warm bed with fresh flannel sheets. Abbie had her weekly addiction of ER which put her to bed about 10:00 p.m.

At 10:38 p.m. I awoke to the sudden screeching of Ellie explaining that she was hungry again. I did our routine and was sitting in the living room nursing her, when suddenly one of the five fire alarms beeps. It beeps a single piercing beep. Ellie keeps sucking unhampered. I look at the only alarm I can see from my seat. It is the highest of them all and I quickly pray that it is not the one making the fuss.

"Beep."

"That wasn't it, Thank you, Jesus!" I can hear Abbie rustling in the bedroom, obvious moved by the new noise. Ellie is just about done eating and falling back into her food-induced coma-like slumber.

I deduce that the beeping is coming from the hallway alarm going into our room. A little red light is occasionally
flashing. As I replace the cheap brand nine volt battery I realize that it is the original battery from when the house was completed about eight months ago, as I accidentally hit the button to test the alarm. The house is reminded that these are the sound-sensitive smoke alarms that get set off by smoke or the sound of another alarm from a specific distance away. All of the alarms sound off just the way we would like them IF there was a fire. Good test, Jake. Way to go.

I go back to bed. It is a little past 11:00 p.m.

At 1:00 a.m. Abbie does Ellie duty.

At 2:00 a.m. I wake up from Emma's Jedi-Dog Mind Trick and her nasal whispering, "Daddy, Daddy, me need covers up. Daddy, Daddy." I roll out of bed. "Will you carry me?" she asks like she does most every night. It is really the nicest part of the night, besides the whole dreaming part. She comes in with her doll of choice for the night, sometimes also with her nightly book selection, and other times with her blanket. Most of the time she comes in with all three. A few hours ago it was just the doll and blanket.

I carry her slowly back to her room not because of her weight or my drowsiness, but because of the aching and sharp pain shooting from my left ankle. It is the ankle I broke about this time, ten years ago while partying with a bunch of friends in the forest. With the sudden change in temperature, I write it off as arthritis and quickly think of the pains that Abbie's cousin, Craig must has from his few hundred various bone breaks and fractures. Sickly, this makes my ankle feel a little better and I cover my big girl back into her bed. I limp back to those warm flannel sheets.

About fifteen minutes later, the alarm above our doorway in our room begins to beep. "Abbie, look to see if the red light is blinking," I muttered to my wife since I am blind as a bat without my spectacles. "Yes, it is blin-"

"Beep."

This one is about 12-14 feet off of the ground, and we both know it. Luckily, Ellie is not concerned with the nuisance and sleeps on unscathed. We both get up and Abbie holds the garage door open in her pajamas as I carry in my ladder from the garage.

"Beep."

Weaving through the house, gingerly placing weight on my barometer ankle, I finally, three beeps later, get the ladder up and pull the battery out. On my way down the ladder there is another defiant, "Beep" from the same alarm I just pulled the electronic life source from. I climb the ladder barefoot, again and yank the entire device from the holder on the wall. I am reminded that there is a hardwire into each of these damn little contraptions!

Is it just my late-night/early-morning reasoning, or is it extremely ridiculous that my smoke alarms' batteries are all dying when they all have a direct electrical feed to them? Shouldn't the batteries be there in case there is no electricity coming from the house? Kind of like the battery back-up on a radio alarm clock? What the hell? And because the batteries were all placed in at the same time, they are all going to be dying at the same time, and the nine volt death parade begins pulling through my house at the earliest hours of a wicked little holiday. great. At this point I am just hoping that the rest of them will just hang in there until daylight.

Wide awake from the girls, the ankle, the beeping, the cold garage and the realization of what could still come, I half jokingly tell Abbie that we might as well make a pot of coffee and enjoy each other's company until the day officially begins. But, unlike my body, Abbie's body believes that when it is dark outside, she should be asleep. Easily convinced his time, we both head back and snuggle into bed.

I did fall back into a pseudo-dream-like-state until 3:30 a.m. when Ellie began her quick descending out of peaceful bliss and into horrific hollering for more liquid food to be crammed down her gullet. About that same time another familiar sound entered my ears:

"Beep."

{One sec... the baby is crying right now. It is 4:36 a.m. ...
Trying to type with drinking baby in arms, will speed this up.}

Yep, this time the alarm is in the living room... the really high one begins and it is setting off the first one in the hallway that I replaced the battery earlier, uh, yesterday. I sit and feed the baby in the living room, being jarred every minute or so from the incessant beeping. Abbie, somehow attempts to sleep through this. I can not and will not ever understand that path of reasoning; it just frustrates me to try and sleep through things and there is no way to actually do it. Either way I still had to come and roust her to help me move the ladder out of our room and into the center of the living room for the next surgery. Hell, I traveled throughout the entire house and disconnected every single smoke alarm and their batteries. All five are sitting on our bar in the kitchen and I begin to fold the ladder up. Abbie had taken the baby and was finishing the feeding and like a bad sitcom joke we hear for one last defiant time:

"Beep."

So, I am here now with a child in my arms and a fresh pot of coffee finishing brewing and beginning my Halloween.

Trick or Treat!