fire chief Nolan

At one of either mine or Nolan’s doctor appointments recently, I filled out a questionnaire on safety in our house, and one question asked if we had a carbon monoxide detector. I answered “no”. A week or so later, I was awake in bed, my mind racing wildly of all of the potential dangers of the house. I asked Steve the next morning if we could buy a carbon monoxide detector. And I added, “By the way, have you checked the smoke detectors since we moved in?”

Well, he found 4 smoke detectors in the house: one in the basement, one on main floor, one on 2nd floor, and one near the attic. He tested all of them, and only the one in the basement chirped. Two of them did not even have batteries. Yikes! We made a trip to Lowe’s that morning and bought 10 smoke detectors and 1 carbon monoxide detector.

Ironically, that afternoon, my mom had been subbing at the elementary school, and she dropped off an extra bag of fire safety goodies for Nolan—a plastic fireman’s hat, coloring book, eraser, pencil, bracelet, etc. My favorite was a magnet that had a list of all the months of the year as a reminder to check smoke detector batteries monthly. I suppose we needed that? :)

Ironically again, later that night, they had the town fire trucks lined up downtown for kids to see up-close and go for rides. The firemen gave Nolan another plastic hat, stickers, and a “danger” whistle, which he especially liked.

Between all the smoke detectors and the little boy with the plastic whistle, I think we now have the safest house on the block :)