Alarming

Probably the most important thing I have learned in my 8 months as a mother is to never wake my sleeping baby. It took a fire in my high-rise apartment building to get me to do that - and I even hesitated for a few minutes.

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to a very loud ringing. It took me and Ryan a while to realize it was the fire alarm. We didn't smell smoke but looked out the window and saw others filing out of the building. I sat for a while thinking about how Ethan would likely not go back to bed after we came back in the building. And then I slapped myself, realizing I could be chancing our lives in exchange for a few more hours of sleep.

So we walked up a flight of stairs and smelled smoke (exactly the same smell as when I burnt some peach cobbler a few weeks ago). We walked outside to about five firetrucks and lots of firefighters - but no black clouds of smoke billowing out of windows. It took about 10 minutes before the firefighters stepped back outside and told us to go back to sleep.

Of course, it just wasn't that easy for me and Ethan.