Usually Isabelle will go right down at nap time. But at night she fights it a little. What am I talking about? She fights it A LOT! She tosses and turns and crawls over me and generally is very active. Well lately she’s added a little twist to her routine. When she’s finally ready to sleep she nurses a little, then she’ll pull off, scootch herself perpendicular to me, place her little legs on top of me, and then falls asleep. I wonder if she does that because she knows I get up after she’s asleep. Maybe she’s trying to keep me there. Hmmm…never thought of that before. Makes me feel owned. Is that a weird thing to say?

And I’m still experimenting with my drawing. I started out drawing my regular doodle (as you can tell by my big big head) but decided to try going more realistic again (Isabelle’s little feet and legs). But I couldn’t decide what to do with the eyes so they are blank. Drawing like this takes a lot more time because of my line. Usually my line is so thick I can just throw the color on carelessly, well not really carelessly but easily. But this line is so thin the color has to be spot on.

I am starting to like it. Maybe I’ll tackle more realistic eyes next time…

Last night we had a bit of a scare. Around 8 PM I turned on the heat because it was a little cold and Isabelle was fighting against wearing pants. Well around 1:25 AM I started to smell gas.

So long story short: the heater was turned off, a window opened, me and Isabelle went outside, and the fire department was called. They came and didn’t smell any gas so suggested I call someone to look at the heater today. They asked if we had a carbon monoxide detector. Why yes we do. Is it plugged in? No it isn’t.

The short story actually sounds quite orderly doesn’t it? Well it wasn’t quite that calm really. I’m not good with emergencies. What is it they say? Three types of people. Those who do something, those who run, and those who freeze. I’m the freeze type of person. It takes me a bit to get going.

So here’s what really happened, the long story: When I smelled gas I immediately called Alan and got his voice mail and said “I SMELL GAS!”. Then he called me back and I said “I SMELL GAS!” But he wasn’t home so what could he do?

I turned off the the heater and opened the window. And then wandered around the house not knowing what to do. So I made the decision to go outside but couldn’t sit in the car because it was in the garage. And I was too scared to go into the garage because you know they say don’t turn on lights and the garage has a light that turns on automatically. So I got the baby dressed went outside and was sitting there freaked out waiting for Alan to get home.

Then I called Alan and said ok now we’re outside. But again what could he do? He was on his way home and freaked out and worried. I made him even more worried because when I was getting Isabelle dressed she was fighting it. He called and I didn’t answer the phone because right at the moment I was trying to get her pants on.

So after Alan was yelling “I’m not there!” as he was driving home all worried I thought ok maybe I’ll call the police dispatcher and ask what to do. They connected me to the fire department and they came over. The dogs were still wandering around inside the house and I had to put them into their crate before the firemen could go in. But they didn’t want Isabelle to go back into the house. So I had to hand her off to one of the firemen. I rushed into the house and put the dogs into their crates while Isabelle was crying outside. They didn’t smell anything not surprisingly because it must have been 30 minutes from when I first smelled it. But I didn’t realize so much time had gone by because I froze. Damn me with the freezing. I felt so bad for dragging the firemen out in the middle of the night. And poor Isabelle awake later than usual.

So the question: DO YOU HAVE A CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTOR IN YOUR HOUSE? And also as important: Is it plugged in?

Right now we’re waiting for someone to come check out the heater. I don’t want to think what could have happened if I had been sleeping.

Update: So the heater guy left. He said our heat exchange unit is broken. I think I’m getting that correct. He turned off the gas. He gave me some estimates to replace the air conditioner and the furnace. Why both? Well because they are freaking old. Like 19 years old and 2 years ago the AC broke and a guy came out talking about replacing it…which we never got around to. So the amount is $6700 for a Bryant 165 (doesn’t mean anything to me. just gobliddy gook) and a furnace. So…anyone have any experience replacing their furnace and air conditioning out there?

Oh and our carbon monoxide detector. It plugs into the wall and it has batteries. I can’t remember if it’s unplugged because Isabelle was too interested in it or if it was because the batteries needed to be replaced. Probably the batteries. I think it needed a screwdriver to remove the back plate or something difficult like that and yes excuses excuses. I should have known better.