Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Call Me Phoenix

Edit: Post has been updated.

I nearly burned down my house Sunday night. How was your weekend?

Yeah, so, uh, I burned the baby's bottles.

There I was trying to be Wonder Woman, boiling bottles, washing clothes, and getting Sid ready for bed, when I lost track of all what I was doing and started doing a fourth task - installing my webcam so my mother could see her grandkids while she's on vacation in Jamaica (she left Friday morning and two days without seeing her poopy and booby is much too long). Me, hubby, and Shelb were all in my room when I turned on the big flourescent light for better exposure and Sid came in from out of his bed talking about what's that smell. As he said it we were smelling it too. I went to the light to smell it cause sometimes it smells like it's burning, but that time it wasn't the cause and the smell was getting stronger. Hubby jumped up and ran out and I followed. As I got to the landing I could see the kitchen was filled with smoke. I immediate ran to open the front and back doors so hubby wouldn't choke. He, by the way, had grabbed the flaming pot with an oven mitt and put it in the sink which, by the way, had a big aluminum pot in it filled with water. All I saw was one long flame across the width of the kitchen (about three feet) as he moved from the stove to the sink. I ran back upstairs, opened the window on the landing, continued up the stairs, yelled at everyone to get out (K Jr took Sid who had his hands over his ears cause by this time the fire alarm was going off as well as the house alarm), grabbed the baby and cell phones from off my bed, opened another window and ran back down the stairs and out the house. Hubby came out but went back in and took so long to come out I was beginning to get worried. What was his excuse? He was making sure the windows were opened and the fans were on! Come on! I was worried about smoke inhalation and him passing out and he's worried about smoke in the house!! I couldn't pull his big behind down the stairs by myself! He's at least twice my weight and then some. Well, He finally came out and we spoke to the alarm company who said they could send the fire truck out to help clear out the smoke, which we agreed was a great idea. If you've ever smelled burning plastic/silicone, it is one nasty smell. Anyway, the fire truck came. (Aside: When it got to my street the had to blow the horn to get people to move their parked cars which were illegally parked and I was so happy. What if my house really was burning down?? I live at the end of a cul-de-sac and jokers are always parking on both sides of the road leading to the cul-de-sac, barely leaving room for one vehicle to drive through much less and emergency vehicle. Oh yeah, it was about 10 pm. hehe.) So the firemen came and blew smoke out the house but even after they left we still couldn't stay. Hubby and I tooks turns going in and packing stuff (leaving the kids outside) and then we camped out at hubby's mother's house. We put the house alarm back on and left the upstairs windows open for the night to air the place out. Fortunately it's been cool and breezy these past few days. In the end I didn't get to sleep until 2:30 am (figured I may as well stay up to feed Shelb since her feeding schedule got thrown completely off) and then I was up again minutes to 7 am to take Jr to school. It didn't even end there cause when I got back to hubby we drove his mother downtown so she wouldn't have to fight to park. Needless to say when we finally got to our own house about 1 pm I was exhausted, but at least the smell was almost completely gone.

So, you see, the house nearly burned to the ground but my mind was reborn from the almost-ashes, like the Phoenix, and I will never, ever, ever, ever, boil bottles and attempt to install a webcam driver on a computer upstairs at the same time.

There must be a lesson in this. Hmm, I know, if you're using the stove, keep it within your line of vision and don't attempt to be a multi-tasking superheroine.

Btw, everyone was fine, no nausea or dizziness.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

what happened?

Anonymous said...

Lawd have mercy, girl! What did you do?

Aziza said...

ShellyP: I'm so very glad that you and your family are okay and that the house is okay. A similar incident happened to my friend. She got off from work and decided to boil bottles but fell asleep. The bottles' nipples melted to the pot. She was crying saying that she almost burned down her place and almost harmed her baby.

All in all, I have a lot of respect for mothers, because you all have so many things to do.

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad you guys are okay. My dad is famous for putting something on the stove and going upstairs. He burned steak so much that we affectionately referred to it as "Daddy's Rock Meat".

Lāā said...

I'm glad everyone was safe. Good thing your son smelled the smoke.

nikki said...

yeah, the smell of burning plastic and silicone is NASSY.

i'm soooo glad you all made it out safely. i had to chuckle at your superwoman attempt. we've all tried it and more times than not, it just can't be done. hell, you've got a crapload of stuff on your plate as it is.

were the kids scared or did they make an adventure of it? kids are so resilient that way.

Shawn said...

Hahahahaha @ Ben's boiled water crack. Hilarious.

Glad everything's ok.