a butcher, a baker, a human smoke detector?

We had quite the scare this morning!

Picture this: It's 5:30 in the morning and all of a sudden Mike jumps out of bed and runs to the bassinet. My first thought is that 1) He thought Rosie was in the bed with us and couldn't find her (yes, I've had that mild freak out before) or, even worse, 2) His super human hearing could tell she stopped breathing or was choking. Turns out, it was his super human smelling. Still mostly asleep but on the verge of freaking out, what I hear Mike saying is "Turn on the light!" but as he's doing this, he's grabbing Rosie and running out the door, where there is even less light. I'm confused and follow him. Finally (meaning, 3 seconds later) I finally understand one very scary word: "Smoke!"

And smoke there was.


(like the dramatic use of line spacing?!)

So, rewind for a second. In our room we've gone through variations of night lights and finally landed on an option that would allow the minimum of light that would allow us to sleep but let out enough light for midnight feedings and diaper changes to avoid turning on lights and stimulating Rosie. Our set-up was this: at the end of our bed was clipped a run-of-the-mill desk lamp.

Now fast forward. "Smoke!" I run to the end of the bed and find our favorite blanket given to us by dear friends (sorry J and B!) is smothering the light and fuming. UH OH. I grab the blanket which is smoldering bright red and toss it onto the ground. I grab the nearest object, a large pillow (!), and start beating the embers out. I don't know if it was actually doing anything, but embers were still there so I grab the blanket and run to the tub to douse it in water. I run back and open all the windows, then grab said run-of-the-mill desk lamp and throw that in the shower as well. Meanwhile, I hear Mike calling out "Take the baby! I'll take care of it." But no need, it really ended up just being a lot of smoke. And icky smoke, at that. Fan is on, windows and doors opened throughout the house, baby safe in Daddy's arms.

I wish we could have captured Rosie in this moment. She was at her cutest, sitting up in Mike's arms with her fist raised up and a let-me-at-'em look on her face. Things now calm, we set up camp on the living room rug. Rosie is bundled from head to toe, and then some. Mike and I use folded laundry that I had strategically left out from the day before as pillows (ha).

And now, Mike's at work and Rosie and I are on the couch resting. Today will involve airing out the house and, yes, lots and lots of laundry. Hope the mattress does wreak of smoke...any tips on getting the smell out if it does?

All I can say is yay for Super Dad, who came to the rescue. Any longer and we could have had a much more serious problem on our hands!

[Here is what's leftover of our lamp. The whatIthoughtwas metal lampshade melted onto the bulb. FrEAKY!]