Two days in a row now, there have been messages over the loudspeaker at the hospital where I now work. Two days in a row, there was a code (emergency) and they announced the wrong location first. That's a little disconcerting. Yesterday, someone coded blue (heart stopped), and they announced it was at one location... then a minute later, "Code correction: Code blue at XYZ."

You could hear everyone around my office half-laughing, and half-hoping to heck that the patient was okay when they finally figured out where he or she was.

Then today, I'm in my office trying to avoid an adjunct faculty member who requires a ridiculous amount of hand-holding, and I hear "Code Red, 7th Floor." And all the doors on the floor slammed shut. Which is not that odd, because if there's a fire alarm anywhere in the building, all of the doors slam shut. What was odd was when, a minute or two later, we heard "Code correction: Code red, SEVENTEENTH floor."

It took another minute for my layperson's brain to convert that into "Hey! There's a fire on this floor!" We cleared out all the students and sought help to move the patients we had, most of whom were in wheelchairs at the time. Luckily, the fire was incredibly small and contained super-fast, so we didn't have to get the fancy lift to get the patients off the floor. Everything was back to normal within 30 minutes.

One of my students said "JT, you're in total Mom mode..." and I guess she was right. All I did was grab my phone, lock my office, and then move about making sure all my ducks were in a row (ideally, down the stairs onto a floor with no fire). It wasn't until later that I got very minorly freaked; thinking how next time something like this happens, maybe I'll let one of the tenured faculty handle moving people -- I've got three kids at home.

Which reminds me. I got really choked up tonight, rocking Benjamin. He fell asleep in my arms -- usually I put him down before that, but he was so cozy -- and I just had a moment of panic. These moments are so fleeting, so sweet. I have so little peace right now. I feel like I'm on an amusement park ride and my seat belt isn't quite holding me down in the seat; I've got a white-knuckle grip on the grimy handle of the thing.

I finally carried the baby off to his crib, and was able to kiss his soft cheek, and whisper "slow down, baby."