Fear Detector

So out of the blue, the other night, as we're tucking Little Brother in bed, he points up to the ceiling and asked, "What's that?"

"That's a smoke detector."

"Oh. What's that for?"

"If there's a fire, it makes a loud noise and tells us to get out of the house."

"It makes fire? When is the fire coming?"

"Uh oh."

All logic was off at that point. I might has well have been trying to convince him that chocolate is not a vegetable. He was pretty much sold on the idea that the smoke detector was a living, breathing, fire-making fear detector...that turns your skin green (because of the green light).

Apparently, he did not notice the smoke detector in his room for the first 9 months we lived in this house.

And apparently, it makes no difference that there's one in every room in the house.

So, in a full-blown regression, suddenly there have been nightly requests for "Will you sleep in my room?"

And even after escaping his room, there have been the middle of the night screamings awakenings, complete with a crying 3 year-old pleading to crawl into our bed.

Even lifting him up so that he can touch the smoke detector initially wasn't particularly helpful.

However, after about a week now, I'm pleased to report that things are a little less scary.

There are still the requests to stay in his room, but we're quickly able to leave with "Can I go put on my jammies?", or "I need to help Mom-E with laundry for a minute."

And we haven't had any nocturnal visitors for a few nights now.

I just hope there's no occasion any time soon for a smoke detector to go off for real, even if only for a low battery. Otherwise, we may have an extra resident in our bed indefinitely.

Have a good week,
Busy-Dad-E