Oliver has a new bedroom downstairs (more on that later, when I get a chance). Evelyn has been down there for a long time, but it’s new to Ollie. I have kind of been waiting for him to say he’s scared in his new room and he doesn’t like it, but mostly he has just been so excited that I think he hasn’t had time to think about it. Certainly I wanted to have some good nights in the room to really feel comfortable in there, like he really owned the joint.

Sara and I were just finishing up a conversation about how far away the room is, and how we would never hear him if he called for us (“Eh, his sister would hear him and come get us,” I said), when I head the most terrified shrieking I’ve ever heard. With no idea how long it had been going on, I took off at a dead run. I mean, this was the kind of shrieking you do *as you are being pulled into the mouth of a monster*. It was bad enough that I felt like he needed to know I was coming, and I started yelling down the hall, “I’m coming buddy! I’m coming!”

When I got in his room he was blubbering about a noise coming from his closet. It took me a while to calm him down enough to figure out what was going on.

“There was a noise like scrrraaaatch, thump. scrrraaaatch, thump. And I called out, ‘what was that noise?’ but nobody answered. And it was going thump. thump. So I kept saying it louder and louder, but nobody was coming!”

(Side note: his sister apparently slept through all of this…so much for her coming to get us if he needed us at night.)

I said, “I don’t hear any noises.” “Turn off the lights,” he said. “You’ll hear it.”

I laid down in the bed with him, and honest to god there was a scrrraaaatch, thump. from the closet. All of the hairs on the back of my neck went up. I mean, by this point the light was on and the closet was open, so obviously there wasn’t anything in there, but it was a TERRIFYING noise.

You should have seen the look on his face. His eyes were as big as saucers. I mean, he knew what he heard, but I guess noises from the closet are just not something that happens when your daddy is around. His face said, “I dare you to deny you just heard that.” I have to admit, my face *probably* looked like his.

I got up and I looked all around, but I could not figure out what the noise was. I didn’t see anything out the window. It was coming from the ceiling of his closet, but our kitchen is above there, and I knew there wasn’t anybody up there.

It was a little difficult to calm him down when I didn’t know what the heck was going on. My best guess is that someone was getting something out of the outside storage area (and then, naturally, ran away quickly and shut off the light before I went out there to check). Makes total sense.

So, yeah. Unexplained, creepy closet noises in Ollie’s new bedroom. Fantastic. Anybody hear any creepy noises back when that was just the guest bedroom?