Ever since my middle child Emily was old enough to walk and talk, she’s been a little firecracker! She’s been full of spunk from the second she was born. In fact, when I gave birth to my little hell raiser, she came out kicking and screaming, literally. You could hear her throughout the maternity ward. Emily was sooo demanding from point go that the nurses at the hospital even kicked her out of the nursery area three times during our stay. (No lie)
It came as no surprise that when she was old enough for a big girl bed, my husband and I had our hands full. We rarely slept for fear of what she might get into or do during the night since Emily has never been a sleeper…and childproof doesn’t mean Emily proof.
She was constantly sneaking out of her room and quietly creeping into other rooms throughout the house. She had it made. Emily could simply slip into our room, which had a half bath that led into the kitchen. She could completely bypass the living room when we were in there and explore the rest of the house without anyone being the wiser.
After one particular night, we knew we had to do something to put an end to the madness.
It had been a long night, and since the house was finally quiet, we assumed Emily had actually drifted off. My husband Joe and I decided to seize the opportunity and get some rest. Before he headed to our room, Joe went to the fridge to grab a quick drink.
When he got there, he was surprised to find the refrigerator door flung wide open. “Emily,” he muttered as he started towards our bedroom. As he walked into our room, he was greeted by a half-eaten tomato laying on the edge of our bed…just staring at him.
Apparently, our daughter decided to have a nighttime snack in our room without our knowledge. It was at that moment that we decided it would be best to invest in an alarm for her bedroom door.
I was elated when the door alarm finally arrived in the mail. Emily decided to name it the ee-ah, because that was the noise it made every time it went off. It was annoying and loud, but perfect for our needs. In fact, Emily was so put off by the sound the ee-ah made that, for the first few months, she refused to leave her room at night for fear of setting it off.
It was perfect until she decided to experiment with ways to get around the curse of the ee-ah.
That was when our troubles really began.
Emily’s first thought was: If the ee-ah is gone, I’ll get my freedom back. To solve this problem, she started snatching it and hiding the ee-ah in various places around the house. When she realized we found it every time, she decided it was time to take it up a notch.
Her next course of action was to start pulling the batteries out and taking the ee-ah apart. She managed to finally break it completely, so we had to order a second one. Every night we’d have to put it up and take it down the next morning. This, however, didn’t deter our daughter.
Sure, we still had the advantage of knowing when she was trying to escape, but she’d come to the realization that the ee-ah — and the horrible noise it made — drove us nuts. Emily then, with little horns popping out of her head (under her halo, of course), decided that it would be a great idea to set it off every two minutes when she was upset that she was sent to bed. Every night — and every morning — all we would hear is ee-ah, ee-ah!
It drove us mad!
Then she thought it would be a good time to up the ante. She started coming out of her room, even when the ee-ah made us aware of the fact that she was escaping. She would giggle with glee and proclaim in a sweet voice with big hazel eyes,” I love you, dad! I love you, mom!” as we would scoop her up and take her to her room.
It’s sad to say, but to this day we can’t figure out how to A) get this child to go to sleep, or B) keep her in her room.
All we do know is we’re plagued by the noise of the dreaded ee-ah!
