Beware the Smoke Alarm

Remember when you were little and you had an irrational fear of the basement staircase (in my case) or the dark alleyway between the garage and the house (in my mom's) or the glowing eyes of your collection of stuffed animals at night (my brother's)? Or something like that?



Well, Aiden has developed his first irrational fear, and it's driving us nuts! He's decided that he does not like smoke alarms. So I know what you're thinking... that a smoke alarm must have gone off in the kitchen, or in his room, and scared the bejesus out of him. Nope. The thing has never gone off. What's creeping him out are the little red blinking lights on the smoke alarm that tic on for a second every few minutes and let you know the alarm is in working order. He ran into our bedroom about a week ago saying the smoke alarm in his room "reached out at him and blinked." Since then he's noticed that there's a smoke alarm in just about every room of the house, and he won't go into any of those rooms alone anymore. Sometimes he won't even go in with a chaperone, and has to be dragged kicking and screaming. We've tried everything we can think of to convince him that smoke alarms are "friendly" and that they keep us safe, and we've even covered up the red blinking lights with electrical tape. No dice. Though it's getting old pretty fast, we can't help but crack up every time one of us wanders from the kitchen to the dining room and Aiden yells, "Dadoo! Momoo! Be careful of the smoke alarm!"