Spooky Toys 2

It’s one thing when your baby’s toys go off on their own accord in the night and play sweet lullaby’s but older kids’ toys is quite another thing.

I wrote some time ago about toy boxes coming alive at night. It usually happened as I was just drifting off after a night-time feed (the babies – not me) and served as a form of torture to my poor sleep-deprived brain.

The main culprit came in the form of a shape-sorting snail, which played out a happy little tune at the push of a button. When it played repeatedly, I assumed the button had got stuck so I got up and removed it from the toy box.

What do you know, just as I was drifting off again, away it started.

I got back up with the intention of ripping out the batteries, only to discover it didn’t have any. The snail was subsequently thrown down yet another level to the garage with the door slammed and where it could play its gay old tune all night long.

I have no idea what the next culprit was but it put me off the song “Oh Susanna” for life.

A friend and I had swapped stories of our own spooky encounters with kids’ toys.

A tune had started up from her three-month-old’s play gym mat one night. She assumed the cat had walked over it but it went off again. After a while she walked downstairs to investigate but there was no cat in sight. Deciding the cat had gone outside, she went back upstairs and, as she did, the music started playing a third time. The tune was a haunting piece from Mozart and she fled back to bed.

Because we’d both recently lost a close family member, we did wonder if they were messages from beyond.

Or it could be like the Toy Story where all the toys come alive at night time. They just hadn’t factored in an insomniac catching them out.

Then again, I couldn’t help taking this latest incident a little personally. As usual I was just drifting off when I heard: “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…”

I lay still for a while, trying to figure it out. Stumped, I got out of bed and followed the noise, which led me to Master Eight’s room. The sound was coming from his toy box. I lifted a few items and unearthed a Ninja Turtle, none other than Rafael.

“…..ya!” he finally finished what he’d been trying to say.

“This means war,” he declared as I removed him from the toy box and sat him next to Master Eight’s bed to remind myself to tell him in the morning.

But as I turned and left the room, Rafy, as Master Eight affectionately calls him, had the last word: “You’re going down!” he stated.

I couldn’t help it – I shot him a look before shuffling on back to bed but, nonetheless, since our ‘words’ that night, I’ve been watching my back.