My House is Haunted

My husband thinks I'm crazy. But he wasn't up at 11:00 last night, with our wild-eyed daughter, who happened to be laughing at the wall.

Laughing. At the WALL.

See, Steve put Brigid to bed last night, mostly against her will. As exhausted as she seemed when we started the bedtime process, that child did not want to go to sleep when it came time to turn out the light. After an entire CD of Disney Princess songs, several books, and some time spent sitting with her while she started to drift off, Steve didn't excape her room until close to 10PM, and even then, we could still hear her kicking the wall next to her crib from time to time, just to let us know that she did not agree with our decision-making process at all and that she was lodging a formal complaint against this whole sleeping thing we were so fond of pushing on her.

We went to bed ourselves shortly after that, since it was already so late. Steve was exhausted (because fighting with your toddler over sleeping arrangements for almost two hours will do that to you...), and fell asleep around 10:30, while I was up reading until closer to 11. So, when Brigid started screaming for us around that time, I was the one who answered the call.

I'm still not entirely sure what was wrong with her. Her stomach didn't hurt. Her throat didn't hurt. She didn't want a kleenex or a glass of water or a missing toy. She didn't want me to pick her up. All she wanted was a hug, which I gladly gave her. And then...

AND THEN!

She was standing at the edge of her crib, closest to the door, when she looked past me with the most bizarre smile I've ever seen her smile. It was a creepy, creepy smile. Then, she pointed at the door.

And all I could think of was that terrible True Blood story arc, where the baby sees the ghost talking/singing to him all of the time, or EVERY SINGLE ONE of those stupid Paranormal Activity trailers, where the kid knows shit's just not right in the house, but the adults don't seem to catch on quite as quickly.

And then I made her turn away from the door, because if there was something there, I didn't want her talking to it in the middle of the night/setting it out to attack her poor, unsuspecting mother.

I'm pretty sure, thinking back on it, that she just thought the shadows her nightlight was casting on the wall were funny. Or maybe she was asking to sleep in our bed. Or maybe she wasn't even smiling, but it just looked like it in the semi-dark room.

Or, maybe our house really is haunted.

Where are the ghostbusters when you need them?