My friend Peady is truly special. She’s a one-of-a-kind woman with a giant heart and a sense of humour that has me in stitches regularly. She is the best cheerleader. The ultimate finder of silver linings. She is sunshine. I’m so proud to call her a friend, and so thankful she has shared this oh-so-very-Peady story as a submission to the #BlogSmallJoys series. Enjoy!

I am the kind of person who is always thinking.

Or, you know, overthinking. Who’s to say? It’s a mystery, really.

I am married to a thinker, too.

We think a lot.

So, it stands to reason that we have children who are – you guessed it – thinkers!

Being a thinker can be fabulous. It allows a person to be imaginative, very thoughtful – generally speaking – and to puzzle over interesting things for long periods of time.

The downside of being a person who is always thinking is that sometimes the thoughts we have can be exhausting, nerve wracking, and even downright scary if you happen to be overly imaginative in a particular situation. Sometimes these thoughts can cause anxiety, worry, or – in rare instances – fear.

We have all been down those roads at various times in our lives and as an adult it is very freeing to come to a place where thinking is a pleasure and not a pain.

Teaching children the same, bit by bit, is important.

Coping, as we all know, is a learned skill.

Learning takes time.

So, where am I going with this anyway?

Well, I’m going somewhere good, I promise, but you just have to bear with me for a minute.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a creepy beeping in our space.

It was discovered by Thing 2 when she woke from a nightmare at 3:06 a.m. (Yes she checked the time. Of course she did! This is exactly what a thinker would do.) She was too scared to move. She didn’t even come to our room – her usual habit after waking from a frightful dream – to tell us about her nightmare, for fear the creepy beeping would become something worse. You see, we live in an apartment and we often have fire alarms go off.

Sometimes they are false alarms. Sometimes they are real. They are terrifying ALL THE TIMES!

So she covered her head with her duvet and squeezed BB as tight as she could and eventually fell back to sleep.

In the morning, we woke up and went about our usual morning routine. You know? The usual oh-my-sweet-elixir-of-the-gods-where-is-my-coffee-and-why-is-it-not-automatically-downloaded-somehow-into-our-brains-by-now-come-on-science! stupor that most parents have early on a school day.

Then one by one, we all heard the sound. Intermittent. Somewhat random, yet still rhythmic, and very, very annoying. It was loud enough that we assumed it was a smoke detector “chirping” in the hallway outside our door. Yes. That makes sense. Let me just take a peek. So I opened the door to the hallway and listened and just as I did a distant smoke detector really did start beeping (likely a neighbour making toast!) and poor Thing 2’s eyes were filled with fear.

We reassured her that it was fine and the beeping would stop in a minute just like it usually does. It did. She was relieved and spilled the beans about her nightmare and the creepy beeping she had heard (which we were now all convinced was a chirping smoke detector in need of a battery change) that made her nervous in the wee hours of the night.

Then we heard it again. It didn’t really seem like it was in the hallway anymore. It was closer, but where? What the heck was making that sound?!?

It was decided that I had better just call the building manager after everyone was at work and school and let her deal with the “noise problem”.

We had breakfast and got the Things out the door to catch the school bus. Then I drove Daddy-O to work for the day.

I returned home and the first thing I heard when I walked through the door was the chirp.

GAH!

I thought I would have a second cup of coffee in peace – if not quiet – and then I’d call the super to explain the problem. Logical.

I was sipping and listening and tweeting and thinking.

WHAT was that sound?!?

I finished my coffee and hopped up to go to the kitchen sink and rinse my mug. It was the weirdest thing, but the chirping seemed louder near the sink.

WHAT IS IT?!?

Whoa! My brain was getting all HULK SMASHY over the fact that I couldn’t answer this extremely simple question.

So, I channelled all of my Peady Powers and stared straight ahead and listened as hard as I could in hopes that the noise would magically reveal itself.

That’s when I saw it.

No. Could it be? Nah. It couldn’t possibly be… could it?

There on the counter above the sink was Thing 1’s “The Original Drinking Bird” (The Classic Scientific Wonder) and lo and behold he seemed to be drinking in remarkably accurate cadence with the creepy beeping.

I stared with wonder. I stared in bewilderment. I stared until it happened again …

and then I yelled, “I KNEW I’D FIGURE IT OUT!”, in a rather surprising “In your face!” tone and then I laughed and laughed.

I was all alone in my space laughing hysterically, positively giddy with joy at the knowledge of what that damn sound was.

Pure joy.

My days are filled with joys untold. There are endless chances in the course of a week to appreciate the little things that make me smile.

On this day, there was none greater than my own ability to figure things out.

I need the reminder. As silly as it all ended up being.

I needed that reminder.