Spooky sounds from the monitor

I think all parents have had this happen. It's the middle of the night, and from some dark corner of the house, normally from a pile of toys and "stuff," arises the sounds of a cheery toy voice. "Hi, I'm Leap!"

A few nights ago, that noise was "She'll be comin' round the mountain" followed by "How much is that doggie in the window?" The tunes were playing in eerie banjo, wafting out of the monitor a few feet from bed. It was 2:30 a.m. the night after Noah's party.

What the heck?

I tried to wake up David to go investigate because I am, without a doubt, a chicken. He was in a deep sleep and highly unresponsive, so I sighed and swung my legs over the bed.

I have learned that despite how scared I am of strange noises and the dark in general, when my little man is concerned I will push that all to the side to make sure he is safe and sound.

So I crept out into the hallway and softly pushed open the door to Noah's room. His Learning Pad table was flashing wildly, kid tune after another spewing out of its speakers, banjos twanging away.

Yikes! It looked like an ambulance had parked itself in Noah's room the way the toy was flashing and carrying on.

Of course Noah started to rouse from all the light and noise, so I began fumbling for the off switch on the table. I guessed wrong the first time, changing the sounds from "English" banjo to "Spanish" guitar. Whoops.

Take 2 and I find the right switch... quieter, then OFF! With the lights extinguished and the sound squashed, I searched every corner of his room with my eyes, kind of frozen to the spot for a moment. Nothing.

So I walked over to Noah's crib and gave him a good look over. All is well.

Possessed toy in check, I went back to bed.

It took me a while to fall asleep. I kept thinking about that toy.

The weird thing about it going off in the middle of the night is this:

- I had just put fresh batteries in it a few days prior. Normally when toys start sounding off on their own, the batteries are in their final throws of life.

- To make the banjo songs play, you normally have to pull the lever on the banjo on the table's surface. And since no one was at the table when I came in Noah's room, I kept wondering who was pulling the lever.

All in all, it's easy to explain away a mystery toy noise to a short circuit, but given the recent events at my house, it all seemed a little creepy and a little "Chucky" ish.

What about you? Do you haven a similar story?