Faerie Alert

The squeaker believes fervently in faeries. He searches the yard for faerie huts. He looks for faeries at home. When something peculiar happens, he blames the faeries. He doesn't do this to cover up his own naughty behavior; for example, if he does something he shouldn't and we discover the evidence, he doesn't claim that it was "faeries." He isn't pretending that there are faeries; he really, truly believes that there are. He also believes the faeries favor him because he believes in them, so when good but mysterious things happen to him, he sees evidence of faeries.

His papa encourages a belief in faeries and magic and all things mystical. It's not so much that his papa actually believes in these things, but he loves the possibility that these things could exist, and he loves celebrating that possibility. I enjoy playing the rational foil to this. The squeaker knows that I don't believe in gods, faeries, dragons, vampires, or witches. He knows I am a materialist. He thinks I'm wrong and tells me so, but he also longs to prove me wrong with the only thing that would accomplish that: real evidence.

So this past weekend, the squeaker and the pipsqueak were playing with their toy airport and planes in the playroom on the first floor while I put clothes away upstairs and my husband organized his closet. Suddenly, the squeaker came running upstairs, pink-cheeked and short of breath with excitement.

"We heard a faerie, we heard a faerie!" he exclaimed.

Without a trace of skepticism, my husband enthusiastically asked, "Where??"

"Downstairs!" replied the squeaker. "Near the playroom." He was so excited he could barely talk. Then:

"It said, 'Alert, Low Battery!'"

I had to cover my mouth to avoid laughing too loudly.

"So we pushed all the buttons on the airport stuff, and none of the toys said that! None of them even sounded like that! It was a faerie!"

My husband very quietly changed the battery in the smoke detector in the hall later that evening, with the boys none the wiser!