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Day 113. in which a suspicious noise is investigated.

When my son, Seth, calls me on the phone, I'm always surprised, particularly by two things:
  1. That a 13-year-old boy would call his Mum just for the heck of it.

  2. That his voice is disconcertingly deep.
This last point unsettles me. When did my little boy get this voice? There's something about the phone, this disembodied voice, claiming to be my Seth, that really gets me.

Growing up happens too quickly but in that same creeping way in which you don't realize it's happening until it's too late and it has already happened by. It doesn't matter if you are the kid who this is happening to or if you are the adult watching this happen to your children. It's strange no matter what your vantage point is.

When did my son's voice get so deep? When did he stop referring to his underwear as "butt covers"? When did he stop really hugging me? Now he tends to give me these begrudging, noncommittal hugs in which I suspect he rather avoid the entire situation altogether...I understand. I gave my dear old Dad hugs very much like this.

I was quite cozily nestled into my bed when I heard a light tapping on my bedroom door. I already knew it was for me so it didn't make sense to ask Dana to answer it, even though I was feeling so lazy that I was tempted. Begrudgingly, I crawled out of my bed, grousing on my way to the door.

It could only be one of two people - Dad or Seth.

I cracked open my door and peeked out with a grimace on my face. Seth was standing there, looking a bit nervous.

"Yes?"

"Mom, um, there's a weird noise in my room. It sounds like someone crying or something. Would you come check it out?" Seth asked.

I smiled but sighed as I walked out of my bedroom. Crossing the hall to Seth's room, I said, "Are you sure it's not just Grandpa snoring?"

"I'm sure," Seth said. "Just listen...it's been doing it for awhile now."

I stood very still in his room waiting for the noise. Seth's room is so quiet that I did not have to wait long before I, too, heard the mysterious noise. But I couldn't quite determine where it was coming from. It sounded like a faraway cry. Starting. Stopping. Starting.

Seth stood near the entrance of his room, looking a bit peaked. I inched closer to the window as the noise seemed to be emanating from either his closet or the back of his bedroom. Seth did not move with me. He stood in his doorway and watched.

I stood still some more. I heard the noise again.

As I moved towards the window, Seth suggested opening it from his safe place in the doorway of his room. I pulled up the venetian blinds covering his window and leaned over a lot of junk on the floor, straining my back a bit, in order to pull up the window.

There was surely a noise out there. A loud, screeching kind of noise. But with the window wide open now, it sounded less like a monster in the closet and more like what it was. Two houses down, a neighbor was working outside in his workshop behind his house. I'm not sure which it was - a power saw or a shop vac? It was a noise alright.

Seth laughed. "OK, so, now I just feel stupid!" he said.

I realize there won't be so many more times like these, where Seth beckons me to his bedroom to hunt down the source of a scary noise. I made fun of him a bit, but I was glad he knocked on my door and glad that he still thought his old mum could save him!