Many years ago, a couple in my church was fostering to adopt. One afternoon, they got a call about the placement of a little girl, maybe four or five years old.

When the social worker arrived with the girl, she looked her new foster parents up and down and pointed at the wife.

Girl: “You’re Mommy.”

Then, she pointed at the husband.

Girl: “You’re Daddy.” *Pauses* “Where am I sleepin’?”

All three of them cracked up. Points for efficiency!

I suffer from tinnitus, which is a persistent ringing in the ears. Because of this, I have trouble falling asleep. To combat the problem, I wear wireless headphones to bed that are connected to my computer, where I play “white noise” videos on YouTube. “White noise” sounds like a softer version of television or radio static; people who suffer from my condition listen to it to “drown out” the auditory ringing noise until the brain eventually is trained to tune the noise out.

One day, my wireless headphone set died. I was quite upset, as I knew I was going to have trouble falling asleep. I did manage to fall asleep eventually, but suddenly, at random, I heard music box chimes playing all throughout my dreams, which drove me almost crazy as I had no idea where it was coming from.

I woke up to find that my little seven-year-old sister had taken the little chiming music box that my dad would wind up and play next to her on nights when she would have night terrors, and she had put it next to my head — apparently concerned about me not being able to fall asleep.

I mentioned it to her the following morning and laughed about how I was hearing the chimes in my dreams, and I was looking all over the place in my dreams trying to find where it was coming from.

Days later, I got a new pair of wireless headphones, and this time I had checked in early after a long, exhausting day. I turned on my favorite white noise video on YouTube, put my wireless headphones on, and crashed for the night.

Suddenly, I began dreaming that I was robbing a bank and was in an intense shootout with the police and SWAT! 

Then, the dream changed and I found myself in an anime.

Then, suddenly, my all-time favorite song began playing. I began bobbing my head and started singing along as I woke up… to find my sister at my computer, her body trembling uncontrollably with stifled laughter, redhanded with her fingers on the keyboard. She had several YouTube windows open, and the next one she was aiming for was the classic final boxing match from the movie “Rocky IV”.

Me: “YOU LITTLE MONSTER!”

I leaped out of bed. My sister shrieked and ran off to her room, burying herself under a mountain of blankets while giggling hysterically.

Annoyed, I went back to my room to switch the video back. This kid had quite an interesting night planned for me: the other windows she had open were YouTube search results with phrases like, “You shall not pass,” “car chase,” “Jaws theme,” “[Video Game] final boss,” “Say hello to my little friend,” etc.

But on a positive note, since I had discovered that external sounds could influence my dreams, I went on to create a playlist that would include guided meditations that I would hear in my sleep. It proved to be an EXCELLENT anxiety reliever.

Thanks to that little monster.

My dog Rosie is a mix of black lab and Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever. Both are supposed to be good in the water.

We have an in-ground pool at our house, and this dog absolutely hates it. Whenever we are in it, she freaks out, barking at us and running around the concrete surrounding it. She never gets close enough to the water to risk falling in, though. The only thing that makes her get close to the water is when my young twin nieces (age five) and nephew (less than a year old) are in the pool with us. Then, she will come up to the edge and bark at us. She is a very protective dog, especially of the youngest ones around.

We were in the pool one day, and Rosie was near the edge, very concerned because we had the little ones in the pool. She turned around to go bark at my husband to let him know this was not okay, but she misjudged just how close she was to the edge, and her back legs fell in.

The look on her face of sheer terror was hilarious, only because I know she can swim; she just doesn’t like to. When she realized that no one was going to push her back up onto the side of the pool because we had the small children she was freaking out about in our arms, she resigned herself to swimming five feet over to the stairs to get herself out.

After she got out, she decided that the adults were protecting the small ones well enough and went to lay down in a sunny patch to dry off.

I’m doing my groceries one day, trying to decide which candy I’ll allow myself to buy this week, when I hear the very familiar screeches of a toddler not being allowed to put heaps of candy in his mother’s shopping basket. Mum just calmly keeps telling him no. He drops onto the floor, flailing his arms and legs and screaming like a banshee.

It isn’t too busy, but quite a few people stop and stare disapprovingly. The mother seems completely unfazed. She puts her basket on the floor, out of the way. She then sits cross-legged next to the boy, gently puts a hand on his belly, and starts singing a happy little made-up tune in a beautiful, soft voice.

Mum: “There was a little monkey boy making lots of noise, a little noisy monkey boy, making lots of noise. The people stopped and stared and put their hands over their ears. Oooooh, noisy little monkey boy, what’s gotten into yououou…”

She keeps singing similar words in that cheerful melody, and to my great surprise, the little boy calms down in less than a minute. He takes a deep breath, sits up, and then gives his mother a big hug.

Mum: “Hey, [Boy], there you are! I thought there was a little monkey here for a second.”

Boy: “I am not a monkey.”

Mum: “You’re not? Really? What are you, then?”

Boy: “I am a very, very big boy.”

Mum: “You are? How big are you?”

The boy proudly puts up three little fingers.

Boy: “This much!”

Mum: “Well. That is very big, indeed.”

There’s a short silence.

Boy: “Mummy? Do you think I hurt all the ears?”

Mum: “I think you may have, a little. That was mighty loud, after all. You have a big boy voice!”

The boy stands up and loudly declares, to no one in particular:

Boy: “I AM VERY SORRY FOR ALL THE HURTY EARS. I DIDN’T MEAN TO; I WAS JUST A BIT ANGRY FOR A LITTLE BIT, BUT I AM NOT ANYMORE. SORRY, AND THANK YOU.”

His mum stands up and picks up her basket.

Mum: “Thank you for saying that. I understand why you are upset about not getting all the sweets. We need our money today for potatoes and spinach. Your daddy is looking forward to eating potatoes and spinach tonight, and so am I. We will all choose one bag of sweets on Saturday when Daddy has time to come with us. All right?”

The boy takes his mother’s hand.

Boy: “All right, Mummy.”

Mum: “Is the monkey boy gone now?”

Boy: “He went back up in the trees, Mummy.”

Mum: “All right. You might not need him again today. But you can call him whenever you feel angry again.”

Boy: “Maybe next time I can sing a song to calm him down.”

Mum: “You are big and smart!”

Very original, affectionate, and effective parenting right there! I was honestly a little touched.

This story is part of our Highest-Voted-Inspirational-Stories-Of-2023-(so far!) roundup!

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When you boil eggs, you should take them out of the boiling hot water and run cold water over them when they are done to make them easier to peel. In Dutch, the word for this process also means “to frighten” or “to scare”.

I was boiling eggs at home with my child watching. I asked my child to “scare” the eggs.

My kid took the lid off of the pot, peeked in at the eggs, and went, “Boo!”

After that, I was laughing too hard to explain what I actually meant.