Attack of the ..... Chickens?

Mom, I'm scaaaaaaaared!!!.......

You're scared, Sophie? Of what?

Of the bokking noises!

The barking noises?

Ummm, no. The BOKKING noises.

Bokking noises? Like, uh..., like a chicken?

Yeah.

You're scared of chicken noises? Where at?

Um...in my bedroom.

Chicken noises in your bedroom? Where do you hear chickens?

Um, out the window.

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This has been the consistent story from Sophie for the past two weeks. She is scared of chicken sounds that she hears outside her bedroom window at night.

Our neighborhood is the very definition of suburbia. I'm quite certain there are no free-range chickens within hearing distance.

I've scoured her room for old forgotten toys that might make barnyard animal noises. Nothing.

I have yet to hear anything that even remotely resembles a chicken in, near, around or otherwise disrupting her bedroom.

She tells me she's scared. But she doesn't act particularly scared. She goes to bed happily, wakes up happily, and seems generally untraumatized by these ghostly chickens that haunt her bedroom.

But she has taken to telling random people about her fear of the chickens, enough so that I feel guilty that I'm still putting her to bed under these seemingly nightmarish conditions. And feel the need to explain myself that the extent of her fear is really her just saying that she's scared, and not that she lies awake screaming in her bed each night as imaginary chickens descend upon her with unspeakable intentions.

I'm already imagining how I'm going to explain this to her therapist in about ten years.