What Was That Sound?

Earlier this afternoon, Emma and I were on the computer when we heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen. It sounded kind of like soup cans clanging together and falling on the floor. We had been grocery shopping earlier and some of the groceries were still in a bag on the floor, so I thought perhaps some cans had rolled off other groceries inside the bag. I wasn't able to determine if that was the case, so we went back to the computer, and a few minutes later we heard the exact same sound again. I said, "What could that sound be?" and then of course Emma (who likes to repeat everything we say) said "What could it be?" and we again went into the kitchen to investigate. We looked through the cupboards to see if anything had fallen inside and even searched the living room to see if anything looked suspicious in there, but found nothing, so we went back into the bedroom. Again, a few minutes later, we heard the same sound. I thought I might be losing my mind, but Emma definitely heard it too, so again, we went to investigate and came up with nothing.

Then, later this evening, I was throwing one of Emma's diapers away into the diaper genie, which we keep on our deck off the kitchen, and I finally found the culprit! There was a whole bunch of broken icicles lying on our deck! Immediately, I thought, "Yay! Our house isn't haunted!" and I proceeded to show Emma my findings. She thought they looked pretty cool, so I picked one up and brought it in for her to hold.

Then I showed her the rest of the icicles hanging off our roof and even reached up to knock a few more down. I don't know if it was the sound itself, or because the icicles looked kind of spooky the way they were hanging down against the night sky, but she immediately became scared and started crying a little. After a little comforting, she wanted to go look at them again. Then she said, "Reach up high" (pause) "Mom touch icicles" (making the hand gestures) "They fall down" (pointing to the floor). Then she would say, "Bye icicles. See you soon." She repeated these phrases and actions for the rest of the night - she was either pretty traumatized or thought the whole ordeal was a great way to end the day. Like I said before, I'm just glad we don't have ghosts.