Oh sure, kinds can say all kinds of stuff to crack you up. But man, occasionally they can sure pull out straight out of the “Ok, that’s kinda creepy” file.
As we we’re finishing up breakfast this morning, The Littlest Briston looked at me and said “I think Baby Richie is going to come live with us today”. Richie is my nephew, the son of my wife’s sister, who has finally-finally-finally come around to the fact that her live-in boyfriend (Richie’s father) is likely always going to be a dillhole, is no kind of example of how a father should be, and that she needs to leave his ass. She and Richie are moving in with us tonight.
Not a word of this has been spoken while TLB is around – all conversations about this were done well after she went to bed (she loves Richie, but we didn’t want to get her hopes up in case my sister-in-law changed her mind). Fricking bizarre.
If kids were just a little smarter they’d make excellent spies. Their hearing is awesome, they’re small so they don’t creak floorboards, they’re generally healthier than adults so they tend not to wheeze when they’re hiding behind a couch. The smart money says you only thought the little lamb was asleep as she was conducting her reconnaissance mission.
Yeah, I had considered that, but rejected it – she’ll occasionally sneak out of her room, but we’re never unaware. That’s the beauty of video baby monitors. Also, now that I’ve thought about it, most of the discussions were done over the phone while my wife and I were at work and TLB was at day care.
No, I’m sure this was just some random bit of nonsense that she made up, just like the hundred other oddball things she says each day. She just picked a hell of a day to come up with this one.
Seventeen years ago this week (the 26th), my dad had a stroke that left him in a coma from which he never recovered - three days later he stopped breathing, though he was in a vegetative state the whole time.
It was towards the end of a summer during which he and my mom were daycare for the then six year old Bus Kid. Her and grandpa would literally spend 12 hours a day all by themselves, mom worked five minutes away, and home for lunch then after work. Her and Grandpa became best friends.
Mom called that Sunday morning, I raced over, saw the scene with the paramedics and the state he was in. Raced home, and told the Wife to cancel shopping plans, we need to get to the hospital. I walked across the hall to the Kid’s room to say we wouldn’t be going to the mall, that we had to go see Grandpa at the hospital.
Cool as a cucumber: “No we don’t have to hurry Daddy, he’s already gone”
Gulp.
“No, really, he’s just sick and we’ll go keep grandma company”
“Yeah daddy, he came to see me while you were out just now. He said Goodbye and gave me a hug. He had on his funny t-shirt with Garfield on it that I bought him and his tire-shoes (huaraches)”
Very, very cold chill down the spine as I recall seeing the Garfield shirt, and huaraches on the stretcher as they took Dad to the hospital.
I remember a similar story on this board of a parrot doing the same thing. It makes me wonder if there is, or used to be, a high pitched noise preceeding the phone ring that adults simply cannot hear.
My younger sister showed me a cell phone ring that was pitched high enough to be perceptable to most anyone under 25 or so, but couldn’t be heard by anyone older. I could hear it clear as day. My mother and father couldn’t hear a thing.
I had heard something about this (on talk radio, so take it FWIW); a high-pitched sound had been discovered that young folk can hear and older can’t, so some stores were taking to playing the sound as a deterrent to teens loitering around the storefront.
I was maybe nine, obese for my age (and it’s only gotten worse), so Grandmom & Mom (Dad was at work) decide to take me to talk with the Dr. This was about 1971- back when you could just walk in & had little to no wait.
Doc is discussing with me how important it is to eat right & exercize & I pipe up “Is this going to affect my sex life?”
Grandmom & Mom & even I when asked had NO idea where the Hell I came up with THAT from!
And the look on GM & Mom’s faces were priceless!
The Doc was very cool about it & answered that yes, indeed it might.
Bingo – that’s why I asked for clarification. I drove my mom nuts by doing this all the time as a kid…I’d hear a just barely perceptible <dinnnnng> a moment before the phone would ring. I can’t tell you how many times my mom and I had this conversation…
“I’ll get it.”
“Get what?” <BRRRRRRRING!>
“How do you do that?!”
Ivyboy was about 3 and I was watching some schmaltzy romance mini-series set in WWII. He saw some biplanes on the TV and said, “Mommy, I died in an airplane?”
“Oh?” I said, not wanting to freak him out.
“Yes. The men in blue shot me down.”
Then, he was visiting with my SIL and she was dancing with him and started singing some WWII song. The child, who had previously been giggling at her other songs, promptly burst into tears.
Another time, my MIL had had a heart attack and we were making arrangements to travel from SC to Florida to see her. We hadn’t said anything to the kids, just that Grandma was sick. Ivyboy said, “Yes, it’s her heart. But she’ll be okay.” Nearly 17 years later, she’s still with us.
Last September my grandmother died. I was with her when she passed, and I was pretty torn up for days. I had always been very close to Grandma, and over the next few days I would go into my bedroom, lie down and have a good cry, away from foolieboy, then age 4.
Foolieboy came in one time to find me bawling, and asked what was wrong.
Im sad because Papa-mommy died. (When he was younger we called that Grandmother Papa’s Mommy, and the name kind of stuck)
He looked at me square in the eyes, and in an exasperated, I’ve-had-just-about-enough-of this-nonsense voice (mine…and also my Grandmother’s.) he said “Ive already told you, Papa Mommy doesn’t want you to lie in bed crying she wants you to get up and take care of me.”
Of course, he didn’t know my grandmother as a capable (if occasionally gruff) woman. As the woman who I heard tell her sister to “stop lying around crying and look after your kids” when she was widowed.
I got up.
“She also said we should have soup for lunch.”
That one… Im not sure. She made me soup for lunch in January or July, but then again foolieboy is a HUGE fan of the cooked lunch. But he would probably have requested grilled cheese, or KD, so… .?
Anyway I made soup for lunch.
I’m in my late 30s and I can hear our non-electric, corded “backup” phone let out a quiet chirp before the real ringing starts on both cordless and corded phones.
IIRC, this method of deterrence is what inspired younger people to develop the high-pitched cell phone rings. (Someone even linked a page full of the latter here, a while back, and people were rating which ones they could hear.) Useful for classroom use when you’re not supposed to have your cell on, and a vibrate might be heard due to the sound effect/it rattling against something.
I remember I used to be able to hear the TV before it would actually turn on or if the sound was all the way down. It was like a really high pitched tone.
I wonder if TVs still make that noise.
But anyway, as to the OP.
There ain’t nothing creepier than a sleepwalking child. I remember one time I just happen to wake up in the middle of the night. I was startled to see my then 4yo son standing by the bed just staring at his mother with these really creepy wide eyes. He’s not saying anything, just standing there,… and staring. And as if that wasn’t creepy enough, he’s holding this tattered teddy bear in his arms with a missing eye.
When I asked him: “Alex buddy, you alright?” He slowly turns his head, looks at me briefly, then does an about face and proceeds to walk out of the bedroom with out saying a word.