When we’re growing up, we obviously want our alone time. However, when we’re crammed into a house with our parents, it’s all we can do to savor those precious moments of privacy. It’s not uncommon for our folks to walk in on us when we’re in the middle of something weird, and that’s exactly what happened to these families.
#1 In the Bathroom
We caught my sons (maybe six and three years old at the time) both sitting on the toilet together, one behind the other, going to the bathroom. Naturally, we asked them what they were up to and they told us it was a double number two. We forbid them from ever doing that again and have since provided them with ample outlets for their creativity that do not involve waste.
#2 Chocolate Ice Cream
This wasn’t my child — thankfully — but a little girl I was babysitting. I once caught her just slowly stirring her bowl of chocolate ice cream into mush. I asked her what she was doing and she replied very seriously, “I’m making a number two for God to put in people’s bottoms.” I didn’t know what to do or say about that.
#3 Live and Learn
I saw my kid, who was four, in the back yard looking for bugs or worms. He grabbed something and put it in his mouth. I asked him about a few minutes later and he said he ate a worm. I laughed and asked why. He said he wanted to know what it tasted like. So, I asked what did it taste like and he said it tasted like mud. The next day, I asked him if he really ate a worm. He replied, "Yeah" in the most defeated and embarrassed way any human could. You live, you learn.
#4 Birthday Cake
When my daughter was little, old ladies would come over and enthusiastically ask her simple questions like "What's your name?" She would always reply in a flat monotone, "Birth-day-Cake.” Then they'd ask another question like, "Oh, well, how old are you?" And she'd say, "Birth-day-Cake.” They would look over at us with great concern. It was so annoying.
#5 A Peace Offering
When my son was three, we noticed the smell of burnt plastic coming from our heater vents. I called one of our friends who worked in heating and cooling and he came over. Our furnace was in our crawl space, so he went down. About 15 minutes later, he asked me to hand him three black garbage bags through one of the vents, so I did so. He then came up with three bags of plastic toys. I had wondered where all my son’s toys were going. I asked my son why he was putting toys down the vents. He said, “Mommy, there are alligators down there and if I don't feed them my toys, they’ll eat my sister."
#6 Gumboots and a Straw Hat
My five-year-old nephew went to feed the chickens yesterday. I told him to get a hat and he came back fully unclothed with gumboots and a straw hat on. Apparently, the last time he went to the chicken house, they pecked at his junk and he wanted to show them that it's not big enough to eat yet. Kids are weird.
#7 Light Redecorating
My youngest daughter was about 18 months old. She had, about a week before, discovered how to climb out of her own crib. Also, about a month before, she had once taken off her own diaper. It wasn’t a repeat event, but a one-time thing. My mother-in-law was visiting us and we were all slow to wake up. Around 7:30, the baby monitor alerted me that my daughter was awake, but happy and content in her crib. I let my wife sleep in and grabbed a quick shower before going to grab her. When I got there, she had put the two pieces (climb out of the crib and take off diaper) together, and used them to "repaint" her room. I will never recover from the trauma of the smell.
#8 For the Cats
woke up to my five-year-old spraying Windex on the window beside my bed, cleaning it thoroughly, then nodding at me and moving on to cleaning the windows in the next room. She told me before bed that it needed to be cleaned so her cat could look out. The bottom of the windows gets smeared because the cats push their faces against it. So, she wanted it clean for them.
#9 Wait Until High School
I caught my twins in first grade measuring each other’s members with a tape measure they got to measure their heads in the first grade for bike helmets. I walked in after their baths and one was on his back with his legs in the air. Of course, my husband then said, “That’s not something you do until high school!”
#10 Don’t Put It In Your Mouth
There are a few. My daughter was drinking strawberry milk and then spitting it back into the cup so she could drink it again. Also, I hosed off a tarp and it was drying on the patio. We went outside and she just stooped down and took a drink out of a puddle on the tarp. Just today, I was in the garage and she came out, instantly grabbed a toothbrush I use to clean car parts and stuck it in her mouth. I don't even know anymore.
#11 A Good Sport
Once, my cousin took her preschooler to our version of the dollar store and let her pick something for everyone in the family for a Christmas present. She bought both my uncle and her grandfather a plunger. He spent most of that Christmas with it stuck to his bald head, so it’s awesome that he’s a good sport.
#12 Hatching the Eggs
My mom caught me bringing eggs from the kitchen into my room and sitting on them in a blanket nest, hoping they'd hatch. What she didn't catch was that I had been doing this for a while and would put the eggs back into the fridge when they wouldn't hatch after a few days. I don’t think she ever found out either.
#13 His Special Hat
My brother decided he wanted a number one hat, which is literally what it sounds like, a hat he could urinate in during the night. While it was already a stupid idea (since he didn’t empty it), he chose a plastic hat with a hole in it. It was a toy construction hat with two holes in the top, meaning his makeshift toilet had two holes for the stuff to leak from. He also kept it in his toy box.
#14 A Proud Dad
My three-year-old’s first joke was, “Hey, look at my armpit.” She would then point at her armpit and just burst out laughing. Since she was so young at the time, she would say the same thing over and over. A lot of people warn you about first steps and first words but a first joke? What can I say? I am a proud dad.
#15 Scared at Night
When my son was three, he had night-terrors for a few months. At least that's what I suspected. I was really concerned. The most unsettling thing he did wasn't waking up sobbing, though. Sometimes he would wake up around midnight, walk to where I was, stare at me and then walk back to bed. He wouldn't respond to me and just sat on his bed while staring at the ground. If I tried to comfort him, he would get angry.
The next morning, he'd be his normal self. At that time, he would often ask if ghosts were real. We never exposed him to anything with that sort of content. I'd try to reassure him that they were just imaginary. But he would insist that they were real. Sometimes at night he would call me to his room and say someone was there.
I was freaking out a little. Not just by the idea that my child was seeing strange things, but that he might be suffering from psychological issues. My wife insisted that this wasn't something to be concerned about. She's a psychologist and I respected her opinion, but I just couldn't stop worrying. I felt like I needed to help my kid. Well, it became less frequent and stopped altogether for the most part. He still asks about and insists that ghosts are real from time to time. But he isn't scared at night anymore.
#16 Packing Peas
The first thing that comes to mind is when I caught my daughter packing peas from our garden up her nose. This required a trip to the local hospital emergency room, where the doctor (a dad of several young children himself) thought it was hilariously funny. Soon, my wife and I were laughing about the whole thing as well.
#17 Thanks, Son
When my son was about four, he was playing in his playroom. I was on the couch and heard some sounds behind me (it was just us). So, I turned and saw my son looking up at the light fixtures and whispering. I asked what he was doing and his response was, “I'm asking all the lightbulbs in the house to not fall and hurt you.” Thanks, son! He's truly got my back.
#18 An Emotional Bond
I once found my kid talking to the hole in the sink when he was two years old. Turns out, that's where he said God lives. Carry on, you weirdo. Additionally, my ex’s eldest hoarded cardboard tubes. If asked, they were simply for later. The youngest adopted and formed a strong emotional bond with garlic for about a week.
#19 All My Hard Work
I was the child. I was in my backyard and noticed there were a lot of slugs around since it had been raining. I was concerned that they had nowhere to go and would be stuck outside where they would drown in the rain. So, I went to the garage, got a bin and went around collecting every single slug I could find.
Then I got the idea to make it into a miniature city. I put in water, moss sticks, etc. and it became a project of mine that I maintained for weeks. One day, my mom walked outside for whatever reason and found me holding a bin that was just full of slugs. She made me put them back and hose the bin down. I was upset I lost all my hard work.
#20 Love of Worms
I kept finding dead worms in kid’s pockets while doing laundry. Then I noticed that while I had him help me in the garden, he would pick the worms up, kiss them and put them in his pocket. He told me he did that because he loved them. I convinced them that the worms were happier in the ground and he started putting them back on the ground after kissing them.
#21 Many Other Things
Not my child, but I’ve caught my sister doing multiple strange things as a child. The two most notable were I once caught her playing with a bag with yellowish liquid inside when she was 10. She had pulled this bag from the side of her backpack. I asked her what it was and she said it was her own number one. She kept it in there for days and every once in a while, she’d pull it out to play with. I was horrified.
Another notable memory I have of her is when she was eight years old and she cut off her doll’s hair. She then, for some reason, dismembered it and gave it a funeral, which she made all of us attend. She went to dig it up several days later, but it wasn’t there. She’s done many other things but those were the two weirdest.
#22 What’d She Say?
I threw up in the hallway once when I was a kid because I couldn't make it to the bathroom. I told my parents in the middle of the night and then went back to bed. I was four at the time. I heard my dad say, "Did she say she threw up last night?" About a second later, I heard him fall. He then went, "Yep! I just fell in it.”
#23 New Kind of Dish
My oldest son was about three or so and was using one of those play kitchens. He had a little pot on the stove eye and, since I wanted to be an engaged mother, I asked him what he was doing. "I'm cooking baby Jesus!" He had indeed taken the baby Jesus figure out of one of my mother-in-law's Nativity scenes and had put him in the pot to cook.
#24 Extended Fingers
When I was in high school, I had a bathroom in my room. It’s very important to specify that it wasn't my bathroom, you just needed to go through my room to use it. That said, one day my youngest brother (probably around six at the time) was going number two. Being young, he had no shame so the door was wide open. I walked into my room to see he had taken all of the cardboard tampon applicators out of the trashcan and built extended fingers with them. I could not stop laughing as I told him to take them off.
#25 It’s Starting
When my son was first learning to talk, my mom kept saying, "Just wait until he learns to say no!" Like, really building up the anticipation. Well, I opened my eyes one morning to my beloved child, three inches from my face and staring at me. As soon as he saw I was awake, he loudly and dramatically whispered, "No.” I still feel like he was letting me know that the whole phase had started.
#26 Act of Revenge
I'm not a parent but my niece was very upset that her older sister wouldn't turn the TV over when I was babysitting once. After about 10 minutes, she pretended to be interested in the washing machine that was on at the time. She then sat in front of it and watched it like a TV…. for an hour and 20 minutes. Her older sister watched the rest of her film but obviously wasn't enjoying it. She was outraged that her little sister was having a great time watching wet clothes spin around. It was the most creative act of revenge I ever saw.
#27 Maybe Someone Dropped It
We had a cordless landline back in the day. Once, I picked it up from the receiver and there was nothing. I asked my wife if she had tried to use it and she said no. We were talking about it and my eight-year-old son chimed in. "Maybe someone dropped it in water.” My wife and I looked at each other and kind of smiled. We asked him if he knew anything about it and he said he had dropped in the toilet. He swore it was an accident. We laughed and said it was okay because accidents happen. I don't think we found out what he was really doing with it in the bathroom.
#28 Dude, the Bathroom
My son used to sleepwalk. One night we were watching a movie and he fell asleep. I woke him up to go brush his teeth, go to the bathroom, and then bed. Well, I didn't know he was asleep still. So when I asked him if he went to the bathroom, he said, “No, but I'll go now.” He walked to his room and I said, “Dude, the bathroom.” He walked over to the linen closet and went right in the corner. I said, “Dude! Wrong spot,” while trying to contain my laughter. The poor guy woke up mid-stream wondering what was going on. He then turned to look at me while still going and then cried when he realized what he was doing.
#29 Not Required
My son is only five, so I’m sure there’s going to be more weirdness to come. But when he was three and newly potty-trained, we were at the pool in the universal change room, getting his swim trunks on. He then told me he needed to go number one. I pulled up his trunks and opened the stall door when I saw him pull open the waistband of his trunks, flip his junk up over the waistband and then let it snap closed. I said, “Dude, you don’t need to take your stuff out now. Wait until you’re at the toilet.” I get he was trying the be efficient, but public nudity was not required.
#30 Little Yarn Ball
When my son was about five, he was playing in the living room while I was making lunch. Suddenly, I heard him making some weird retching noises, so I ran over to see what was happening. He was on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth, and one of the cat's toys — a little yarn ball — popped out of his mouth. I thought he'd been choking on it. No. He'd been imitating Puss 'N Boots coughing up a hairball from his favorite Shrek movie.
#31 Blue Water
While I'm sure it's not the weirdest, one of my fondest memories is my mom coming into the living room with a small container of water with a glob of blue, sparkly toothpaste. She asked, "Who was trying to turn the water blue with toothpaste?" It was me. To this day, I'm still impressed she immediately figured out what I was trying to do.
#32 Watch Your Mouth
My three-year-old son was practicing his cursing. He was using his dad’s go-to as he dropped puzzle pieces from the bed to the floor. He’d drop one, curse, then drop another one, change the tone a little, drop another wooden piece, and so on. I walked away. It felt sadistic to discipline while laughing uncontrollably. Later, I told my husband we had to really watch our mouths.
#33 Disney Magic
Last year, one of my preschoolers said her ears were hurting and itchy. She was a little dramatic so we figured allergies or an ear infection and called the mom to let her know. She didn't have a fever, so her mom said she would handle it when she picked her up. During naptime, the little girl was laying on her cot and had little gritty white pieces around her head.
I got a flashlight and shone it in her ear. It was full of stuff that looked like plaster. I asked her, "Honey, what’s in your ear?" Her answer? "Disney Magic." The week before her family had stayed in Disneyland and at the hotel, I guess she took plaster off the walls and stuck it in her ears. When she got to the doctor’s, he said her ears were packed with stuff on both sides. They had to knock her out to get everything out, but shes 100% okay!
#34 An Old Friend
My uncle used to have birds as pets. Out of the blue and for a couple of weeks, the birds would start going nuts in the wee hours of the morning. My uncle would get up and go see what was going on. Sometimes he would find his daughter awake and out in the living room or kitchen, so he figured they were reacting oddly to her being up in the middle of the night.
She was around six at the time. One night, he went out there and found her in the kitchen at 3:00 a.m., talking to someone. She was having a legit conversation. My uncle asked who she was talking to, she gave a name, and my uncle said he about passed out. The name she gave was a friend of my grandmother who lived in that house for a short time and had passed away about a decade before his daughter was born. True story.
#35 Melt In Your Nose
When my little brother was three, he stuck an M&M up his nose. The doctors said to just let it melt. The babysitter was quite concerned when red and then brown started dripping out of his nose. For a while, our family joked that "M&Ms melt in your nose, not in your hand." (The M&M slogan at the time was they "melt in your mouth, not in your hand.”)
#36 Overflowing Room
When I was a kid, I made this super cool terrarium thing with all kinds of stuff and brought it into my room. I even collected several praying mantis eggs during the fall to let hatch in the spring. Turns out, they don't hatch based on the date. They hatch based on temperature and I ended up with hundreds of baby praying mantises in my bedroom. My mom was not pleased.
#37 Drawings Everywhere
When she was nine, we discovered that my daughter was drawing men’s members on everything she owned. Books, notebooks, her desk, bed, walls in her room. Everywhere. They were small drawings, which is why it had escaped our notice as long as it did. But there were hundreds, perhaps thousands. She could never articulate why she did it, but once confronted about it, we never found another drawing again.
#38 Floating Coffins
My mother was horrified at the many drawings of coffins floating down rivers I made for her in preschool. She literally cried at the thought a child could do something so morbid. I only drew them because my mom and I watched a magic show on TV a few weeks prior that was so cool to me at the time. The magician locked himself in a coffin, went over a waterfall and came out at the end perfectly unharmed! I didn’t get why she was so upset at something so amazing! I’m 22 now and she still tells this story to her friends.
#39 Who Did This?
My 18-month-old will make a huge mess, like drop a box of Legos, in front of us, run away and walk in with her mouth agape and arms in the air. She’ll then ask, “Who did this?!” She once picked up my cell phone and babbled like she was on a call after making her mess. She had no clue who did it because she had been on the phone the whole time.
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#40 Stranger Danger
Once, when my daughter was about four, I took her with me when I got my haircut. She was sitting on a chair about 10 feet away. I heard a lady say to her, “My, you are a pretty little girl. What’s your name?” My daughter then responded, “Stop talking to me.” I asked her as soon as we were alone why she said that to that nice lady. My daughter said, “Dad, you told me not to talk to strangers.”
#41 Squiggle Art
Half an hour before a realtor was coming to do a showing of my house I was trying to sell, my four-year-old proudly came around the corner. He was dragging a black marker along the wall. I went around and found a long line all down the hall, around a corner, into his bedroom, and found the beginning squiggle-art behind the door. I had just enough time to get the can of matching paint in the garage and run a paintbrush over it all. I then popped us into the car to get out in time before they came.
#42 Horrified Look
I was six, my little sister was three and our brother was about one. They would always take off their diapers and run around because they thought it was funny. Well, no one was watching us briefly and they found our mom’s camera. They started taking pictures of each other innocently, not realizing taking those kinds of pictures was inappropriate. I was weirded out so I went and got mom. She had this horrified look on her face. It was much later that I realized how much trouble she could’ve gotten into if I hadn’t told her about it and later someone saw pics of them on her camera.
#43 Nice to Meet You
My daughter was almost two and she was an early talker, so she could form sentences. Do you know how most toddlers either are really shy or giggly when they meet someone new? No. Not my daughter. We went to the store once and I ran into someone I knew. It was the first time she had met my daughter. So I said, “This is my daughter,” and without missing a beat, my daughter stuck out her hand for the lady to shake. She then said, “It’s nice to meet you.” I found out later that my brother had been teaching her how to be a “gentleman.”
#44 Whiff of Wintergreen
I was in the kitchen, making dinner when I caught a whiff of wintergreen out of nowhere. I looked over to the baby gate and saw my two-year-old, crouched like Smeagol, chowing down on a tin of Altoids I had left on the side table next to my seat. She looked up at me with the sweetest smile ever and went, "Mmmmm! Yummy!" I almost jumped over the gate to get them away. She's a cutie, but she's a gremlin.
#45 Checking Herself Out
I caught my three-year-old standing in front of our hallway mirror, watching herself stuff pieces of toilet paper between her cheeks and checking to see if there was any number two on them. She just stood there and watched herself wipe. It went on for a couple of minutes because she was almost a quarter of the way done with a roll of toilet paper. When I stopped her, she tried to give me a high five. I left her hanging.
#46 His Best Friend
I was napping on the couch when I heard my four-year-old say, “You are so cute even though you’re gone.” I jolted straight up and saw him holding and petting a lifeless mouse. I was so groggy and disgusted that I couldn’t think straight. I ran around behind him, held his upper arms and shuffled him through the house to the back door. I then used his arms to launch this mouse onto the back patio. I washed his hands and came to a bit. He started to cry like I just got rid of his best friend. He kept going back to the door to look longingly at his best friend all day.
#47 Cold and Good
My husband just cut the grass in the garden and the unplugged expansion lead was on the kitchen floor (it was a reel with spaces for multiple plugs). My toddler came along and started squatting over it to try and poke his junk in one of the holes. He used to trail it over the metal carpet fixer too. He said it felt cold and good. Lovely.
#48 Makeshift Mud
My two-year-old son was outside driving his Matchbox cars the mud, which was weird because it hadn't rained and we lived in a desert. I watched in horror as he reached into his diaper and pulled out more “mud” for his cars. I freaked out, ran him inside and into a bath. The cars were thrown away and replaced. It still grosses me out to think about.
#49 YouTube Videos
When my son was six, I’d let him watch kids’ YouTube. Somehow while cooking dinner, he got quiet. I went check on him and found him under the kitchen table, watching “Black Girls Twerk” on YouTube. I asked him if he understood what they were doing and immediately threw his iPad on the floor. He said he was looking for something to watch. Well, I was crying inside — the look on his face was epic. I didn’t make a big deal. I wanted him to ask me questions but he didn’t.
#50 You Wouldn’t Understand
My youngest was sitting on the toilet, chewing on a toilet paper roll the other day. Like a new roll, there were chew marks all around it. I asked her what she was doing and she hissed at me and said I wasn’t smart enough to understand. Later, she went and drew eyes and a tail on it and named it Simon. It lives on her windowsill now so it can talk to its bird friends.
