Whether you’re a parent or have been around parents, you’ll eventually discover this unspoken rule. It might surprise you but babies and toddlers do the most damage with people around. As these stories will show you, all it takes is to turn away for two little seconds.
1. The Seven-Year-Old Frat Boy
I was at my buddy's place and he had kids aged about seven and five. They were both super nice kids and it was an overall nice family. We were sitting in the garden with a drink. I was just starting to feel relaxed when chaos erupted.
The eldest had a foam-covered baseball bat that he'd been hitting foam balls with. Out of nowhere, he calmly walks up behind his dad and takes a full home-run swing at his head. He just clobbers him. This bat is coated in foam but it's still wood beneath it, so it's basically unprompted aggression.
Completely dazed, the dad turns round to defend himself, at which point the five-year-old sees his opportunity and grabs his dad’s drink from the table, and starts chugging it. Not just drinking it, full-on frat boy chugging it out of nowhere.
In the three seconds it took me to recover from the shock and reach across the table to stop him, the kid has gulped about two-thirds of the bottle. Not much for an adult, but a skinful for a kid weighing about one stone.
Within about three seconds, we went from a nice family BBQ to a concussed adult, beaten up by a psychopathic seven-year-old, and a woozy five-year-old. It went real dark real quick.
2. Why Did The Boy Cross The Road?
My mother was standing by the side of the road with me and my brother. She let go of my brother’s hand for just one second while she searched in her handbag for the keys to unlock the car.
My brother raced into the road in front of a car.
I can’t remember if it was my mother or if I grabbed him, but luckily one of us hauled him back so he didn’t actually get hit. My mother was so shaken after that I don’t think she let go of my brother’s hand near roads until he was in his early teens, which went over so well with a boy his age!
She’s been joking ever since that he’s not allowed to cross the road by himself until he’s 30.
3. Water Park Shenanigans
We once took our kids to a water park. We have four children, the eldest was seven and the youngest (triplets) were three. One of us would stay in the kiddie area with two of the triplets and the other parent would take one of the three-year-olds and the seven-year-old on a ride. The plan was working pretty well.
Now, the kiddie area was mostly contained, but there was no gate or anything. At one of the swaps, we blinked for a second, and our adventurous three-year-old was gone. Instant panic. We get security there, the staff is looking for him and I'm running around searching as well.
Anyway, we eventually found him. The three-year-old had ridden a waterslide with my wife earlier and decided "That was fun, I'm gonna do it again". So he had gone back to get in line for the waterslide by himself. They found him about two spaces from the front of the line.
4. Baby Took A Quick Walk
Our firstborn was about 18 months. He was already walking but not too agile. I was downstairs on the computer, and my wife yelled down that she was using the bathroom and for me to watch him. We misunderstood each other so he was alone for about three minutes.
She comes out asking where she is and he is nowhere to be found in the house. We assumed he was just hiding and started a full search only to notice the back patio door is slightly open after a few minutes of hunting. Our concern is growing at this point. Still, we figured he just snuck out back.
A full search of the fenced/gated yard shows nothing. Now my heartbeat was racing. We started running up and down the street. We find him two blocks down. He was heading to the park, which would have required crossing two roads, one of which was a busy one.
Our nice neighbors found him and were walking him home as they'd recognized us from previous walks. Years later, the little neighbor girl would remind us how she "saved his life". Needless to say, child locks went on all the doors in the house after that.
5. Halloween Scare
We moved into our new house on Halloween in 2001. Most of the heavy lifting was done, so the wife decided she’d begin unpacking the important stuff and I would take our eight-year-old daughter out trick or treating. We stepped outside and I realized I left my phone.
Standing on the front porch I tell her..."Don't move, I have to get my phone. I'll be right back. Do NOT move". She moved.
It was a new neighborhood. There were kids and parents everywhere. I'm running up and down the street frantically. After about 15 minutes later I spot a family—a mom and dad and a handful of rugrats...with mine in tow.
They had a good laugh telling me they just turned around and there she was, having appeared out of nowhere. They decided to stay close assuming a parent would eventually come running. They weren’t wrong.
6. Miracle Baby
I had just finished changing my six-month-old son's diaper. He was lying on the couch with a changing cloth underneath. I turned to throw the diaper in the trash right next to the couch, and in the two seconds I didn't have my hands on him, he rolled off the couch—he'd never even rolled over before.
He hit the ottoman, which spun him back the other way, and he smacked his head on the hardwood floor. He cried but calmed down after a few minutes. There was no sign of swelling, no blood, etc. We were worried about a possible concussion, so we kept a close eye on him for the rest of the day.
When it was time for us to go to bed, we decided to stay up and watch a movie instead, and I went in and checked on him partway through the movie while my (now ex) wife went to make some popcorn. I changed his diaper, and he woke up a little. That's when my stomach dropped.
One of his pupils was over-dilated, and the side of his face had started to droop like he was having a stroke. We immediately grabbed our diaper bag, jumped in the car, and drove to the hospital, which fortunately was only ten minutes away.
I walked into the ER carrying my son and told the nurse that I thought he was having a stroke. She checked him and took us to a back room. Within minutes, the room was swarming with medical personnel. A doctor informed us that it looked like our son had cracked his skull internally, and there was swelling in the brain.
They would need to perform open-cranial surgery immediately to relieve the pressure on the brain. The doctor told us that they weren't sure he would survive the surgery, but it was the best option. We were whisked into another room, separated, and asked questions about exactly how the injury had happened.
They wanted to make sure it wasn't due to any ill-treatment because they said that falling off the couch onto the floor shouldn't have had the force to crack an infant's skull. At this point, his mom and I were both sobbing, just trying to figure out what was going on and whether our son was going to be OK.
When they finally finished interviewing us, they brought us into a waiting room. I called my parents to tell them what was happening, and then another doctor came to tell us that the surgery had gone well, but that they'd had to remove around 2/3 of his brain tissue due to the blood saturation damage.
He showed us an X-ray or MRI they had done just before actually beginning cutting that showed what looked like a crescent moon of gray matter clinging to the left edge of the interior of the skull, with the rest of the image filled by blackness, which the doctor told us was blood.
He advised us that even if he survived the rest of the night, our son would likely never learn to walk or talk. When the surgery was done, they brought him to us. He was still groggy from the anesthesia, but other than being (very understandably) fussy, he seemed otherwise like his normal self.
Of course, there was also a large incision wound, stitches, and tubes coming out of his head to drain off the excess fluid. It was around 2 am at this point but I called our religious leader, who I was also good friends with, to tell him about the situation.
He came and prayed with us, and offered a blessing for our son, just that he would make it through the night. He survived the night. He survived the next week, and the next month, and every time the doctors saw him, they said it was a miracle that he was alive.
He had mild seizures for a few months after the operation, and when he first started to crawl, he would sometimes just stop and freeze for a second or two for no apparent reason, but remarkably, the 1/3 of his brain matter that they left grew to fill the rest of his brain cavity.
The blood vessels from the left side of his brain spread and grew all the way across to cover the right side where the original vessels had been destroyed. He learned to talk and walk within the regular timeframes and has had no noticeable residual effects of his injury.
When we took him back to the hospital six months later for his final post-op check-up, every one of the nurses said it was a miracle that he was even alive, much less talking and moving around like a normal one-year-old.
7. All In Sibling Fun
I went to the toilet, leaving the newborn asleep on a blanket on the floor. The blanket was on a large fluffy carpet and my three-year-old was watching tv nearby. When I came back, I couldn't believe my eyes.
I find the baby literally rolled up in the carpet like a body someone needed to hide. The three-year-old was sitting on top, with a cushion under him too. I still don’t know how he did it at all, let alone so quickly. Or how the baby was totally chilled and unharmed.
8. 16 Children To One Adult
When I worked in childcare I lost a child. We didn't have enough workers scheduled, it was just me and one other, for an event. The policies for the place were horrible and for this event, we had to accept any kids that parents wanted to drop off.
So we had about 20 kids, around 12 toddlers, four kids who were too old to be in the nursery, and four infants. Well, we should've been in the same room as we only had two workers, but we knew the toddlers would end up hurting the infants if we did that. So we split up. I had 16 kids, the other worker had all four infants.
One of the toddlers had to use the restroom (attached). He went on his own and afterward, he needed help buttoning his pants again. So I turned my back to the room, fixed his pants, directed him to the sink to wash his hands, and then turned back into the room. I immediately performed a head count and realized I was off by one.
So I counted again. And again. Then I started frantically checking the closet and mentally figured out who I was missing. I was freaking out. I told the other worker and they started freaking out. We didn't know where the kid was. I kept thinking, “I have to call the authorities now and it's going to be a huge deal".
The other worker calls the church's pastor (it was a church event) and they call the child's parents. They had picked up their child. In the 10 seconds I had my back turned, the child's father had walked up to the half door. The child saw him and ran to the door and he just picked them up and walked away.
He didn't sign the sign-out sheet. He didn't see an adult. He didn't do anything but walk up and carry their kid away. We were absolutely livid and now that I'm older I wouldn't work an event like that or I'd turn away kids once we got to the point we couldn't take care of them. I wouldn't be in that situation again.
9. Feeding The Hungry
My toddler grabbed a stick of butter out of the fridge and tossed it into the fish tank. Minutes later all the fish were floating in the fish tank, none of them alive anymore. And that was the last time we owned fish.
10. A Hat Adrift
I was the child in question, two years old at the time. We were at the beach. And about two feet into the sea, there's a shelf where it suddenly gets twice as deep. My parents were distracted by my brother, so they didn't notice me wandering into the surf.
When they next looked up, all they could see was my hat away floating on the water. Panic set in, and my dad sprinted into the sea. Discovered that I was still wearing the hat, and was somehow floating completely vertically with just the hat showing above the water.
11. Reasons Not To Trust Three-Year-Olds
Our two younger kids are 14 months apart. When our daughter was around three and our son was two, my wife went into the garage to grab a frozen pizza out of the deep freezer, and one of the kids, not sure which one, shut the door and locked my wife in the garage.
She was banging on the door and could hear the little boogers in there laughing at her. My wife was not amused, she got a flathead screwdriver from my toolbox and manage to unlock the door. This all took 15 minutes or so, but when she got in the house they were in their room watching cartoons and eating cookies they manage to grab.
They would’ve left her out there all night. It's funny now, 10 years later, but my wife was absolutely scared. We have kept a spare key hidden in the garage ever since.
12. The Wonderful Ability To Entertain Oneself
I'm not the parent in this scenario, but I'll share the story anyway. I had a club meeting in college. Some of the people involved were non-traditional students with a toddler, and they had the kid there at the time. OK, no big deal, he was pretty much entertaining himself.
The parents were trying to pay attention to what was going on, much like the rest of us, when this one guy jumps out of his chair with a yell and grabs the kid. Turns out the kid had been playing with his dad's keys and was headed for the electrical outlet with them.
Freepik,freepik
13. The Negotiation Scene
I was making dinner for my 18-month-old twins when the boy twin starts to fuss. I carefully put the blade I was using about a foot away from the edge of the counter. I intentionally put it away from the edge because my girl twin is NOT to be trusted.
I go change my boy and turn around and my girl is casually holding my large, sharp chopping blade. I had to get it from her like one of those captive negotiators. All so she wouldn’t run away with it.
I couldn’t figure out how she got it so I looked at the video. As soon as my back was turned she was grabbing the cutting board to pull it closer and then immediately skipped over the carrots and peeler to grab it. I was clearly correct in not trusting that feral child.
14. First Aid PSA
I glanced at the salt, and my toddler daughter grabbed a whole new potato off my plate and shoved it in her mouth. She then tried to swallow it and choked.
Those were the longest 15 seconds of my life getting it out of her. Learn first aid people!
15. Yucky!
My sister baked some cookies to share at work, and when her three-year-old daughter saw them on the plate on the counter she asked for one. Instead of explaining she wasn’t allowed to have one, my sister lied and said they were “yucky," implying it was a bad batch.
My sister, confident that her lie was successful, turned her back to finish cleaning up. She heard the plate being removed from the counter and turned around just in time to see all the cookies slide off the plate into the garbage. Her daughter smiled and just said, “yucky”.
16. The Wanderer
Not my kid, but about 20 minutes ago a toddler just kinda…wandered into my apartment. I had the door unlocked so maintenance could come in and out while working on something.
My daughter and I heard the TV go on and sure enough, a little blonde girl with cute pigtails is just plopped down watching cartoons. Her parents were probably insanely scared. We got too attached to return her, but I'm not sure what to name her yet.
Just kidding. Long story short, I called my landlord and neighbor. She’d wandered pretty far but we returned her to her mom.
17. The Excited Tourist
I had taken my four-year-old daughter into a public toilet in France, which was next to a main road. As we left, I let go of her hand for a split second as I looked away to close the door behind us. When I looked back she was running into the main road. She'd seen her Mum on the other side.
From where I stood, my view of the road was obstructed, so I couldn't see if any cars were coming, and she had gone too far for me to catch her. By a complete miracle, she got safely over the road. It still sends shivers down my spine remembering the helpless terror I felt when I saw her in the middle of the road.
18. Chocolate
My 18-month-old son was playing with his toy trains. I turned on my computer to play my new game Diablo. While it was loading, my son came up to me with what looked like chocolate on his hands. I even asked myself, “Where did he get chocolate?” and sniffed it. It wasn’t chocolate.
I turned around to see the most horrible site of poop smeared over everything. It was awful. The floors were the worst. We lived on an old farmhouse and the cracks between floorboards were like a centimeter wide and poop was pressed deep into them.
I had to use a toothpick to scrape it all out. I learned a lesson that day.
19. Defiance At Its Finest
My daughter (five at the time) was very defiant. I was four weeks postpartum, dressed in sweatpants and a nursing tank. No shoes. She wouldn't get out of the car in the kiss-and-drop lane. I hopped out to open her door, not thinking about what would happen next. She locked the doors.
There I was, lactating, blocking the line, ready to either collapse in an emotional sobbing heap or break the windows out of the car. This escalated to the entire parking lot being rerouted before my neighbor showed up with spare keys.
When my daughter saw her with the keys, she hopped out of the other side and yelled, "Have a good day," as she ran into the school.
20. Risky Online Classes
My son is in 1st grade this year, and we've been doing virtual learning. He's also on the spectrum, but he's able to do normal classes so far. I have a desk and his computer set up in his room. While his lesson was going on, he accidentally spilled some water on himself and his desk.
I was just like, "It's ok! Hold on a second! I'm going to get you a towel!" So, I run downstairs to get him a towel. I'm gone for 10 seconds. When I got back upstairs, he’s already taken off his shirt and his pants and was searching his drawer for dry clothes in his underwear...while on camera.
I feel like I did the slow-motion action movie, "Nooooooooo!!!!" when I went to turn the camera off. I'm pretty sure his teacher at least saw him stripping down to his underwear, but she didn't say anything. Lol.
21. “Daddy, What’s This?”
When my daughter was little, probably about three, she went with me to shop for some tools. I turned away to look at something and heard behind me, "Daddy, what's this?"
"Uh, honey, that's an axe. Please give it to me".
She did, and all was well, but I'm glad my wife wasn't there—she would have panicked.
22. A Very Considerate Toddler
I was the kid in this scenario. I was about four years old and wanted a carrot to snack on. Mind you, the carrot absolutely had to be peeled and no other way was acceptable to me. My mom was exhausted and laying down on the couch but didn't mean to doze off but hey, parenting is tiring and she did deserve that nap.
Instead of disturbing her, I decided to attempt to peel the carrot myself and sliced my thumb and freaked out. I remember the blood vividly. She freaked out too but managed to stop the bleeding and doctored me up.
She was probably thinking I learned my lesson because I was presumably a smart kid. She laid back down after that incident. But no...she should have known better. I proceeded to stick a pair of tweezers in the light socket of the kitchen while snacking on my carrot. I shocked myself good and blew the power out.
23. Just Kids Being Kids
My wife and I took our then four and six-year-olds to a live concert at the park. There was a big wooden play structure which attracted the kids more than the music. So we left our blankets and chairs and went to go helicopter them in the play area.
There were a lot of kids and this play structure was quite massive so we told them if something happens, meet up back at the chairs. Many times I would lose sight of the four-year-old only to walk around and see him emerge from the sea of kids out the other side. Well at one point he didn't emerge.
I walked around the area assuming I’d find him. Then I started getting nervous. I asked my wife and she hadn't seen him. We ask my six-year-old. He said, "I don't think he's here anymore". My wife continues to ask around while I run back to the chair and blankets.
I got halfway there and my heart sank when I could clearly see nobody in any of the chairs and nothing on the blanket. I returned to my wife and she had already contacted the park staff. My wife had left her phone with the rest of her stuff and wanted to get pictures ready of my son that she took that same evening.
I kept panic-searching and yelling his name. I get a text from my wife, "Found him". We run back to my wife and I pretend like something’s in my eyes as she explains what happened. Apparently, he lost sight of me and went to the backup plan of going back to the chairs and blanket.
However, for whatever dumb kid reason, he decided to crawl under the blanket and lay flat.
24. Left Or Right?
I just recently lost my three-year-old at Walmart. Maybe for three minutes. I also had my two-year-old with me and I made the mistake of stopping the cart to look at a cute toddler dress. Suddenly my daughter just takes off running down the aisle and about two seconds later, my younger one is sprinting after her.
I’m fumbling trying to hang the dress back on the rack. When I turn back, I see my daughter reach the end of the aisle and turn left. When my slower son reaches the end of the aisle, he turns right. So I go to the end of the aisle and chase down the two-year-old first so I can strap him into the cart.
My three-year-old might run off, but she won't knock pasta jars on the floor for fun like my son would. By the time I get back, I have no idea where she is. Just when I get to the point where I’m thinking about how I will describe her to the associates, I find her wandering around. I officially can’t take them both to the store by myself.
25. Wild Chase
I had just moved into a new neighborhood on a cul de sac with my two young daughters, ages five and two. I walked out to the community mailbox to grab my mail and met my next-door neighbor while I was there.
We chatted for a couple of minutes when I heard my older daughter yelling from the front door, “Hey Dad! Younger Daughter (YD) has no clothes on!” I look over at my house and YD is standing at the end of the driveway looking like the day she was born.
I locked eyes with YD, and with a laugh, she turned around and started bolting the opposite way from me up the street. I quickly said goodbye to the neighbor, tucked my mail under my arm, and started chasing her down the block. I ended up scooping her up with my other free arm a block later while she was laughing her head off.
All of the other neighbors got a good laugh seeing me chasing her down. I couldn’t get mad at her as it was so funny. And I was impressed that she could get undressed so fast.
26. Margarita Mixers
My four-year-old grabbed a freshly made margarita I had just set down on the coffee table and guzzled it. It was one of those pre-mixed margaritas that come in a jug at around 14% ethanol, but of course, I had added an extra shot or so of a certain Mexican drink to the glass.
I didn't know what to do with an inebriated toddler, but I sure felt like a bad dad.
27. Turns Out Parents Really Do Know Best
When I was three or so, we lived in an apartment with an arched set of monkey bars out back. A standard rule was that I shouldn't play on them when she wasn't around to supervise.
Well, one day I was playing on them when the phone rang, so she ran inside to answer it, but not before ensuring that I'd gotten off the monkey bars and repeating her usual warning. She never allowed me to try and walk atop said monkey bars, but already being primed to play on them, I seized the opportunity.
I'd made it to about the middle before I lost my balance, and fell through the bars, wanging my head on them as I passed and then landing more or less head first onto hard, packed dirt. I had a stutter for years after that, and I suspect the process of getting over that is why I don't speak as if I grew up where I actually did.
This was one of many, many times that I got hurt the instant I chose to disregard her warnings. Also included are the following:
The time I crushed my finger in a dumpster, the warning being I had to go and get her should I find the lid closed; my sister and I judged that she could toss it open and I could just time throw the trash inside. We were mistaken.
The time I was impaled on a tree even though I was told to not climb cedar trees, especially the one that I climbed and then promptly slipped out of only to be helpfully caught by a branch through the groin on the way down. All of those plus a number of bicycle wrecks and pseudo-fencing accidents, and...well…
You get the idea.
28. Found A New Plaything
Growing up, we had a shed with our laundry room attached to our porch. My mom had me sitting on the floor of the porch playing with some toys, while she was doing laundry. I was about two years old. I was out of her sight during the time it took to start a load of laundry. But by the time she turned back around, I had somehow managed to find a snake.
I had picked it up and was playing with it.
Flickr, Bureau of Land Management
29. The Lazy River
I had this happen with my kids, 18 months and four years old. We were in the kiddie area, which was gated up, while my wife was checking out of the hotel that was attached to the water park. I was standing right next to the baby and kept swiveling my head back and forth between the two kids.
I turned back to check out the older kid, but he was gone. I pick up the baby and start looking around. It turns out that most blonde-haired white kids in swim trunks look very similar. I realize he's gone about the same time that my wife gets back.
We grab an employee, who immediately gets on their walkie-talkie to report a lost toddler. Within seconds, we hear a lifeguard doing a short burst of whistles. My four-year-old had wandered into the entrance for the lazy river, but another guest, seeing an unattended child with no tube, stopped him and got a lifeguard's attention.
When I asked him what he was thinking, he told me that he'd said that he was going to the lazy river, and I didn't tell him no. I never heard him ask, and am still irate at whatever adult had either opened the gate for him or didn't close it behind them, because he physically couldn't have done it himself.
30. Midnight Snack Attack
I went to pee. I put my kiddos in their room with the door open and the gate up. I also had the bathroom door open…Still, I come out to find a serious mess: a dozen eggs cracked on the kitchen floor, not to mention my youngest was undressed and covered in peanut butter. My now ex-husband was sleeping.
I walked into our room, woke him up, and tagged out. My brain was fried at that point. To this day, I have no clue how they escaped, they are 16 and 18 now.
31. Juice!
I had been drinking scotch one evening while doing dishes. So, I'm standing at the sink. I hear my three-year-old stumble into the room, pull a chair out from the table and climb up. I don’t think much of this until I hear a small voice say "Juice!" as I turn to watch him dump about 1/2oz of single malt into his mouth.
This was immediately followed by a gasp, then he turned bright white, then bright red. He went to bed early that night.
32. Luke Skywalker Gone Rogue
I was the little kid they turned away from. We had a family outing to the mall when I was four. At the time, I was obsessed with Luke Skywalker (and the entire franchise, it was 1982).
My mom ran to the ladies' room. My dad was to watch my older brother and me. My brother wanted to see something on a top shelf. I ran off while my dad’s back was turned. My mom comes back to me missing and the search starts.
A few moments later over the loudspeaker: “Would the parents of a little boy named Luke Skywalker come to the security desk?” There I was with a lollipop, a coloring book, and a smile.
33. Gone Like A Magic Trick
My Dad's story: I was just an infant, and my mom was working an overnight shift so it was just the two of us for the evening. He had me on a blanket on the floor and had just changed my diaper. He left the room long enough to throw the diaper away and comes back and infant me is gone.
After a few minutes of frantic searching and freaking out because his baby seemingly disappeared in less than a minute, he finds me. I had rolled all the way under my crib, almost against the wall. He said he was unaware that I could roll yet, and it really gave him a start.
34. “Dry Skin, Mommy!”
To understand this story, you should know my mom had very dry elbows, so she always had some gold bond in reaching distance. I had grown accustomed to calling the lotion, "dry skin".
Well one day when I was three, my mom left me in the living room with the dog so she could go to the bathroom. And when she came back she was gasping in horror and screamed, “What is that?!” My response? “Dry skin, mommy!” She picked me up and said, “Oh my god, honey nooooo! This is sour cream!”
I HAD GONE TO THE KITCHEN, GOTTEN IN THE FRIDGE, AND COVERED MYSELF HEAD TO TOE IN SOUR CREAM, AND THE DOG WAS JUST LICKING IT OFF OF ME. Safe to say, I got a bath that day, and mom kept sauces higher up in the fridge.
35. Ironic Turn Of Events
My husband was reading a sign about watching your children on the trail at Gooseberry Falls in MN. He then looks up to see our middle child heading to the edge of the trail. People fall every year. Some die. I was further down the trail with the youngest. He kept a firm grip on her for the rest of the walk.
36. Quick Exercise
My dad was watching me and my two cousins play SNES down in our den. He got up to pee and somehow, in the five minutes he was gone, we'd gotten one of my cousins on the treadmill, got it angled into a downhill descent and jerked the dial all the way to max speed.
My dad came in just in time to watch my cousin and I launch our other cousin four feet through the air into the wall. I’m pretty sure we're the reason treadmills no longer have that setting.
37. Pie For All
I was watching my sister's kids and told them we would grill for dinner and then have pie. I went to the bathroom, came back, and the pie was ALL OVER the living room. When I asked them what happened, they told me it was daylight savings time, so dinner was now. I couldn't help but laugh.
38. Superpowered Kid
I work from home and my son (three years old) is usually with me while I work in the evening. One night, I take a call and he’s sitting on the floor next to me playing with his cars.
The next minute, I look over and watch him as he is flying through the air next to me. He had climbed up on our table and just launched himself off! I always mute myself when I'm not speaking when he's home so thank god the customer didn't hear my, "OH MY GOD," as I caught him.
39. Everything Is Food To A Baby
I looked away for one second and my son (who was one at the time) ate my pack of Pall-Mall that I thought he couldn't reach. I called poison control and they told me he'd be fine, and he'd probably just throw up. When he did throw up, I noticed he only ate a little bit of the leaves, no filters or anything. I quit soon after that.
Freepik, pch.vector
40. Makeup? Yes, Please!
I was getting ready for my first Christmas party at a company. It was a family affair. We all looked great.
Hubby was already in the car, I ran to the bedroom for something I forgot, and we were running a little late. I ended up going to the party with my three-year-old looking like a smurf because he thought my blue nail polish was "just like mommy's makeup".
To this day don't know how he got the cap unscrewed because he's 10 now and can't open an already cracked bottle of water to save his life.
41. A Minor Slip-Up?
My daughter was 18 months old. She was standing between my husband and me in the kitchen. At arm's distance from both of us. Suddenly, she slipped, fell, and broke two front teeth.
42. “I Thought You Had Them!”
I got left behind at a bowling alley once because both my parents thought they had me. I had asked my mom to go pretend to play the arcade games and I guess I thought she said yes.
43. Waking Up To A Nightmare
I woke up once and my two sons had climbed out of a window onto a flat roof. They were one and three.
I still don't know how they even got the window open.
44. For The Love Of Coffee
I was sitting in a high chair. I climbed out of it, onto the counter, and grabbed my mother’s coffee. All she did was move to put her shoes at the door, three feet away.
45. Free Redecoration
When I was four my father disappeared for like five seconds because I asked him to get me a drink. When he came back, little me had successfully dropped an entire bowl of paint on the floor.
46. She’s An… Artist?
My daughter took her diaper off and painted the walls with what was inside. All over the bedroom, which the Persian cat and the dog also rolled around in.
47. It Started Out Like Any Fairy Tale
When I was a kid my mom was watching me play while hanging laundry. When she turned to hang a garment I discovered a “bouncy spot” in the grass and fell down a 100ish-year-old abandoned well. She said that day took years off her life.
We lived in a farmhouse that was over 100 years old. When I say “a well” you are picturing a stone well built above ground. But what I mean by “a well” was a 20-30ft deep hole in the ground that was covered over with plywood probably 50 years earlier and left alone.
No one knew it was there. Grass grew over the wood and the wood rotted away. Then along comes two-year-old-me telling my mom I found a “bouncy spot” in the grass while she is hanging clothes. Not all wells look like a fairytale wishing well with a crank and bucket.
The fire department eventually showed up. This happened before emergency numbers and my mom told my sister to call the fire department but she was five so she hid under the bed instead. My mom eventually called them.
They ignored all safety protocols to get me out before their supervisor showed up and made them do it the “safe way” which I’m told would have taken a really long time. Instead, they just tied a guy to some ropes and lowered him in.
48. Target Horror Story
My son was three. We were leaving Target. He left my sight as I was adjusting my bags. Maybe two seconds, tops. That’s all it took. He was gone. I try to act cool, but I can’t. The store locks down. We are all looking for him. People are checking cars outside. I’m calling my son’s name louder than any intercom system.
We were just about to call the authorities. And then my toddler slides out of the cart area and acts like, “Sup?” He decided it would be a most excellent idea to shimmy underneath the carts and sit there as the world turns inside out searching for him. I hugged him and yelled at him for a good 10 minutes, ugly sobbing.
100/100 grateful for my Target folks. We catered lunch for them as a huge “thank you and sorry my kid is a hassle”.
49. Playful Or Evil?
I was riding a semi-private bus to work one day. A mom got on with three kids. The youngest was in a carriage. The other two were walking, mostly. The mother was either on her phone or preoccupied with the one that seemed to be the middle kid.
So, the oldest spent part of the trip trying to wrap her scarf (she had it on the carriage) around the youngest kid's neck. Fortunately, it was also looped around the part that held the canopy. Early on, the mother noticed once and told the kid to stop. But then she got preoccupied. And the kid kept trying.
At one point, he got the little kid pushed up against the part that held the canopy and this other lady let the mom know. The mom loosened it a bit, told the kid off and then went back to ignoring them. Instead of removing it or anything…
The kid looks at the lady who shakes her head "no," then went right back to trying to end their baby brother. I was about to intervene and I think that lady was too. The kid had tugged it tightly again and before we could do anything their stop came up.
I was so certain I was going to have to stop a child from ending his brother’s life. I hope that kid lived.
50. The Bottle Mix-Up
My sister was four when she had her first root beer float. One of the dads in the group left a bottle in the kitchen, which inadvertently got mixed into my sister’s drink because the bottles looked similar.
Her immediate response was “I don’t like this," promptly followed by everyone telling her the floats were great and to “keep trying it”.
She quit a third of the way down the tall glass, after which my mom came over to taste it and show her “how great” it was. Mom screamed, “This is beer!” My sister couldn’t walk straight and had to be carried upstairs to bed.
Sources: Reddit, ,
