There’s a tiny hole in our living room floor. My parents don’t know it’s there. When my brother and I were teenagers, [Brother] was acting like a dumba** one day when the parents were away. He was “playing” with his .22 pistol. In the house. I was hissing at him to stop it and put the weapon back in the case where it belonged. Little Bro wouldn’t listen, waving his pistol around, all dismissive.

BANG!

All of a sudden, Big Sis had a Very Good Point, and [Brother] immediately put his pistol back in the case after unloading it.

This was the only time I caught him being such an idiot with a firearm. Luckily, the only thing he shot was the floor. The carpet hid the hole — not that .22s make much of a hole since it’s a tiny caliber — and I held the blackmail material over him for a long while. He knew he could’ve hurt or killed someone, so I decided to let him sweat wondering if or when I’d tell our parents what he had done.

Our parents never found out.

This incident is something Dad taught us from infancy to never do. Dad’s super-strict on firearms safety. By the age of five, we knew the gun safety rules, so there is no excuse for this story happening.

We’re in a rural area where over half the kids learn to shoot and hunt at a young age. We both started target shooting as kids and started competing in middle school with the 4-H BB team. We both had our own personal firearms as teens, and we both did competition shooting, although I stuck with it longer. We were in our late teens at the point of this story, and we were usually very mature when it came to handling weapons.

Heck, we were very responsible in general — no wild behavior, rule-breaking, or getting into trouble. So, it was perfectly normal for Dad to let us keep our firearms where we could get ahold of ’em if we wished. (Though we weren’t supposed to do more than target shooting with our air rifles or .22s in the back field unless he was there.)

My brother just decided to be a dumba** for whatever reason that particular day. I’m gonna blame it on “stupid teenage boy” temporary insanity. Nothing brings your common sense back faster than a gunshot in the house. He deserved a good Dad-scolding, but I could tell by his face that he’d nearly messed his pants with that unexpected BANG, so the blackmail material was more valuable to me than tattling.

We are having a family vacation with our daughter and her family at a beach. My husband and I have taken the kids to the beach while my daughter and her wife are finishing a few things up back at the B&B before they come to join us at the beach.

I’m lying on a towel watching both kids, who are playing on the sand closer to the water. Suddenly, a man runs up and grabs my granddaughter, who shrieks in fright. My husband and I are both freaking out and ready to run to the man when my granddaughter turns and hugs the man, followed shortly by our grandson.

As the man turns around to hug my grandson, I can finally see his face better, and I only now realize that it’s their godfather — whom I only see a few times a year and apparently am not familiar enough with to recognize from the back. He was scheduled for a visit but has arrived over an hour early.

Apparently, he arrived early, had already talked to my daughter at the B&B, and had been sent to the beach to find the kids. Finding a distracted godchild who wasn’t expecting him he decided it would be fun to sneak up and surprise her. He apparently had not stopped to think how her poor grandparents would react to him grabbing her.

I nearly had a heart attack thinking my granddaughter was going to be kidnapped by a stranger in front of our eyes.

While I was visiting a friend, our conversation turned to technology and how it was changing what was taught in school. My friend’s son walked in to beg for snacks, so I jokingly included him in the conversation.

Me: “I don’t know how you will ever sign for anything as an adult since they won’t teach you cursive.”

Son: “I don’t want to learn cursive!”

He sounded quite adamant about this proclamation.

Me: “Why not?”

Son: “It’s bad!”

Me: “What makes it bad?”

Son: “Because, umm… it makes people angry when they hear it?”

Mom: “Hear cursive?”

Son: “Yeah, it makes them angry, so I shouldn’t say it. And Dad needs to stop saying them anymore, or Mom will get angry with him.”

Mom: “Oh, honey, that’s cursing, not cursive. They’re a bit different!”

This story happened a while ago when my husband was trying to reengage his maternal family with whom he had little contact due to the demands of his hateful mother shortly after her passing. We had invited his cousin and their family to our house for a small get-together. We were both a little apprehensive since it had been so long since my husband had seen them.

His cousin has two sons. One was just under two years old and the other was seven. At this time, my daughter would have been roughly six months old. When they arrived, we left my daughter lying in her playpen while we answered the door and did the usual greetings. Their eldest son apparently didn’t approve of this.

Son: “I thought you had a baby?”

Me: “Oh, yes, she is lying down over there.”

Son: “Oh, can I go see her?”

Me: “She’s very tiny. She can’t really play.”

Cousin: “Oh, he knows. He adores little kids and babies. He was so excited when I told them you had a daughter. He’s going to be begging to do everything with her. Please feel free to tell him if there is anything you’re not comfortable with, though.”

Even as she said this, [Son] had run over to the playpen and was now sitting on the ground right outside of it, playing with my daughter through the mesh side of the pen.

It didn’t take long for him to come back begging to hold our daughter. I was a first-time mom and a bit overly protective, so I was a little apprehensive about trusting my daughter to a kid so young. Still, after making sure he had sat down on a couch to minimize dropping risk, I set her in his arms. He looked excited and immediately started making cute faces at her and playing with her.

Cousin: “I’m pretty sure you just made his day.”

[Son] held my daughter for over half an hour, only reluctantly giving her back when his brother toddled up and demanded they play together.

Later, when I put my daughter down for some tummy time, [Son] laid down beside her to play with her more, even “guarding” her to make sure his brother didn’t accidentally step on her in his play. And when it came time to feed her, [Son] immediately showed up begging to be the one to feed her.

Me: “I know you said he liked babies, but I have to admit I wasn’t expecting him to be this committed to her.”

Cousin: “Yeah, I know, he’s a bit obsessed, but I figure there are worse things to insist on than taking care of people.”

Me: “It’s not just his liking kids; he’s good with her! I’d never have guessed a kid that young would know how to be that good with a baby.”

Cousin: “It comes from lots of practice. He begs anyone with a baby to let him ‘help’ them. And when he can’t find an actual baby, he will break out his dolls or make [Younger Sibling] play as his baby instead.”

At that point, [Son] had just emptied the jar of baby food he was feeding [Daughter] and done a passably decent job cleaning her up.

Son: “[Daughter] is done eating, but she needs to be changed. Want me to change her? I change [Younger Brother’s] diapers sometimes.”

Cousin: “What kind of diaper is it?”

[Son] responded reluctantly as if he had been caught in a lie.

Son: “Poopy.”

Cousin: “What he fails to mention is that we generally only let him change pee diapers to avoid any accidental messes.”

Me: “Well, sounds like a no from mom, but tell you what. You can come help me change her, assuming mom’s okay with any, err… inevitable anatomy lessons?”

Cousin: “Oh, that won’t be a problem. She’s hardly the first little girl he’s asked to help change.”

He joined me at the changing tables to hand over wipes and baby powder as requested while informing me, quite seriously, that he knew it was important to make sure you clean inside the vagina and not just the vulva to avoid infection, even if he hadn’t gotten a chance to practice that particular skill yet.

The only time [Son] wasn’t doting on my daughter the whole visit was during her nap, at which point his younger brother got all the attention and care my daughter had previously been monopolizing.

His mother admitted that he was a great help with his brother, but she also confessed the downside to his baby obsession.

Cousin: “He’s been begging [Cousin’s Husband] and me to give him a new sibling for at least a year now. If he had his way, we would pop out a new kid every year so he never ran out of babies to play with.”

Once our visit was over, the boy started asking when they could come to visit next so he could play with our daughter more. He got his wish there, and we did many more visits with them. In fact, he ultimately proved pervasive enough to get that baby sibling he was always begging for.

Years later, he now babysits our daughters for us, and they all adore him. He will be an amazing father one day.

CONTENT WARNING: Blood

My daughter has always had a big personality for being six. Recently, she has been suffering from badly chapped lips. I’ve been putting everything I can on them to help, but over the weekend, they were cracking and bleeding just a tad. I was in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner, and this gem of a scenario played out.

[Daughter] ran up to me excitedly, a little blood dribbling down her chin.

Daughter: “Mom! Look! I’m a vampire!” 

Me: *Holding back laughter* “Please go wipe your face, sweetie.” 

Daughter: “But vampires don’t wipe their faces!” 

Me: “Well, do you want everyone to know that you’re a vampire?” 

She mulled it over while narrowing her eyes at me.

Daughter: “I guess not…”

Never a dull moment with this kid, I swear!