"I Have Them Now" and Other Creepy Things Kids Say

Kids are creepy. Okay, maybe I should say, kids say creepy stuff. Really creepy stuff. We love the kids that say the creepy stuff. But still, the creepy stuff they say sticks with us. I’m around a lot of kids and I have heard a lot of creepy stuff over the years. Whether it’s Coop, a friend’s kid, a kid at work, or the occasional random stranger kid who just seems to appear out of nowhere in a store aisle, says something weird, then disappears, leaving you to wonder if you have just seen a ghost, I have found the creepy stuff they say usually results in one of four reactions. These reactions are illustrated by the following gifs, each reaction escalating in seriousness.

1. THE “WAIT, WUUUTTT??”
A friend of ours has a child who, as the family drove past a power line that was lined with black birds, shoulder to shoulder, calmly called out the number of birds in sight. Like, he very casually said, “Yeah there’s 673 birds up there” and less in a Rain Man way than in a way that suggested he had trackers on all of the birds and kept a tally in his journal at home. It was weird.

2. THE “SILENT BLINK”
Recently, as we walked into a Target together, I noticed Cooper was extending his hand toward every bird we passed in the parking lot and making a sort of “whooshing” sound. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, simply, and matter-of-factly as if this was a very normal thing to do and say, “I have them now.” Wait, what? “I have them now,” he repeated. And then he smiled, and we proceeded into Target. So…I guess my son has the ability to pull the souls out of Parking Lot Birds and I’m not sure what to do about that. If you have any advice on this, please let me know.

3. THE “DISCOMBOBULATED HOLD UP, WHAT NOW?”
When Cooper was younger, he would occasionally say that he had been to a place he had never been to. We’d be driving by a random location and he’d say, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been to that park before” or, “That’s the McDonald’s I went to last week.” We’d argue with him a bit but he was adamant about these supposed experiences and finally, after some extensive prodding, he revealed to us that he had been to these locations with “Schmike”, who, we think (I should stress the “think” part of this because who knows really?) was an imaginary friend. The creepy part was the Schmike only visited at night when Cooper was already in bed and he has some facial deformity that Cooper was vague about and, oh yeah, I forgot, sometimes they VISITED A GRAVEYARD WHAT IS HAPPENING?!? 

4. THE “SCREAM AND DIE”
Before we had a child, we spent a lot of time with our friend’s kids and one set of kids in particular. At some point, one of these children began talking about “Ty Thomas” who, like Schmike, we assumed was an imaginary friend. There were only two real differences between Ty Thomas and Schmike:

A.) This kid would commune with Ty Thomas at any point during the day or night, sometimes stopping while playing to wave at Ty Thomas who was apparently JUST HANGING OUT IN THE CORNER OF THE ROOM WHILE WE ALL ATE;
B.) We found out after a while that Ty Thomas was the name of a child who previously lived in the neighborhood…UNTIL HE DIED!!! There’s nothing that will stop down a friendly game night quicker than a child waving to a DEAD CHILD that only he can see and also, I’m pretty sure Ty Thomas is still with us and will be haunting us for the rest of our days.

So, here’s to all the creepy kids and the creepy things they say that keep us on our toes and up at night, unable to sleep for fear of Ty Thomas’ retribution. You’re the worst, kids.