Don’t Mess With Toddlers

I have an uncle that has always been a tease for as long as I have lived. He is in his late thirties and around average height with a little beer belly, he works construction and has his own business. He’s from my mother’s side of the family, the crazier side. He lives in the middle of nowhere in a large cabin with a wonderful backyard with projects everywhere and a mud pit his daughters love to play in. We don’t visit them much but we were there for a catch up. Just the usual seeing how everyone is doing, kids play with kids and have a nice dinner.

I’ve grown to love him and look up to him, and even share some of his humor, but he loves to antagonize. He was and is crazy and wild and loves to prank people. He one time taught my dog how to get him beers from the fridge and my dog poked holes in the cans and got the whole kitchen flooded with beer.

My uncle loved to mess with me, as toddlers are gullible and hear and then repeat things, he would get me to say funny things and he would tell me things that are false and I would go around the family spreading it and he would find it hilarious. Now me as a toddler, I was a demon, I was super high energy, super smart, mischievous, and a smart aleck. I would go around and tease my sister, hide her things, get back at my uncle by scaring him and putting gross things in his food, and mixing things in his drink that make it taste weird.

This one time, I was at his house and I was giving him a wedgie because I thought it was hilarious. My uncle got me back by picking me up by my ankles and shaking me. But he was shirtless. And he had nipple rings. Me being the demon I am at 6 years old, I grabbed his nipple rings while I was upside down, and tugged as hard as I could. I brought him to his knees while he’s screaming, “MOM! MOM! HELP ME, OH MY GOD GET HIM OFF!” and I’m just sitting there giggling with blood rushing to my head. My whole family is in the kitchen laughing at him, dying from laughter, unable to catch their breath because they know not to mess with six year old me. They all told him, “That’s what you get for messing with him, we’ve all learned our lessons.” From that day on, he never picked me up like that again and his pranks became less prevalent. I guess he learned the hard way not to mess with toddlers.

I suppose reflecting on this story in greater detail has reminded me not to mess with children either. His daughters are also wild, one of them is a spitting image of the demon I was. She’s super sassy, intelligent, but in all the wrong ways. She can’t do her homework but if you ask her how to start a fire with practically nothing, she’s the expert. You want to know how to properly punch someone? Go to her. She knows too much about how to mess with people, I’m almost positive her father taught her those things. I’ve tried messing with her a couple times and I’ve gotten her a couple times but she’s a lot smarter than I was and she can get me sometimes as well.

“Performance art meets mischievous child.” by noneck is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0