Don't Upset the Baby
Willie was a sweet 8-month-old with a nice family that I babysat for a couple of times.

Willie didn't like having his diaper changed. To distract him I would always make animals noises while changing his diaper. Then one day it went something like this:

Me: "Meow!"
Willie grins.
Me: "Woof woof!"
Willie gurgles.
Me: "Chirp chirp!"
Willie waves his smalls hands happily.
Me: "Ribbit! Ribbit!"
Willie shrieks in terror and bursts into heartrending sobs that don't subside for an hour, in spite of all my panicked hushings and cuddlings.

His parents never called me again after that. I can't help but wonder if they had some sort of video setup that caught me terrorizing their son with frog noises.
(WordsMeanThings, Sat 30 Oct 2010, 0:50, 2 replies)

I can completely picture this...
The young Miss Doom did something similar on a recent trip to Marwell Zoo... ignored all her favourite animals in favour of the bats. Took her into the bathouse which made the problem even worse - whole way through lunch "BATS! BATS! BATS!"

Took her back to the bathouse as a special treat, at which point she screamed with terror and refused to let go of me for the rest of the day. Even now she freaks out at the mention of bats...
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Sun 31 Oct 2010, 11:33, closed)

My personal version...
When I was still well in need of babysitters myself I used to collect earthworms to be my friends. I would carry them around in my pockets until they were quite dead, but I had no conception of death, so to me they were sleeping. Then one day I somehow connected my dad's explanations of what happened to our cat when she got cancer and had to be "put down" to what was happening to my worm friends. I was grief-striken and horrified and have had a pretty strong aversion to earthworms ever since.

I imagine I confused some random adult when they brought me a new worm friend and I burst into tears. Wonder what it was for Willie and Miss Doom.
(WordsMeanThings, Sun 31 Oct 2010, 17:36, closed)