A have a niece, my first one, born a little over a year ago. For privacy reasons we’ll give her a fake name; Cece. Out of my three siblings, I was born a little later than them, so of course, the birth of my niece was huge news in our family, considering she was the first baby in decades.
With that, of course I adored her. I spoiled her a lot. She’s like a princess, minus the royal blood. She was a very normal baby–cute, chubby, loud, and all the rest. Except this one thing, I didn’t notice at first but around the age of 9 months, I started noticing how abnormally big she is. She wore clothes that would typically be worn by babies at 12 months old. Even that was a tight fit for her. And yes, I know you could say that she might just be a bit chubbier than most babies her age, but it’s not even just fat. That isn’t what prompted me to write this.
To put it straight, and excuse my language, she has been doing things that seriously creeps me the fuck out. To the people who are experienced with babies, or kids in general, please tell me if what she does is normal or if I’m overreacting.
The first time she creeped me out, it was about a 2 month ago. I was visiting my sister’s house, it was after a shift at my old fast food job, I was bored and just got paid so I thought about buying Cece another toy. When I got there, my sister greeted me as usual, she said her husband was at work and it was just her and Cece. She came to the door alone so I was gonna ask her where Cece was until I heard the sounds of Cece’s favorite cartoon playing in the living room so I held off asking.
My sister told me to take care of her so she could take a nap. Now that I think about it she did looked like she was missing a couple hours of sleep. Of course I did as I was told with no hesitance. Both for sympathy and the fact that I haven’t seen Cece in weeks. When I got closer to the living room, I noticed that it was dead silent, aside from the sounds from the tv. This was really weird considering Cece was usually always making some kind of noise. When I stepped in, she was in front of the tv, back faced towards me, barely moving aside from her little shoulders slightly going up and down from her breathing. I was confused but I had also found it cute. When I called out her name, she didn’t move- didn’t even flinch at the sudden loud sound. I was seriously shocked.
I walked to her and sat on my legs, just behind her. She still wasn’t budging so I raised my hand, just right behind her back, ready to let her know I was there when, and I swear I am not bluffing, fast as a gust of wind, her head turned to my direction. She did it so suddenly even I got scared and let out a small shriek. At that moment, it was like she was a normal baby again. She let out the cutest laugh. It was if she planned the whole thing. Like she planned on not reacting to when I called out to her. Even so, her laugh was so innocent that it took over my fear and I dismissed the fact that a baby was able to pull off such a calculated prank.
Cece also does thing creepy thing where she would stare at you with the side-eye look that dogs do. It’s not even when you’re in the same room. She does it when you’re in a different room and your door is cracked open. This one time my Sister was over at my Mom’s house, I was in my room, sitting up on my bed scrolling through TikTok on my iPad, the door ajar. I’m the type who catches people’s eyes pretty easily. Usually from peripheral vision and the small feeling of being watched. But during this one time, I caught on late. I was scrolling for a while, bored out of my mind when my attention deteriorated away from the videos for just a bit, then I felt it.
With that sense followed my eyes, I looked up and through the ajar door I saw her. My niece. For background information, my Mom’s house is a one story house with only 2 rooms, a kitchen, a living room and 2 bathrooms. The living room, where my niece was at, is a few steps away from my room. With the door cracked open, I have a view of the living room and my niece. My iPad dropped onto my lap as I jumped back at the sight. It was as if all of her attention was fixated on me. Nothing would stray her attention away.
Not the tv, not my sister calling out her name, her toys– nothing. We stared for a while. This was days after the first incident. With yet another scare, it reminded of the first time and at that point I was beyond creeped out. I don’t know what freaked me out more, the fact that her, not fully developed, eyes were able to even spot me through a crack that was like 2 inches wide, or how and why she was staring at me for so long with no attention of adverting even when I stared back. Her expression was so unnatural for a baby.
Her eyes, wide, full of unknown intention. Her small mouth gaped open. It was an expression of an angry mom if you had cursed at them. It was like a spirit I had pissed off had taken control of her. The whole thing was so unnerving that I quickly got up and closed my door. Even with this piece of wood blocking my view, it still felt like she was staring right at me. My Sister texted me hours after they left asking why I never came out of my room to greet Cece. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was because her baby was creeping me the fuck out, so I told her I had a long shift at work and slept the entire time they were there.
The most recent incident was yesterday night. My mom and I were babysitting Cece because my sister was busy helping out her Husband’s mom with her Highschool reunion thing. During the earlier hours of the day we had discovered that Cece was able to crawl. We were excited because this meant she was going to be walking soon. By the way, Cece had been acting normal and so I was glad. I played with her until we were both pretty tired. It was around 9pm, I was in charge of putting her into the new small crib we had ordered so that she would have somewhere to sleep whenever she came over.
Once she was in, I turned off the lights, and went to bed myself. I made sure my door was open, just so if something were to happen to her I would be able to her and get to her quickly. I woke up just a few hours later, maybe 2 hours, to get a drink of water. We were playing a lot and I didn’t get to drink. My sleepiness simply overtook over me. I sat up, it was dark of course. I sat there, waiting out my sudden headache when I caught a small glimpse of a, darker than the surrounding area, figure. It would’ve freak me out more if the figure was at least 5 feet tall, but this one was on the ground. It was silent so I was filled with confusion more than fear.
It was then I heard the sound of limbs moving across the wooden floor. That freaked me out. I immediately scrambled around my desk to the right of me, trying to find the switch to my lamp. Then I saw it. My mind was lacking so many things like water and sleep to the point where I could not for the life of me think of anything logical to be out there other than the scary lady from the Ring. That lady is a pretty perfect fit for what I saw though.
My niece, as fast as ever, crawling towards me. Like an injured spider, her movements were distorted. Her body bobbing up down, head to the right then to the left, you’d think she’d been doing this for months. It was the last thing I thought to see her do.
I am writing this a day after this incident. There’s so many weird things she’s doing that I don’t know what to search up to find the answers for. I don’t know if I should talk to my sister about this. I don’t want to seem rude or dramatic. I love my niece but this is all just weird.