What's the most barking thing you've witnessed at a mum's group?

Rainbow - wasn't you as the mother deemed the water acceptable and got in. She did a lot of vigorous dunking which the baby spluttered his way through but was obviously used to!

I love the imaginary spade!

Mine is at a soft play so I hope it counts...
A boy a year or two older than my 2yo ds pushed him over, trod on his fingers and whilst he was on the floor crying, kicked him.
I was across the other side of the room and could see it happening but couldn't get there fast enough.
When I did I shouted at the kid to get off and another dad came over and said he had just done the same to his dd.
I saw red. I said to the boy 'where is your mother?' and to my surprise he took me over to her.
When i got there she was massive and really rough looking and sitting with three other rough looking mums! I told her what he had done to ds and the other child and she barely batted an eyelid and said "say sorry"
That was it, he went off back to the soft play.
I was livid but more scared she might beat me up if I said anything else. Seriously though, say sorry!??!
I would have taken my kid straight home but then he would never behave like that....grr.

Seriously, think Brian Blessed for those bits in capitals. And the children were aged from newborn to 3

I've finally remembered one!

At the end of the playgroup I have gone to for 10 years (and now run!) there is an optional story and song session in an adjoining room. It is usually a nice little children's bible story (church playgroup) and a couple of kids bible songs with instruments. The story is usually something harmless like Martha and Mary, Jonah and the whale etc, nothing too heavy and has been very popular with the parents and kids.

The curates wife offered to join the rota to do "See and Know" (as it's called), and on her first time she did the story of the plagues of Egypt. As she went into great detail on each plague, she was holding up a large printout to illustrate each one as she told the story. So, pictures of locusts, frogs, gnats, thunderstorms, and darkness (this was just a black piece of paper

She got to the plague of blood. I can still see the looks of horror on the other parents and (worried confusion on the childrens) faces as clearly as if it were yesterday. In a booming theatrical voice she described the GREAT RIVERS OF BLOOOOD in great detail. She seemed to keep repeating the BLOOOOOD bit a lot. All while she was flapping a blood red piece of a4 paper.

Everyone seemed frozen like this , and as she was about to move on to the firstborn sacrifices the usual leader who was sat with her unfroze quickly and said, "then all the people said sorry to God and everything was all okay now lets get the instruments out" (without even pausing for breath)

I still wonder what that printout would have had on it

It is our playgroup legend. We would joke for months afterward what she would do as an encore for Easter (They got these GREAT BIG NAILS and a GREAT BIG HAMMER......)

We have a different curate now, his wife is lovely

I'm still laughing at "mental naked elf!"

genius!

Love this thread - especially Baiji's queue desperately wishing their babies were all called Tom.

I wasn't brave enough to go to any groups and parent in front of other people who might be judgey!

But also because I went to a breastfeeding support group and sat by this woman who I vaguely knew of - her partner knew my partner via work - and she didn't recognise me but that's ok, and she told me all about craniosacral manipulation (have I got that right), and how it had transformed her child (for about 40 minutes).

Week later, back I went, ended up sat next to same woman - and she told me all about craniosacral manipulation and how it had transformed her child (for about 40 minutes).

I was just mortified I didn't know how to stop her, and totally mortified that I was so unmemorable. And I stopped going to groups -wish I hadn't now!

I may have been the nutter with a bath thermometer before getting into the swimming pool.....

Reason being is that the pool/gym had been taken over and the previously lovely pool had suddenly become absolutely freezing - but the gym insisted it was still the same 28 degrees previously.

So I took the temperature and it was bloody 18 degrees! No wonder DD could no longer last 30mins in the water before turning blue....

The Vicar conga and double helix potato has me crying with laughter
You'd have ti be a pretty skilled carver to get a double helix print in one surely

The imaginery spade is pure genius. I love that child! What an imagination!

*turtle boy not tortoise :)

Thankyou everyone for the funny stories! The burka, tortoise and spade are just classic!

Trying to explain to a 3 year old that his imaginary spade is as big as his friend's was a new one on me

This thread has made me laugh so much. I'm getting strange looks
!

Also whenever i used to take the kids to the local.playbarn there was always,always a mother who had to crawl round the ballpool climbing area and ladder ONLY FOR UNDER EIGHTs incase her toddler got in to trouble. And these mothers usually had massive wide arses that could squash a toddler to death.

Actually roaring with laughter at that , crunchy.

I am sure MNHQ are feeling bombarded, but I have added in my plea for this thread to be elevated to classics

And to berts and all you brilliant vipers :)

That is fantastic

Playing in a sandpit aged about 3 ds1 was happily pretending to dig with an imaginary spade. Another little lad who ds often played with came over and suddenly started screaming at ds. His mother and I both ran over to see what the problem was.

The other boy was screaming that ds wouldn't share. Ds was desperately saying that he was just pretending and he couldn't share, at which point to his mum's mortification the boy started having a full blown tantrum.

Thinking fast I told ds to pretend to give the boy a spade. The boy seemed to like that idea so ds dutifully pretended to hand him his spade.

Instead of that solving things he screamed and screamed and screamed, when his mum asked what was wrong and reassured him he had the spade now, he shouted, "DS1 GAVE ME THE SMALL ONE!"

How do you argue with that level of insecurity?

HOW COULD I FORGET. Lady trying to spoon feed her DS (around 10/11mo) formula from a pyrex jug. I dunno whether this is batshit or inspired.

I once went to a playgroup with two totally different shoes on. Like, a Nike trainer one on and ballet pump on the other. It MUST have been DS' doing somehow.

ThreadPirate; GBH of the vision...

2 days into this thread and it's burka last who's still making me snort at random moments.

That and richardsimmonstanktop's brilliant response
I'd quite like a friend like Burkha lady to mix things up a bit, keep me on my toes. You'd always be waiting for a clown or a uniformed maintenance man to sidle up to you and go 'hey - it's me!'

Fringe tape is so she could cut it herself - you tape it so it stays still, then cut it straight across in a mirror.

Disclaimer: I have not tried this but it is a well known tip.

I imagine she got sidetracked by DCs partway through the job. No doubt she got home, saw the scissors on the side, touched her fringe and wailed "but why didn't anybody tell me". You bastards

Loving this thread.

Hmmmmm. I did meet an Australian mum of twins (big respect) who spent the whole time cutting the kids' fingernails. It's odd but perhaps not quite batshit crazy.

Sorry, couldn't resist! Good god, if I was to play panpipes in the nude, I would be arrested for GBH of the vision.