hey kids, let me tell you a little secret, love Mum...

My dh age 53 realised last year his dog as a boy hadn't been chosen to become a police dog!

SP, I remember the horror on a previous similar thread when a couple of posters realised that they childhood dogs had not gone to live on a farm after all.

Father Christmas doesn't really have a 30 day return policy for parents to return naughty children's toys.

Your hamster didn't die peacefully in his sleep of old age, his murderous roommate ripped him to pieces and he died a slow and painful death.

The tv won't explode if someone under 18 looks at it past their bedtime. We just want you to go away so we can eat nice biscuits and watch Luther.

DD, you know that time you were upset because the tooth fairy hadn't come and I checked your bed one more time and found that the pound had just fallen out of the special pillow? Yes it was funny you missed it the first time wasn't it?

Isn't anyone worried they will read this and find out their own parents have told you growing up?

Poledra - yours is lovely.

I can't really tell that it's a Friendly Spider.

In fact it looks pretty fecking unfriendly to me an' all . . .

Spiders CAN run on sheets.

And also, a dab of aftershave behind your ears doesn't actually keep spiders away while you sleep.

But good try mum, thanks. Believed it for YEARS. Still remember the moment a spider ran across the sheets towards me, my mind literally BLEW.

When I told you the tooth fairy doesn't work at weekends (mummy had a couple of drinks and forgot)

You know I told you that the ice cream can only plays music to warn people that its run out if ice cream....?

I forgot one.

Ds, I don't really have eyes in the back of my head. There's a baby monitor in your room that I turn on when you go upstairs with your friends which is how I know who started the inevitable argument.
So please stop tugging my hair looking for them.

Feel I should mention ds is 5 not 15, that would be weird.

Those special chocolates that Daddy buys me and you can't have because they are full of 'booze' are really just posh chocs he got on sale and we want all for ourselves.

Honestly, 11 years old, Level 6 in SATS and it does not occur to you to read the ingredient list???

"Magic water" is also a great curer of all manner of bumps. It's the failsafe of the almost non-existent first aid kit at the local sportsclub (there is a proper FAK, but not always obvious when needed, but magic water rubbed on bumps and cuts is usually plenty to sort it out - and I do say that as a properly trained first aider and the occupational first aider at work!).

For about 5 years, DD thought the ice cream van (for she DID know that's what it was) only played it's song when it had run out of ice cream. So we rarely had her asking for ice cream despite it calling every night at bedtime to our street.

Luckily, she now knows she gets plenty of nice treats otherwise, and that we can't spend all our money on ice cream, but we usually have mini icebergers in the freezer which she prefers to cones - and as we allow her a "treat" at bedtime (she is SOOO skinny she needs some extra fats in her diet) of a cookie or an ice cream with her milk and tablets, she doesn't go looking for it. (And I won't let her take a whole apple to bed because of the core left there for weeks - but she loves having an apple chopped into chunks so when she is still "hungry" 30 minutes after bedtime, I may cave in and offer her a bowl of apple chunks - I don't mind that even if I take a few minutes to agree to it, because it is usually ALL eaten up because of the fight she goes through to get it)

The iPad doesn't actually run out of batteries after two episodes of Peppa Pig.

DS - I was always going to take you to the Air show at the weekend (it would have broken my heart not to) I just said I wasnt going to take you to get you to behave. Which is why you were always on your last warning.
We also often use the bad boys home where they have to work all day and only get one meal a day which consists of Gruel and water when there is nothing recent to bribe them with.

We have a black cat and once we told DS we also had a white cat who was often out on a day and only came in at night. He told DD1 and they both appeared to believe that for ages.

DD and DS2, you know the cameras in shops? They're not recording for Father Christmas to watch later. But while it stops you throwing tantrums and fighting in public, I'm going to keep telling you that's what they're for!

DD - I do know what that thing on a string in my bag is. It's tampax.

I just can't find the words to start that conversation.

And the chocolate from that party didn't go out of date. I ate it!

I'm not really tidying the cupboard... I'm hiding behind the cupboard door eating chocolate.

I lied when I said the ice cream van only plays it's music when it's run out of ice cream.

Those who drive convertibles are not poor people who cannot afford a roof for their car.

The playground does not shut at 5pm.

I am not actually ringing your new teacher and telling him all the bad things you've done during the school holidays.

Forgot another - it isn't necessarily true that when a plaster falls off that the "injury" is on the mend and the plaster has done its job, so another isn't needed. I just got fed up of buying boxes of plasters every week.

Ice packs cure everything.

Love all these!

Ds and Dd, on the run up to christmas, I am surprised that neither of you have asked why there are so many boxes of 'vegetables' being delivered to the house.

The black coffee that your dad and I drink in the morning is actually diet coke. Mwahahahaha!

The bloody annoying electric guitar toy isn't actually broken, it just needs batteries but I will be damned if I ever have to listen to how much is that fucking doggy in the window again!

Dear DDs - the infra red sensor from the house alarm on the landing isn't really a camera designed so we can always tell who is in the wrong when you have a row upstairs and we are downstairs.

(Actually, I think DD1 rumbled that one when she got to age 11)

I once had the police called on me, because I was allowing ten-year-olds to drink soda at a cast party. Somebody's kid brother had been told that anything in a can was alcohol.

It was, I admit, a memorable party!