What things did your parents do that you look back on and think ‘that was clever’?

[Geekster1963]

My Mum used to give me and my sisters a fruit gum each on long journeys (the old Rowntrees ones that used to be hard), to see who could make it last the longest. We thought it was great as we were getting a sweet but it stopped us from arguing. Clever.

I remember when my first baby tooth came out I lost it in the garden and was devastated my Mum told me to write a note to the tooth fairy and put it under my pillow. I was so excited to see she had been and left me some money and said she’d found my tooth in the garden

Have me convinced that it was perfectly acceptable that they treated my brother favourably ...

My dad went on a business trip to America and brought back a wonderful grownups' toy. You pulled a handle and cranked a knob, and out came 3 or 4 little coloured pebbles. You could then feed the pebbles back into the machine. It was a great treat to be allowed to play with the executive toy on Daddy's desk.

I was a teenager before I realised that the 'pebbles' were peanut M&Ms, and that DDad had been rewarding us by not giving us chocolate!

"Are we nearly there yet?"
"Yes.

10 minutes later

"We're not nearly there yet are We?"
"We are, just round this corner, keep looking".

These are so lovely to read. I’ll be stealing some for my DS.

My dad was fabulous about Christmas. Always had an answer. He also wrote us personal letters from Father Christmas. This genuinely kept me believing til I was 11 - there was no way the letters from
Santa could be him as his handwriting was normally illegible and the stories in them were so good. Turns out he tooks HOURS to do it at work and took stories from Tolkein’s book that he’d done for his kids. I cried when DS was just 6 months last Christmas and I saw an envelope with his name on in that handwriting.

We also did car spotting, but number plates. R or S were good ones for the year (it had to be the first letter). Kept us silent in the car and how to be honest too!! When we got board we’d have 30 second bonus rounds where you’d choose a colour on the motorway.

As a teenager my mum played it very cool. She’d buy me WKD (so I didn’t drink anything stronger!) and let me go out (but be back by a certain time and I always was so I could go again). It seemed to work much better than friends who had super strict parents and would just rebel and stay out all night

My 8 year old drinks nothing really but water. I’ve been telling her for years its ‘Go Faster Juice’ so she thinks she’ll beat all her friends at running

My nan used to make us her special water, tap water with blue food coloring in it! I was always so amazed by her blue water!

When sharing a bit of cake or something, one cuts, the other chooses. My sister's look of concentration when she was cutting, making sure they were completely equal sizes!

Yes! My parents did this, and I've done it with my dc. Makes any sharing very fair when (s)he that divides gets last choice of piece.

Great thread @Geekster1963

My version of Plain Juice was called 'What the lions drink' and was hugely popular!

My mum would take a bite out of the carrot we left outside for Rudolph. I remember being beside myself with excitement every year that Rudolph had had some of our carrot.

We also used to have the Snow Goose, who would leave books hidden around the house for us to read at bedtime. And the Giant Pumpkin, who came to round up all the old pumpkins after Halloween for his army. I was scared of him. These were my dad’s creations - he had an amazing imagination, could make anything seem possible, and I’ll always regret my DD won’t get to meet him and hear his stories too .

I very much loved a story featuring an abandoned puppy and one day I was told to look outside the front door to find a soft toy version of the EXACT PUPPY. To this day I don’t know how they got hold of one, he was very distinctive and you didn’t have the internet back then to track such things down.

I cried because I was so happy he had found me and wasn’t alone anymore. I still have him, he’s come with me to every flat I’ve ever lived in since I moved out.

The cake one is a great idea. Me and my sisters used to have half a mars bar each on Sundays and some very careful measuring always took place!

When we were on a beach my mum would instigate a Stone Competition. Who can find the roundest stone/smallest stone/most glittery stone etc etc. Children industriously combing the beach for hours giving her time to read a book.

reggaetonlente your dad sounds fantastic

I've noticed in recent years that children leave a glass of milk on Christmas Eve for Father Christmas, where I used to leave a glass of sherry, (my Mum wasn't a fan of milk!).

Santa smoked my dad’s cigar one year. I was furious!! How dare he be so cheeky! Cookies and milk in every house are perfectly adequate!

What a nice thread. Wish my children were still young enough to use these!

Thanks bird, that’s kind of you to say, he was a lovely man. We lost him 17 weeks ago today far too young at 55. I hope he can live on in how we raise our DD.

My parents had great imaginations! I dropped a ball down a gully once and my dad had to fight a troll I get it back! I was so proud of his troll fighting skills!

When my goldfish died was very unwell my mum took it the vet. It had to stay in the vet hospital for a while then came back ( a bit smaller and lighter, because, you know he'd had an operation!) The third time he went to the vets I found him floating in the toilet. Do you know, that fish knew he was dying and leapt out of his tank at the vets and Sean all the way home through the sewer system to see me one last time! What a fish!!!!

I inherited my monster fighting skills from my dad and my children never feared monsters. I have always had special powers ( although now they are teens those powers are not always enough )

Lovely heart warming stories

Oh I’m so sorry reggae, that is very young! When I was reading your first post detailing his stories about the goose and the pumpkin it just sounded so magical. I wish I had been smart enough to think of things like that for my DC. If I have grandchildren, I’ll Tell them about your Dad’s snow goose and giant pumpkins.

Oh please do. He’d be delighted

My youngest is 9, do you think I could convince him there is a magic giant pumpkin? He still believes in Santa. I think maybe I could convince him that I just found out about it and how silly have we been to clear away our own pumpkins all these years!

It wouldn’t hurt to try! The Giant Pumpkin comes to round them all up to join his army - it’s a great honour for the pumpkins and we had to think hard about the scariest face to carve into them so they’d be good soldiers for him. No idea who they were fighting though, that never seemed important.

Reggae

this might just be loveliest thread ever on MN.

I've told this story already this week (on the thread about the step daughter asking inappropriate questions), but when me/DSis used to ask our parents who their favourite was, DDad used to say "neither of you. It's a combination of both of you which doesn't actually exist". And -even back then - I knew EXACTLY what he meant. Me for being jolly and full-on. HER for being sensible. Her negativity counterbalancing my full-on-ness when it was too much. etc etc
It was a really good answer to that question.

Oh that’s brilliant!! Thank you reggae! I am suddenly really excited about Halloween now!

We did the cut and choosing one, and also the 3 second rule for seats.
If we had bad dreams, my dad used to shake the pillow, to get rid of them.

One that probably seems archaic now in these safety cautious days was that penknives were confiscated if anyone cut themselves, for the exact time it took the cut to heal. (We were very careful.)