Lovely things you remember your parents doing

[letsgomaths]

Let's have a thread about something nice, to cheer up a windy August Saturday. What nice things do you remember your parents (or other relatives) doing?

My mum has always been great with photo albums, complete with captions and dates, and has an impressive collection to show for it.

She also made lovely books about trips we went on, again with photos, and decorated with paint and felt tips. When she was away for a week taking her pupils on a school trip, she used to do a little book about it in advance for my dad to read to us.

My dad taught me a lot of practical things: riding a bike, playing chess, computing, putting together flat pack furniture, mostly with lots of patience.

My mum and dad used to both make up stories at bed time . My mums were about 3 kittens and my dads were about a girl who would dig things up in the back of her garden and end up in different worlds .

My nan used to make us ‘something sweet’. Her pumpkin pies were to die for. And doughnuts. Any deserts she made were just heavenly.

Making Christmas and Easter feel so special.

Bringing us up to know that we were safe, secure and loved.

My Mum used to make 'faces' out of my tea sometimes. Sausages for mouth, peas for hair for example. I used to love it!

My Grandma would stamp my toast before cooking it, with plastic shapes and slogans such as hearts, and 'good morning' .... I felt really spoilt. Bless her!

I remeber my dad going for a nap once and I was trying to sneak up the stairs to surprise him. He obviously knew I was there and as soon as I got high enough to see him through the bannister he would start lifting his limbs as if he was being abducted into the air by aliens. As soon as I started giggling he would drop his arms and legs abruptly and I'd run back down the stairs to try and sneak up and see if he was still being abducted. Poor sod didnt get his nap!

When I stayed over somewhere like a relatives house when i was little and my mum and I had to share a bed, we'd snuggle up and she would say "let's pretend we're in a caravan and its rainy and windy outside but we're all cosy"

Wet Saturday afternoons, DM reading to us, followed by drop scones with golden syrup. Long walks with DF pointing out mushrooms, or picking nuts and berries.

My mum use to make us valentines cards, which at the time we thought were lame but looking back was really sweet.

My dad taught me to make scrambled eggs, and is still very prud to make them for my sister and I on Christmas morning. In a pan on the hob or it's not "proper". He used to love taking us to museums and the aquarium in london too.

My mum and I used to go to tesco and get a packet of icing letters as a treat (the horror! Would never do this with ds now!)

My Dad used to bring us snacks when we were watching TV; he cut up fruit, or even something like a mars bar, and make it look really nice. He used to go away a lot, trips with his band or the rugby and he always brought me back a little china animal. I had quite a menagerie. My dad wasn’t the most involved or attentive so it’s really nice to think of the odd nice thing he did.

My mum on the other hand was caring and loving 24/7; baked and sewed and made us gorgeous things and was generally wonderful.

They made Christmas so special for us. They were skint bless them but always managed to get loads of food and treats in and creating such a buzz.
Mum was great at doing our hair, the girls at school were so jealous of my French plaits.
I mostly remember them just being there for us and being very involved in our lives, never missing a single school play or sport event that we were in.
On the rare occasion that they had some spare cash, Dad especially, would spoil us rotten

I used to love looking round the caves on the beach near our house, one day my parents hid a Fraggle stuffed toy in one for me to find - I was overjoyed

I will always remember the party's my parents had at Hogmanay.
We were aloud to stay up, all the neighbour's came in. I can still see my mum and dad singing. He would give me and my 5 siblings a shandy, we thought it was great.
Happy memories

Oh this is so lovely! I want to be a parent like that!

My Dad would hollow out a swede for us as a Halloween lantern back in the 70's.

He once put on a Halloween party for us and a few of our friends. He used a rubber glove as a jelly mould so it looked like a hand. He iced a spider's web on a sponge cake. All good fun.

My Dad would put his motorcycle goggles on to light the fireworks in the back garden on bonfire night. My mum would make baked potatoes and tomato soup.

Christmas and birthdays etc all good.

So so many.

Mu dad is 74 now, my mother is 71, they have been married for 49 years.

My mother has severe arthritis and she can't get about like she used to. My father is like a teenager, I swear he stopped ageing at 18!

When he came from work, he would grab me by my ankles and hoist me upside down by the front door. He would laugh and say "any money in there Tink" then he would drop 20p from his hands and bob me upside down until I managed to grab the coin. He'd flip me back onto my feet and wink at me saying "keep that for your savings". I always spent it first chance I got!

My mother would warm up our socks on the clothes rail above the fire before we put them on, lovely feeling on a cold winter morning before school.

My father would let me "help" him whenever he was doing any jobs around the house. He would let me mix paint, hold his tape measure, draw the pencil line across the bit of wood he was measuring. I even had my own little "tool set". I felt like a proper grown up when he let me "help" him. I remember the feeling of excitment when he got all his "bits n bobs" out to fix something.

When I was 16 I had my heart broken by my first boyfriend (lying, cheating bastard ). We had a small gazebo at the end of our garden and I used to always go and sit there to work on my teenage angst. The night my boyfriend broke up with me, I was devastated, I ran home and went to sit in the gazebo. My father came out to see me, he didn't say a single word, he just sat beside me with his arm around my shoulder, the two of us stayed there for hours, neither of us spoke. I just cuddled up to him and sobbed my silly little 16 year old heart out . He's a good egg is my Dad!

My mother made the worlds best lemon drizzle cake. The smell of lemons always take me back to being a child, coming in from school to a house filled with warm lemon sented deliciousness.

When I was fascinated by hot air balloons aged five or six, having seen a TV programme about them and what the view looked like, I was given a pretend balloon ride in the garden by my mum and uncle. They told me to feel the big basket in front of me: I couldn't see that it was the laundry basket, because I was blindfolded. They lifted me into it, and told me to keep thinking of what I had seen on TV.

My uncle told me to reach up and put my hand on my mum's shoulder; he then lifted the basket into the air, while my mum crouched down. She gave a commentary about the tiny houses and fields below, and I could hear her voice moving about, sounding as if it was some way below me. I couldn't see a thing, and I was absolutely convinced that my "balloon" was flying high in the air! When it came back down and I was allowed to take off the blindfold, I found that I was in a very different part of the garden from where I had started. To me, this was pure magic, and I didn't find out the secrets for years!

I LOVE THIS thread ♥️

I have countless amazing memories from my childhood and it's lovely thinking about them now, and hearing all of yours!

This thread is so nice and has made me cry. What lovely parents you had. My childhood was nothing like this.

@wanderings that's just awesome 😍

@wanderings- that’s beautiful

These are making me cry a little bit! My Mum used to wrap homemade chips up in newspaper cones. It felt really special!

My Dad used to roast big slices of bread on the fire with a long roasting fork then put a ton of butter on. He was a war baby so being liberal with the butter was a real sign of love!

Going to the pub garden and getting a doctor peppers and packet of beef and onion crisps. Bliss.

When I go home there are alwayd treats on my bedside table. Like a minibar but for snacks. I love it. I do the same now for people staying a mine.

I also still get a Christmas stocking which I love.

My mum once made up 'sundaes' of angel delight and crushed biscuit and chocolate. She brought it to me after I'd gone to bed and we lay in my single bed watching a late night movie with it. I must have been about 12 and it felt like such a naughty thing to do. It also felt really special it was just her and me.

My mum would sing songs on the walk home from school with us to make the (long) walk easier, she always gave me a bit of the pastry dough to play with when she was baking and always played the games I wanted to play.
My Dad spent hours sat by swimming pools as I swam competitively and never complained even though he must have been knackered after being at work all day.