Nice activities or outings you've done with the kids that have turned into an absolute shitshow

[Silverstoat]

Bought the Hedgehog biscuit kit from Asda for a nice Sunday afternoon activity with the kids. Instead of a cookie cutter it's a hedgehog drawn on the inside of the box that you're supposed to cut out and use as a stencil 🤨 cue meltdowns from both dc as its impossible to cut out details in wet biscuit dough. Ds dropped a big piece of dough that was immediately gobbled up by ddog, I breathed in the icing powder and almost had an asthma attack, and then to top it all off they tasted like shit.

I took my two, probably 5&3 to the Manchester airport viewing area. It was sunny when we left. Of course the rain clouds gathered as we got there. There was an inflatable castle thing, both said they wanted to go on. While waiting to pay, older one decides he doesn't want to so I paid for 3 year old. Who goes on it on his own without realising, gets to the top of the steps and spent the entire time crying asking for his brother. I can't remember how we got him down, I probably went up myself. Then it started raining, the bickering started, no one was interested in the planes. I marched them back to the car and I think I might have cried on the way home. So much for a fun morning out.

@HowNice23 your post reminded me of the time I took DS to see The Hunger Games and as soon as it got to the actual games arena part crying primary school children were taken out in dribs and drabs.

Mind you we had similar and had to take a distraught DS6 out of a Doctor Who stage show as soon as the Darleks appeared - they snorted out dry ice and it freaked him out. Goodness knows how much those tickets cost.

Years ago when the kids were four and 18 months the ILs paid a fortune for front row seats at a Xmas circus. It lasted over 2 hours. First act was these MASSIVE horses thundering round. DD begn howling in terror and I had to take her out about 20 seconds in and spend two hours walking her round the freezing car park in her pram.

Oh an old one... paid a fortune to take DS to 'Disney on Ice' and it was advertised with huge picture of the cast of cars. They had actual cars that looked like the characters that would be on the ice and they where pushing the promotion of that.

Sounded great... except the WHOLE show was people dressed up as tinkerbell and doing esentially a lazy panto that DS was not remotely interested in. Then they brought the cars out for ONE lap of the ice at the end. Nothing to do with the story and over in a flash.

Felt like some serious false advertising.

Another vote for Hamleys is awful. feel like Hamleys has really gone downhill since I was a kid. It actually used to be rather magical and quite classy at Christmas (and indeed the rest of the year) but now it's brash, noisy, overpowering and overcrowded. I popped in recently when I was in the area to buy a birthday gift for DS and I am SO glad I went alone, it was horrible and my kid would have been tantruming within minutes.

We went to Edinburgh zoo once, nothing scary or traumatic happened but DS moaned constantly and refused to look at any of the animals. We then went to hard rock cafe where he cried, threw food on the floor then fell asleep.

At the end of the holiday his favorite memory was not the pandas or penguins or anything it was the 'pigeon outside the toilet'.

This thread is a sort of antidote to FOMO isn’t it. We should all feel better about all those things we don’t do because it probably would have been shit anyway.

This reminds me of taking dd to see Bing and Flop at a toy shop last year. It was a two hour journey each way but she loved the programme and books and it's rare I'm able to do something like that for her so thought it would be worth it.

It was not. Like the pp she was petrified by the giant characters and though I managed a photo with them she was not happy. Bizarrely though, as soon as we left them she was desperate to go back.

"Animals of Indonesia" reminds me of spending £15k to take the DC on a tour of Costa Rica (it was ace, would go back with DH). On Day 5, a bat got tangled in my hair and 9yo DD freaked out. By Day 6, DD was waking up batting dream insects away, freaking out DS and sobbing that she hated nature and wanted it all to go away.

She was fine when we got to the AI resort part of the tour and could eat "free" ice cream and play in the pool all day. DS spent a whole day in bed playing on his Switch and ordering room service.

We went to Mallorca the following year.

Also, leaving the cinema during the opening credits of Finding Dory because 3yo DD started screaming and jumping on her chair. Total waste of money!

I'm late to this thread but this is the waterpark story! I actually read this a few months before going to Blackpool and almost didn't go to the waterpark because of it 😂

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4751112-to-ask-if-you-can-beat-this-seventh-circle-of-hell-day-out-lighthearted?reply=124208567

Would help if I posted the link 🙄

@BlowDryRat you did better than us - the cinema was nearly empty when we saw it and DD (similar age) was so unnerved by the empty seats that we didn't make it through the adverts!

😆

@TheFormidableMrsC that's all I remember about our one trip to Legoland as a family. Wasps EVERYWHERE & v long queues on a boiling hot day. One of my DC was horrendously grumpy all day too.

Not me but am posting on behalf of a family we saw out the other night.
who should have cut their losses and gone home

They were at the same restaurant pre-theatre mother, father and 2 DS's aged around 9 ish and 11 ish. The elder DS was violently sick at the table in the restaurant right behind us-the restaurant did take some money off of the bill as the splatter reached us.

Then we went to see a show-it was theatre in the round and the family was sitting directly across us on the seats actually on the stage. I think you know where this is going-he was sick all over the stage!!!!!!!!!!

I know it would have been a shame to miss it but once the DS had been sick once who thinks it is a good idea to take him to a packed theatre????

lol!

I think dd made it about 20 mins into Finding Dory!

Pretty much everything has gone to pieces at least once over the years (dc now 12 and 15). The hedgehog biscuit kit sounds particularly rubbish though!!

Panto matinee maybe 9 or 10 years ago.

At lunchtime - DS (6 ish) being horrible to everyone. Told him he wouldn't be going if his behaviour didn't improve. It didn't, dh and ds stated at home. DD (3 ish) and I went to panto, met up with friends as arranged. Friend's dd threw up in car park. They went home. So DD and I has 6 seats to ourselves. Early on DD got really scared. We went and sat on the stairs. She managed an ice cream at the interval, refused to go back in the theatre, so we went home.

I posted earlier in the thread about taking my 3 DC to see the winter lights at Kew Gardens. It went about as expected to be honest!

DC are 6, 8 and 11 and perfectly capable of walking the mile and a half through the park and are pretty hardy and used to walking in all weather. Despite loading up on dinner before we left and making sure everyone was comfortable and ready to go, we inexplicably experienced a “hurting ankle”, headaches, sore fingers (?!), hunger pains, feeling sad (?!), and intolerably itchy palms - all of which were complained about greatly during the walk round but somehow miraculously disappeared when we left.

We hiked a few miles to a secluded and inaccessible beach laden with picnic, towels etc. arrived and the naughty puppy legged it to the other end of the beach. Spent 20 mins chasing him. Then ds needed a poo. He flatly refused to consider a hole in the dunes so I half ran half carried him all across the cliff tops to the car park loos by which time the poo had inevitably gone back up and no longer needed out. Returned to the beach. Could hear dd’s having a tantrum, echoing from about a mile away, she was furious about something so by the time me and ds got back dh had had enough of the tantruming toddler and naughty escapologist puppy and packed up to go home. I reckon I clocked up about 12 miles and didn’t actually get to go in the sea or have any picnic

When DS was 4 we went on holiday in Devon/Cornwall. Booked a canoe trip on the River Tamar (being Canadian, this was a highlight for me). On the drive there our car broke down, so we were late arriving and had everyone waiting for us. As soon as we pushed off from the dock, the skies opened up and we were monsooned on for the entire paddle which was about an hour. DS started screaming crying about 2 minutes in and didn’t let up for the entire trip. DH and I paddled so fast to try to the spare the rest of the group from the screeching that we were in front of the guides and they didn’t even mind.

When we got back to the dock we hightailed it out of there so fast we probably left a wake in the sodden grass. I think everyone else despised us that day.

We went to the Eden Project on that same holiday. Walking down to the domes, the skies opened up on us again. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a violent drenching.

Naughty Tree

😂 😂 😂 😂 😂
Ha sorry, meant to reply to 9ne messageun particular but so many 9f these made me laugh out loud!

It was February half term, when my reception aged daughter demanded to go to Plessey Woods. At one in the afternoon, it was minus 2°

Typical palarver of getting ready, she refused to wear gloves to the point that she threw them on the pavement as I closed the car door. "OK, don't moan about cold hands," I said and threw them in the porch.

It was, according to the car, minus 5° when we got there, at about 2:30. I warned her not to go in the river, or on the ice, but of course, she contrived a way to "accidentally" slide down the bank. That went well. She went through the ice and got soaked, hurting her bum, to boot.

As I was knee deep, fishing her screaming, crying arse out, our Labrador thought, "Ha hey! This looks fun!" and crashed into the back of my knees. I was wringing from the waist down and DD from head to foot.

I managed to calm her, get her tights and leggings off and put my fleece on her. She couldn't walk and was screaming about how much the cold hurt, so I had to carry her back to the car, up a churned up, half frozen muddy track. I had her tights and leggings round my neck.

Her wellies kept falling off, so I had to carry them, too. Of course, it then decided to sleet, with the wind blowing it into my face all the bloody way to the car.

I had to try to dry her with the horrible, scratchy army surplus blanket from the boot (estate car) which is there to stop the dog's grime from spoiling the carpet. More tears an screaming, I'm sure it did hurt!

I could barely clench my hands, we stopped for ten minutes with the heating on full blast, before I felt able to leave.

Got home, my wife agreed that it was all my fault and what was for dinner? Well, as she'd been lying on the couch watching telly all day, I had no idea... my fault too!