To ask you for your funny parenting fail stories?

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It's Monday night, wet and rainy and cold with no hope for the sun coming back this week. The tension everywhere (not just in scotland) about the referendum and general life and woes and worries seem to be mounting up more than ever and I thought we could all use a laugh for a bit.

So anyone got any funny parenting fails? (if fails is the right word?)

A couple weeks ago my ds was refusing to get out the bath so i pulled the plug and went "quick now, don't want the plug monster coming up!" In a jokey way (to clarify - ds loves monsters with a passion! Wasn't trying to scare him!!) At the exact same moment the water made a massive gurgling sound. My son started to shake, his eyes went wide and he started screaming as he attempted to climb out the bath rather quickly and almost fell head first over the side.

I grabbed him and wrapped him in a towel, hugged him close as he attempted to leg it out the bathroom butt naked and told him I was only joking, there was no such thing as the plug monster and mummy was being silly and didn't mean to scare him.

He calmed down relatively quickly and asked me what the plug monster was doing now. Repeated that there was no such thing as the plug monster and not to worry. Of course, the next time I tried to bath him he became hysterical and in an effort to show him there was no monster I got "magic plug monster vanishing water" and let him pour it down the plug (water in a bubble bath bottle). All fine and dandy.

Except today I went to run his bath to find him sitting in it (empty) having just finished squeezing a whole bottle of shampoo down the drain. He looks at me innocently and goes "Don't worry mummy, I scared the monster away!" and I nearly pissed myself laughing and didn't bother giving him into trouble as it was my own stupid fault

TheDiet - er, hang on, I asked if you really meant to imply you had eleven children, and you answered "yes I did", so why the blushing emoticon and the admission of failure? So you do have eleven children. That's unusual but you'll have to explain why you think you're a failure!

DadDadDad she meant her DS was 11 and the acronyms were confusing :)

Poolomoomon would have had a heart attack lol

Thanks, Pretty, I assumed that was probably what was meant. I just didn't want to get in the firing line for some MNetters who would say "why are you assuming someone doesn't have eleven children? you smug two-is-the-perfect-number-of-children-anything-more-is-selfish parents make me sick!!"

I am parodying, and in any case, I don't have two children as you can probably deduce from my username.

When I was little my younger sister loved coffee ice-cream, but all the coffee ice creams mum could find contained egg, to which Dsis was terribly allergic. So Mum bought a big bottle of coffee essence and mixed it with vanilla ice-cream - voila!

Anyway, one night Mum was feeling particularly harried and fraught and DSis was pestering for her dessert. Mum whisked the essence into the ice-cream and served it up.

DSis started eating but after just one taste started moaning that it wasn't nice any more. Mum was exasperated and insisted that she had made it so DSis should eat it (muttering something about ungrateful brats).

A few mouthfuls and many tears later Mum finally grabbed the spoon and had a mouthful to prove that it was exactly the same as ever. At this point she realised she had accidentally mixed the Wostershire Sauce with the vanilla ice-cream rather than the coffee essence. Parenting fail!! We still bring it up!

setting light to my 2 yr olds hair at a christingle.
In my defence it was accidental

Oh and leaving my daughter in a car carry seat thing at security check at Chicago airport and having an officer run after me shouting 'Madam, don't forget your baby'

DC1 we were playing evil super nanny (as you do) at bedtime, he stepped back instead of jumping out the way and got a massive smack on his bare bum, a HUGE red handprint. He was crying and laughing and I was just wondering what on earth I could tell nursery the next morning. He's 16 now and still remembers...fondly!
DC2 had what I thought was a tumour in his nose, it was a red smartie he'd shoved up there. The blood was the red due and the white tumour was the smartie bit.
DC3 was in the kitchen covered in blood all over his face and hands, I was beyond panicking and wondering why he was so calm. I got closer and smelt roses. It was a full bottle of Benefit Benetint he'd found and wanted to be like mummy.

Altinkum that has really tickled me!! Some very amusing stories all round!

Dad I'm useless. I should give up altogether. What Pretty said.

I have 6 children and the one I decided to jump out of the dark on is 11 years old.

Alt I can just picture that

TheDiet - don't give up. It's more down to me getting in a tangle to avoid inadvertently making the wrong assumption.

DD was 1, we were at toddler group, and I was having a rant about health and safety rules. Going on about how there's no need to be so bloody safety-conscious all the time...

Just as DD pulled a cup of tea down off the table and all over her.

Luckily it wasn't very hot. But the shame!

When my DS2 was a few weeks old I was waiting for the HV to come round and feeling very pleased with myself - we'd only moved in a month before and I had the whole house clean and tidy and had even started doing some decorating. I was feeling quite smug until I went into the living room to discover that DS1 aged 2 had managed to lever the lid off the tin of paint that was sitting on the table from my earlier efforts and had painted the new sofa, the new carpet and the cat!! The poor Health Visitor arrived about 10 minutes later and ended up helping me wash the poor cat in the kitchen sink!! I felt rather less smug by then!!

This was the same child who had found one of his dad's screwdrivers aged 18 months and had started taking the backs off my dining chairs!

Not me, but DH - playing with our two DDs, aged 3 & 5, and they asked him to be a monster & scare them. He said no, because he was done playing and wanted to read his book, but they begged and begged and begged, demonstrating elaborately exactly HOW they wanted to be scared. They were to stand on the stairs, and he was to hide around the corner and jump out at them as a monster and say BOO! in a very specific way.

Finally he complied (in order to make them leave him alone), and wearily followed their instructions to the LETTER.

Only they must have forgotten (?) that he was actually going to do it, and they both burst into terrified and hysterical tears, and he had to spend the next 15 minutes curled up on the couch with them consoling them and stroking their hair until the sobs finally abated and they all watched My Little Pony to calm down.

Oh, and I forgot DD1 in the LABOUR ROOM. Had my shower and tottered off to the ward. Completely forgot that there was a baby who was supposed come too, because in fairness, an hour earlier I hadn't HAD a baby, had I? And I'd been awake and in labour for 33 hours, so I was tired and forgetful.

ahem

DH remembered her and went back and retrieved her before any of the midwives noticed that we'd left her. (he had also been awake for 33 hours, even if he hadn't squeezed a baby out)

Couple of months ago, picked DD up from nursery. Maybe a mile drive home.

Voice pipes up, "Mummy? I've got a baby in my tummy!"

I nearly crashed the car. "Do you?"

"Yes, it's very small now but it will grow!"

I started asking gentle questions to ensure that I didn't need to call the cops on what had seemed like such a good nursery. Then I started to think that maybe she had eaten something to put the "baby" in her stomach, to be like one of the pregnant nursery nurses.

"Oneandonly, did you eat the baby?"

"No, Mummy. I ate sausage!"

This did NOT weaken my urge to call nursery, the police, the Nspcc, and child protection, although I knew I was completely overreacting. Now I find it hysterically funny.

Mrsantithetic I just literally laughed out loud! Pushing baby off the bed because you thought it was the covers - he was pea fully asleep when Mummy out of nowhere shoves him off the bed- sorry but oh that made me laugh! Thank you

When my DS was 2/3, he used to love to hide under the covers of my bed, jumping up and shouting 'Boo' at me when I came in. So I decided he'd find it just as funny if I did it to him.

He didn't.

Had a new one today - my ds was taking ages to walk home from nursery so i gently encouraged him along by placing my hand on his back and steering him in the right direction. He chose that moment to trip over his feet and land face first on the path and bit his lip so blood started running down his chin and it looked like I pushed him! I got some really filthy looks too and dd started crying cause her brother was bleeding

He's fine now btw, not a deep cut and after five minutes and covering my cream jacket in blood he stopped crying and raced dd the rest of the way home

feathermucker Have just read this thread; it hasn't been a good day, but I have laughed until I cried at the picture you painted of your shiny son.... Thank you

DH was fiddling around with his bike in the back garden and has taken the battery out - DS1 potters up and attaches the jump leads as he's seen his dad do ... Wrong terminals! Cue huge shower of sparks and hysterics from poor old old DS1! ( Not to mention the time he got his head stuck through the cat flap and the post lady surprised me while I was taking a photo ... )

DS2 forgot to put the little trainer loo-seat on the loo and fell in - we ignored his howls for ages as we thought he was making it up ...

Will never forget my ds then aged 2 was messing with some coins on the floor ,next minute I could see a 1p was missing and I panicked thinking he had swallowed it.
I was looking in his mouth and going into full panic mode.
Ended up taking him hospital and after crying what had happened they undressed my son to look at him and the 1p was stuck in the top of the nappy he had on , it had gone down his top and into his nappy.
I was so relieved as I envisaged X-rays to spot the missing penny or even worse checking his poo!

Another one was my son then 3 was having a major tantrum in supermarket and I picked him up as he refusing to walk just sat down.
I picked him up under the legs and groin bit as I was trying to restrain him thrashing about and hitting me.

Anyway at the top of his voice he shouted ' your hurting my willy mum' as. I must have caught it holding him like that .
Cue people stop everywhere to see me holding my son like that to stop him wriggling.
I was waiting for someone to come over and say something but strangely my red face must have stopped them

We have a reclining sofa. DS was a screamy, screamy, colicky, refluxy mess of a baby who very, very occasionally slept in the bouncy chair rather than on me. I had to rock him almost to sleep, put him in the chair and rock it with my foot until he was well and truly unconscious.

One day the reclining mechanism wasn't fully back in and flicked out seconds after I took my foot off the bouncer due to me shifting my weight.

The warring emotions in me were terror that I'd killed him and fear that I'd woken him up and would have to start again!

As it happened he cracked one eye, gave me a look and went straight back to sleep, at which point I moved the bouncy chair, kicked the sofa back into place as hard as I could manage and went to make myself a very strong coffee.