To wonder what are the most [shock] family habits you've ever encountered?

[Sapph1e]

Mine are: an ex years ago was one boy with two sisters and one night we got talking about what they called their genitalia when they were growing up. I was flabbergasted when he said "Oh, I had a 'cock' and my sisters had 'minges'"

However that was not as bad as the family BBQ (same family) where we were all sitting around a table having a lovely lunch; me, ex-bf, his parents, sisters, sisters' boyfriends and then ex-MIL casually mentioned that she hadn't woken up till 9am that morning.
"That's not true," says ex-FIL promptly, "I heard you having a shit at 5." did not cover it.

I

Lovihg this thread, we always talked as the dog and cats growing up. Now we have a 3 month old baby and two dogs, the long running joke is that youngest dog and the baby text each other whilst the older dog tells them off. The dogs also keep up on twitter with othervdogs they know, I thought this was quite normal but I can see staying at home with a baby has madevme lose mynmind!

My mum thinks she is very stealthy. When we go out to lunch, she will often zone in on some other party. She does this down turned, flat lipped thing, whereby she will whisper loudly out of the side of her mouth "QuickSilver, look at that women two tables behind you..She has her pugapoodle tucked into her bosom! For God's sake! Don't turn your head! Just take a peek with your knife handle.."

MIL used to invite DH & I over and insist we stayed the night because she missed him.

We'd arrive and she would either be out or just about to go out. We were never invited.

She usually had dinner plans we were vaguely invited to and then plans for the morning! We would barely see her. It was so odd.

This went in for years. DH thought it was totally normal

Went to a child's first birthday(close relative)and a close family member(not related to me other side of the family)Physically wrestled the Mum of the birthday child on the floor.

Apparently she did it a lot to multiple members of the family she was in her 50's at the time.Jaws on floor of myself,my mother,my DH and all of our children everyone else stood around blushing.

DH's family are all somewhat musical. At family gatherings they take along their instruments and have a jam session (usually in the music room, they all seem to have music rooms). This isn't too odd, well it is to me as my family just eat and drink too much when we get together, but they took it to another level at the last party I went to.
It was a silver wedding party and the couple had hired a venue complete with stage and microphones. After we'd all eaten various family members got up and did a turn, mostly singing self penned songs. A lot of the guests were friends of the couple rather than family members and I don't think they were expecting a concert. I still can't quite decide if it was nice or cringy.

My sister does the Lion King thing with our cats - holding them above her head and singing the beginning of the Circle of Life thing.

Crap - I do that with my fairly newborn niece

My friends mum speaks to people entirely through her dog. 'Wiggles is pleased to see you. Wiggles says 'do you want a cup of tea'. Wiggles is hoping for a no vote in the Scottish referendum'....it's like she and the dog have melded into one inane personality.

Also, my next door neighbours have noisy sex and then....sing songs to each other! Neither can actually sing.

emeline, she's 9, nearly 10. Obsessed with dogs and singing...

My mum used to do that holding/moving the toys while speaking for them, nomontague , my sister was paranoid that there were spiders in her bed (to be fair, there had been one, once, and it left her petrified) so she used to have 2 of her toys do 'spider patrol' where my mum would bounce them all over the bed before she got in, having them go 'no spiders?' 'no spiders!' to each other in RAF type accents, then have them report back to my sister that the bed was officially clear of spiders...

Oh my god at the SIL and her artistic vagina photo

Yep. She just got married and I'm trying to find her wedding present, so obviously my husband and I die laughing when we consider the possible return favors.

I'm taking the high road.

What does an artistic photo of a vagina look like? And to give it to your brother?!

I'm going to have to delete all these posts in due course.

Its her bits covered in fishnet stockings, with her cat looking at it.

I can post a picture - it's pretty amusing. But I'll have to delete it.

You have to post it!

Definitely post it!!

Post it!

When DBro and I were still at home, DMum had a rather small kitchen, so small that you could fit the three of us in it only if he stood halfway in the pantry and I sat on the bench with my legs crossed (there was about 6 inches next to me. I maintained this was plenty to be getting on with).
We did this a lot- mum would be cooking, DBro would drift in to talk to mum and take up his place half-in the pantry, then I'd come along and perch on the bench until she accused us of Lurking and threw us out.

Now she's moved and her kitchen is cavernous. When we come for dinner, DBro and I stand as close to DMum as possible, so close we could lick each other's face, and mutter "lurk lurk lurk lurk..."

Until she accuses us of Lurking and chases us with tongs.

I never realised how weird this is until DP came over and looked at us like we had three heads each.

I cackled out loud at the wall carpet cat brooch and the fart stepping.

This will probably out me to any family members on MN. DH and I find one another in the house by saying 'Bab.' in a voice like the aliens in Mars Attacks. The house rambles a bit and it's easy to vanish in it, so when one of us gets in we'll say 'BAB.' loudly into thin air and if the other one is in you'll hear a faint 'Bab.' from somewhere else in the house. All text messages are also prefixed with bab, and sometimes we just text 'Bab' to each other.

I can usually tell what mood DH is in by the tone of the bab that comes back. If he doesn't bab back at all then he's either ill, unhappy or in a mood. It's probably a bit odd quite useful

My mum and I speak to each other in the voices of our old next door neighbours, using their barmy phrases and accents. We do this so much we can't stop it now and I struggle to speak normally when I'm with her. We text in this language too. This allows us to swear quite a lot and be fairly vulgar...things we would never do in RL, as my mum is very strict and religious. I think she gets a massive thrill from saying "well you can fuck off LindaJill" in a northern accent when she is a very middle class elderly lady from the south east who goes to church most days!

I think having these outlets prevents us from going truly mad!

Oh TheLovelyBoots please post a pic!

These are hilarious. Love the cat up the carpet!

Ex boyfriend and family were a constant source of 'chin hitting the floor' episodes. He used to eat off a tray on his knee, about three feet from his (giant) TV screen. Sitting on the sofa edge but leaning right into the TV, not blinking while scoffing. No chat allowed at all during this event and to finish off, he'd lick his knife and then lick his plate (several times) and THEN turn to me, sit up straight and say quite seriously "of course I wouldn't do this if I was out." < oh, that's alright then obviously!"> The trouble was, the behavior was so ingrained, he DID do it while he was out.

My mum puts the cat on the phone to us, because apparently she likes to talk on the phone. And I talk to the cat. And ask it questions. And pause so it can answer. And respond to what I imagine it might have said. I like the cat. It's a nice cat. But it's not great at phone calls.

Once my DD put one of our cats on the phone to my mum's cat so they could talk to each other. It went on for far longer than you'd imagine was possible. This seemed to make everyone involved (both human and feline) very happy, apart from my beloved and long-suffering DH, who was clearly considering whether he should just go to a hotel for a few days to think things over.

Lurking for the picture

Also lurking for photo. My skoda car bleeps (internally so no sound heard outside the car) at other skodas. Nothing to do with me.