Things you hate doing with your kids?

[Iloveanimals]

Aibu to think some things we have to do as parents is torture?
For me it's playing with toys. Games yes. Toys no. The words 'will you play with me' haunt me

Judith can fuck off

Oh godohgodohgod

Fiddly "craft" sets that are marketed at 3 year olds who won't be able to do them and won't let you help and the whole thing turns into them FERREAKING OUT at you for a sustained period of time because they are not dexterous enough to turn a little pile of wool and googly eyes into an animal

Extra points for the ones which are covermounts on magazines and so totally shit they would never have worked anyway

And they don't believe you when you say "look, this is just rubbish. can I get you some decent stuff to stick together instead?" because they want the one from the MAGAZIIIIIIIIINE and now a vital plastic little bit is snapped and AAAAAAAARGH

Secondly:

Crowded school fetes in the rain which are held indoors and are violently sweaty and they want to do everything but they refuse to just go up and pay so you are trying to sort of edge them to the front without actually pushing in, because you are an adult, but the children themselves aren't actually queueing, so you need the sort of child equivalent of bar presence, which, if your children are in Reception they don't have, but you can't really take control as an adult of shoving your child ahead other children, even if they are 9, and ..... the eventual outcome, when you finally negotiate all this, is that they will win some horrific pile of chewy sugar which they will then take in and out of their mouths for the rest of the day and everyone and everything will arrive home coated in a film formed of saliva and sugar

Anti Grinch- that second paragraph described my DC's schools cake sale, every bloody week the same, no orderly queues, thankfully they are now in senior!

Playing imagination games with Filly or Safira dragons (they are like Sylvanian families but dragons/extremely kitsch little ponies). When DD2 plays them alone it's like "look at my awesome kid and the wonderful magical world she lives in" but when she makes me join in I'm like "fuck imagination, I wonder if I could get her to stop this and watch kinder egg unboxing videos on YouTube so I don't have to put on a little purple dragon voice"

Swimming is the work of the devil. Thank god I paid those fees and didn't have to take them.

Listening to my 9 yr old DS relate in painfully extensive detail the entire plot of a film he's seen recently. 'And theeeeeen, the father says that he is actually a superhero. And theeeeeen, the girls says . . . .or wait, actually it was the boy, no, it was the girl, says etc etc'.

And pretending to be amused by the youtube 'funny clips' . . . . 'wait wait mum, you'll LOVE this one, the dog falls into a puddle'.

Lol at AntiGrinch's description of a summer fete! Very accurate.

I hate: the park as it's so boring, swimming with kids who can't swim (except when DD has her weekly lesson as I swim in the big pool at the same time), birthday parties when you don't know anyone, soft play (the lighting is always awful and there's no chance to talk to friends as the kids are trying to kill each other), play dates when the kids just make a mess and won't leave me alone, stupid fat filled magazines, going out with bikes or scooters and ending up carrying the bloody things.

However I love craft, music groups, muddy walks preferably with pub lunch at one end, messy play, toddler groups, theme parks, zoo, trips to a cafe, the library, going to friends' houses. And bedtime

reading bloody Mr Men books, my DH has got them hooked on having one at bedtime. But DH isn't here during the week much and I started off indifferent and now can't stand the things. They have loads of great books but oh no only a Mr Man hits the spot!

Mr Men books are utter shite. Roger Hargreaves - shit writer!

Playdough - always gets crushed into my carpet!

Lego- I have zero imagination when it comes to building. I build walls which of course is not good enough for my 5 year old he wanted a oil rig complete with a heli pad.

Pokemon go - walking around for ages and only finding that stupid little rat thing. My son wastes all the balls trying to catch it then two steps down the street some super rare amazing pokemon appears and we have no fucking balls!!

All of the above...except swimming. We have a HEATED BEACH POOL near us
I just basically sit in the corner and relax while DD plays. Bliss.

board games / card games

Every now and again I forget how AWFUL it is, and do a "lets turn off the telly/radio and play a board game as a family - in my head it's idyllic - real old fashioned quality time

OMG I seriously love each one of my family members (including DH) slightly less when we attempt board games
DD2 is so flippin anal. This is usually a good quality: she's usually very organised and very fair and just - it's FUCKING ANNOYING with board games because "games" are supposed to be "fun" DD!!
DD1 goes the other way, fidgets with the parts of the game and eventually gets bored, she is too competitive too and is a sore loser - usually I love her free spirit and creativity, but it's FUCKING ANNOYING when you just wanted to finish ONE ROUND of a board game like a normal fucking family!
DH always comes out with some bollocks interpretation of the rules that is totally WRONG - he always tries to play by weird made up versions of the rules that he's inherited from the IL, who I usually love, but it's FUCKING ANNOYING because who doesn't know the normal bloody way to play fucking scrabble???
I even like me less because I just get SO FUCKING ANNOYED that the activity never looks like the lovely family scene I had in my head…..

The playground

I'm on edge the whole time thinking they will fall, trip and fall, be pushed by someone and fall, or try to copy other kids climbing on top of things looking as if they are about to fall.

Then there is the whole social drama about sand toys at the park. Sharing, not sharing, communal, not communal.....

Also parks with no shade for parents = hot like the surface of the sun.

Cleaning their teeth. Don't know why, but it's worst part of the day. Rounding them up-I've only got 2 but one always vanishes, doing the timer and reminding them how to brush. As I teacher, I repeat myself all day. It's just the final straw when I come home and do it again.

Barbies. I rarely get time, but if Dd happens to catch me sitting without a pen in my hand, she makes me p l at. I want to go on adventures with the Avengers, but she wants them to go for walks and change their clothes.

And Crappy craft sets:
Paint your own bird house (with washable paint and wood that isn't rain proof? for what? all the indoor birds we don't have?)
Paint your own money box - geee ANOTHER money box, yaaaay
Paint your own picture frame - kids find them boring but once the darlings have put a single mark on it you're supposed to feel obliged to cherish and display their "cration" for ever

Trick-or-treating. Trailing round people's houses in the cold and dark collecting stuff that I'm not entirely happy about them eating the sweets always last till sodding summer In fact I can't stand Halloween.

Soft play. Especially when they ask you to join in.

Even talking to a toddler is a trial. My natural conversational style is not so much conversation as intellectual book, and I can't do the bright voice and babytalk without feeling horribly foolish.

The game which I stupidly invented when DD was on the brink of a tantrum while holding her witch's wand (god knows where that came from) which lights up and makes a vaguely magical noise when pressed. So like a FUCKING IDIOT I pretended she'd turned me into a frog and hopped around the room ribbiting.

The tantrum was averted but on balance I would have done better just to let it happen. This evening I was turned into a dog and then a cat about eleventy million times. When I pleaded for variation I got to be a white dog and a black cat.

Laura you've actually made me laugh out really loud there! In a room where there's people... Now I look really weird

Anything craft based because I'm totally cack-handed. Playing at shop (setting it all up - arsing about with plastic vegetables where the tomato was bigger than the cabbage). Hours and hours of Thomas the Tank on Video and all the track trailing all over the house. Even now, if I hear the music, I want to throw up.

And finally...Pretend. Im an Aspie and it goes right over my head.

"Come and watch our show!"

Shudder

"Come and watch our show!"

They're never fucking ready!!

MUUUUM WE'RE READY TO DO OUR SHOW NOW COME AND SEE
Okay
No wait whisper whisper okay,
Okay we're ready now
No you go on this side I'll go on that side
hang on
Okay, ready… wait… pretend the curtain is there okay and the curtain is closed…………………..

……………………..

Oh god the shows!!
Not quite there with dd2 yet. But remember them with dd1. Can't believe I'm going to have to live through that again

Putting the toys to bed. Literally dozens of toys around the house tucked up into beds / sofas / boxes / chairs / shoes. Nowhere to sit and if I dare move a precious pony, I'm in trouble.

I enjoy most of their games (they are 3 and 5) apart from the mess they create!

Fucking Air Hockey.

It's noisy, the table never works properly, he cheats by resting his forearm over the goal, I'm off balance because I have to keep my bag safe from the dodgy arcade goers, my hands get bashed up, and it costs a quid for about two minutes.

My pet hate is craft activities, especially when it creates mess! I agree with a pp that glitter is evil lol. I hate lune bands even more. And as for painting, don't get me started on that. Fortunately, I have a DH who is an engineer and loves doing craft activities with our two DDs. :)