The people you briefly love when you have children.

[Psammead]

Because they make your or your children's day.

I was thinking about this today when DD was waving madly at a bus driving by, and a woman waved back. Thank-you, woman. DD was very happy.

So.

1. People who wave from busses/trains etc
2. People in shops who give your children something free (balloons, slice of luncheon meat, bit of deformed criossant etc)
3. People who smile/wave/make funny faces/chat to your child in a queue, or on a bus, train, plane etc.

You are all brilliant human beings. Add to the list!

What a lovely thread - it has restored my faith in humanity!

The fantastic midwife who delivered my son at home and made me laugh (yes really) throughout the labour (maybe not the last half an hour or so).

Train drivers who wave back and toot their horn when my dcs are waving madly from the bridge.

The young guys making the pizzas in pizza express who put on a real show of tossing the dough for the DDs and then when DD1 (aged 3) drew them a picture were really complimentary about it and thanked her. She was so chuffed!

The many many people (usually teenage boys with hoodies) who helped me carry our enormous P&T or one of our numerous other buggies up and down the stairs of London's various train/tube stations over the last 7 years and/or who held older DD's hand as she walked up/down the stairs while I carried the buggy.

A lovely old lady who came over to tell me while I was tentatively bfing weeks-old DD1 in Ikea how lovely it was to see a baby being fed and how healthy she looked.

The nice man fom Darwin's Deli on the bus who gave me change when I had forgotten my oyster and the bus driver was refsuing to accept a note and it was pouring with rain and I had the 3 DCs with me.

The Beavers volunteers at DD's scout group who give up hours and hours of their time to provide fun, energetic and exhausting activities for the children not only on week nights but also at weekends without ever asking for anything from the parents.

Dd has no idea about this one as she was too young but i still remember!

I picked her up from nursery and heard she had been really good that day. her favourite treat at the time was an m&s jelly with fruit in it so I said we could get one for after dinner as we walked past the shop on the way home. I was waiting in the queue with her super excited about her treat and realised I'd left my purse at nursery after paying the bill and did not have a penny in my bag.

Id had a long day at work and was really upset as i went to put it back and Dd was completely distraught as she was only 2 and I had to explain that we would get one another day and a wee lady gave me money to buy it. She said she had seen how excited she was and couldn't live with herself if she hadn't!

I'm not even ashamed to say I cried...

Definitely a nomination for classics
Thank you for making me smile after a long day at work

Aw lovely thread :) I always make sure to point out waving kids to DH, he's a biker and they love it when he waves. If he doesn't see them then I will wave though, I'm just a passenger so not as cool :p I always remember waving to bikers when I was a kid and being soooo happy when they waved back. Something I will be insisiting my kids do when I eventually have them :D

How do threads even get into Classics? There's so many nice stories here, it would be a shame for them to disappear.

One of those train drivers is my DP. He always beeps. Although the other week the horn got stuck after he beeped it at some children and he had to go through a busy station with it still going off loudly.
:)

This is a great thread!
Another big up here to all the wavers, complimenters (Sp?), dog walkers, buggy helpers, toy finders & non-tutters :)

Weve fallen in love alittle with the family & staff who run a small cafe/deli down the road that has become my 2nd home since having the kids. Ds1 now four, has his own pinny & helps clear tables and is allowed to use the till, he loves the fact that hes got a little job & gets paid in cake :) They dote over Ds2 aswell, so I usually get to have a coffee in relative peace. Lovely place, we`ll really miss it when we move.

Thank you to the gang of teenagers in our local park when walking home a bit later than usual. they were hanging out smoking & swearing They started rapping & beatboxing as we walked past & Ds1 stopped to show off his breakdancing skills (which looks more like he`s having a fight with himself than anything else, although he has got some good moves) They completley indulgude him & whooped & cheered, did all the knuckle bump stuff. Ds1 felt like a superstar. Great kids.

Anyone that recognises that both my boys are boys. They are beautiful mind, but annoys slightly that it is assumed they are girls (silly of me really, i know). they dont even have particularly long hair.

All spanish waiting staff & the spanish in general for their amazing openest to children. They never mistake our boys for girls either :)

I love this thread, it's very lovely :)

I don't have children of my own but am delighted when people do all of this with my charges. Just today I had a few lovely people entertain my 18mo charge. A bus driver opened his doors at the traffic lights to chat to her until the light turned green. a young, very official woman chatted to her outside of the courthouse every time we passed her (we were walking in big circles for about thirty minutes, must've passed this woman a few times ). There was also a lovely man with two dogs who got down on charge's level to chat to her and help her stroke his dogs.

I always try to be kind to the children I see about so am glad to see this thread :) It's nice to know that efforts are appreciated by most!

Oh so many, but particularly about planes, what with complicated family/work arrangements in different countries:

The very elegant middle-aged man next to me and my 3 boys aged around 5, 3 and 1 on flight from Rome who looked up, said completely deadpan "I've got 5 children" and went back to his newspaper.

BA air hostess on flight from Beijing with ds1 aged about 2 months who upgraded me, and spent most of the flights bringing me snacks and holding ds for me so I could go to the loo etc.

All the air hostesses on Air China who always take small children off and play with them for several hours on planes, and just laugh and say 'how cute' while the kids bomb up and down the stairs into business class etc. Deffo best airline for long haul with a toddler.

The gate staff at Fiumicino who ushered me into the plane with a first-aid kit while the cleaners were still hoovering it, because ds1 had fallen over and whacked his head in the check-in scrum as I got all flustered trying to handle the pushchair and ds2 and 3. I cried that time, but it was all OK in the end.

Airline staff who understand that you need a pushchair at the plane, not the carousel, when you have 3 small children all asleep on landing and you are on your own.

My youngest is 6 now, and flying is dead easy, but I have some battle scars!!

To the old gentleman who wandered over and gave DD £1 in Inverness on Saturday afternoon for being very well behaved in her buggy. He'd won some money on the football result and wanted to share it :) you were lovely and we hope you get to see more of your own granddaughter soon.

Lovely old man :)

To the nice lady in the cafe who gave my screaming son something to play with whilst I stapped his twin and my other child into their seats. And being very lovely and telling me although I was mad it's worth it.

The lovely lady in the green grocers who every week when we went in would say to my ds aged 2/3, hello mini-narniasnarnias as though seeing him was the highlight of the week, and then get him a slightly overripe banana, peel it and give it to him, which kept him busy for 5 mins whilst I filled my basket and paid.

I love anyone that treats my DD2 (who has complex special needs including severe expressive speech delay, developmental delay and OCD, which means she might look like other 8 year olds but certainly doesn't act/speak like one) with kindness, respect and understanding.

Anyone that makes an effort to understand her, or let her pay for things in shops - even though it takes twice as long and she has to do it in a particular way - or listen patiently as she asks for her own drink in a cafe gets my vote.

To all the old men/women who have given DS (age 2now) a £1 or 50p for being lovely/cute/handsome/well behaved in cafes..

To the lady who helped me push DS up the mountain which I live up, all snug in his buggy in 2ft of snow, she wasn't even going in that direction but still spent a good 30min of her time helping us..

To anyone who has ever helped me up stairs, held doors open, run after me with whatever DS has dropped..

Thank you..

The lovely chef at Zizzi's for his pizza throwing and pretending to answer his phone when DS was shouting for a fireman (the clay oven is a bit scary when you're four!)
The two kind ladies who sat with me on my first trip out with all three children (then aged 5, 17 mths and 1 mth) in John Lewis' cafe. They listened to eldest DD's stories about her family, cut up my sandwich so I could feed myself along with feeding DS and offered to look after my wee girls when I needed to take DS to the changing room. They were an absolute lifeline that day and restored my faith in people.
My MIL when I was suffering from PND after the birth of DD2. Came round to help me get organised, always offered to come and stay the night if DH was away and complimented me on "how beautifully" I was coping with newborn DD. (I never thought I was coping at all until she said that).
Lovely thread OP - my first ever message after being a long-time lurker on MN, this really inspired me to reply! :)

Re People With Interesting Objects in their gardens - there's an elderly gent near us who has made his front garden very child-appealing - lots of models of animals, windmills, that sort of thing. But the best part is a chute from the low boundary wall into a little goal to roll coins down. The coins go into a container which is for a nominated charity, so win-win all round. We can't go to the park without having to stop and roll coins down and score a goal, it just wouldn't be right!

YY to all people who wave back, especially the police and firefighters. It made my day when a cab full of firefighters all waved voluntarily to my DS and he hesitantly waved back. It sounds like nothing but he has autism and a wave was a rare and precious thing

The lovely lady in the waiting room at the doctors from hell who had also been waiting 3 hours to be seen at the open clinic. She complemented me on my parenting and how I'd managed to entertain my "spirited" 2 year old son.

The people in the charity shop to open their till for pennies for my son to put in their spinning coin charity box.

Lovely stories.

The lovely lady at Bristol harbourside who kindly gave me some wipes when she saw my DS covered in ice cream and DH and I having the 'what do you mean you forgot the wipes, I thought you had them" conversation. Thank you.

sometimes when we are walking over the railway bridge we are lucky enough to see a train. and if i lift one of the boys up to wave the train driver will ALWAYS wave back and honk the horn!

even I get excited by that