Dare to be Daft

[GeorginaA]

I'm boring. It has to be said, and you can protest all you like, but fundamentally I like my routines and I'm finding my outlook is more serious and practical by the day.

This would be okay, but really I don't want to be that sort of parent, even though my nature flows against that. I want my children to think back to their childhood and remember fun and zany times. Only I'm not naturally fun nor zany. I don't have the imagination or the ideas.

Originally I was looking for a book, but Twiglett pointed out I'd probably be better off starting a thread to find out what daft/mad things you do with your kids that they love.

Teach me to be spontaneous (by helping me to plan spontenaeity very very carefully ).

Save my children from having a dull and predictable childhood. I want some magic.

Or am I a lost cause?

Lol about the PS34. Maybe we could have a system where each family member takes turns to choose the game... so 2 weeks out of 4 we're all beating high scores on the PS34 and the other 2 weeks we're playing old fogey games

foxinsocks: they're currently doing their unplanned run up and down the lounge and scream a lot game. I'm sure they don't feel deprived It probably says a lot more about my expectations of what motherhood should be than anything else!

I am a bit torn, I think you have to be who you are as a mom. I am not an extrovert but my kids and I have fun and they love their little routines we have together. Planned silliness just may not work if you are not enjoying it. Having said that, why go big. I often set up their toys after they go to bed so when they come down, the teletubbies are sitting on the couch drinking tea, or the lego is arranged in a castle for them. Once I wrapped my son's bionicles around his bottle in the fridge so when he reached in to grab it, the bionicle was hugging his bottle. That was 2 years ago and he still talks about it.

Bought my DD some playmobile stuff nd it had spades and buckets etc, can't remember which set, but hid it on the top of a flower pot and told her fairies had been out gardening and had left their tools. We left the set out for them to collect and every now and then it appears elsewhere. Sadly they are not very good gardening fairies as our garden is a bit overgrown!

I always alway remember my Mum sining us a little song before bed time that started off "Up to bed the Mummy said and chased them up the stairs" I can't remember the rest but it used to make me laugh my socks off when I was little.

These ideas are brilliant. I'm in awe of some of your imaginations, you're a talented lot!

serenity: I know what you mean about it being unrealistic to be like that all the time. I guess I just feel I'm a bit stuck in the parenting rut of getting up, dragging them to school... oh it's a tuesday so it's Tumbletots.

I think ds1's excitement over Halloween (I so don't do Halloween) and Bonfire Night has reminded me that the breaks from the norm are really special for them and are kind of the whole point...

Thank you for such a lovely thread! Great to remind myself what fun it can be with children - that it is not just refereeing and discipline. (Had a few bad days - don't always feel that!)

The easiest thing is pyjama day. I even let DSs go out and get ice cream from the ice creamman in the PJS on PJ Days.

oh i am well known for being completly mental.

i am the person that owns 5ft pink fluffy fairy wings and wears them in town without caring a jot. (admitedly this is uually done whilst flyering for work...but this is just an excuse to wear the wings)

im always the one that takes the kids trick or treating, always get dressed up for parties or school clubs, we have regular singing contests in my house...just me Ds (6) and DD(2).

we have make up parties (i go to the local £1 shop and fill up on lots of little cheap lipsticks and eyeshadows etc) and allow the kids to give me a make over....then chase them about and do them.

if we go to the park i race them to the swings/slide and then squeeze my fat rear end into it.

always sing the theme tune to all the cartoons that come on

pull faces at them
chase them around saying in going to bite their bum off..the more animal noises you can make the better.

put the dinning chairs in a row and turn it into a train...you can then try and encourage their imagination by getting them to describe what they see out of the windows

play kiss chase

there really is loads you can do but really dont beat yourself up over it. your kids will love you and will remember how fab you are. dont try and be something your not.
enjoy your time with your children and make your own memories.

christmas is perfect for those "magic" memories.

they dont need to involve you doing anything too zany but the kids will love it anyway.

I always go out on christmas eve and paint glittery footprints up the path.

any presents for father christmas have different paper and the note cards are always typed in a handwritting font so that they are different to my own hanwritting.

we leave mince pies out and a carrot for rudolph....we also leave a big bucket for the other reindeers to drink. always make sure you leave a few crumbs or the stalk of the carrot so they think it has been eaten.

i once tore a bit of my kitchen curtain ( we were replacing them anyway) and so we said that one of the reindeers must have gotten hungry and eaten the curtain.

spend november making christmas tree decorations. much cheaper than buying them and much nicer. i get one of those old fashioned advent calendars where you can put your own present in each day. we put the dec's in and each day they put a deocration on the tree (this is a small 3ft one which is kept on the hall table)

when i lived back at home ( i have much younger brothers) we had a remote doorbell. we used to wait till they were only just dropping off but still half awake then press the doorbell....open the door and say "ooh no, not yet they're still awake...come back in about an hour"

then we would have a dictophone of the guy my dad knew with a really gruff voice saying "ho ho, ok...so long as they are bing good....come on Rudolph we best do the next house"

the kids always remember it!

this thread is a bit like that catherine tata sketch abou the mentalist couple" oh i am so crazy"

This afternoon DD and I are going to marshmallow fondu.

I think having crazy parents helps you to be a bit zany.

When we were little we used to shop on a Saturday with my parents and park in a car park attached to a shopping mall, every week without fail when we entered the mall my dad would LOUDLY pretend to trumpet a fanfare and declare "Hotpot Fanfare, just to let everyone know we are here"

My dad used to call a shortcut between houses a "secret passage" and whenever we met someone coming up it my dad would tell us that he had given them a map and password.

For years we believed there were little men in automatic ticket booths as my dad would knock on them and loudly ask for a ticket.

I personally do not care what other people think so pretend the shopping trolley has squeaking brakes when I bring it an abrupt halt and make a loud screech noise which my 3.5 year old loves. He sits in my seat on the sofa and I pretend I can't see him and squash him, declaring that the cushion is very uncomfy. I regularly jump out on him and scare the pants off him.

My friend put notes from a squirrel in a tree outside the school as the children used to put leaves and twigs in this hole so she wrote that it was making it hard for the squirrel to get in and out and loads of kids kept looking for messages after that. It became so popular that she had to write that the squirrel had gone on holiday!!

Picnics in the lounge are fab and easy. I have taken some ideas from you guys, thanks