Fab activity to remain sitting on the sofa while your children get wildly excited and make you feel like a superb parent

[FrannyandZooey]

We have tied a basket on a piece of rope and ds has hung it out of the bedroom window. I am down below (on sofa) and have a stash of things next to me which I am putting into the basket (out of the window) when he lowers it down. He then pulls it up and shrieks with delight.

So far I have put snacks, a letter with his name on and a drawing of us inside, a recorder, some stickers and a notebook, some playmobil people, etc etc etc

the apple came a cropper, but otherwise all is well and he is SO EXCITED and keeps shouting "Thank you mummy oh thank you!"

[FrannyandZooey]

MrsB we also used to play this at Uni - the flat above ours were all Asian students and they used to send bits of their damn good cooking down to us via the patented Franny pulley

LOL at slightly shot, the "going to bed" game, and virtually everything

Mud the bit about the breadknives was also good, I missed it before

[jamiesmom]

Oh that is so funny Blu, but i'd don't think i should be laughing really as i sell betterwear door-to-door. I'll be sure to look out for air riffles in future

[FrannyandZooey]

Pooka the first thing ds did after making the pulley was to go downstairs, put an apple in the basket then hoist it up to himself

we channel MMM a lot here, or we try to, anyway

[FrannyandZooey]

Who wanted playdough? The old thread got bumped today - it's called 'Franny franny franny can we have a playdough bootcamp' or something equally perturbing

[Anchovy]

Where DH used to work there was a little kiosk built into the outside of the building. Once he was down there buying an afternoon snack and a little basket came down on a rope with a note and some money and the guy in the kiosk read the note, filled the basket, took the money, put in some change and then tugged on the basket, which disappeared back up. DH said he got the feeling it was a daily event.

We like playing hairdressers. A headful of hairgrips is a small price to pay for a goodly chunk of the Saturday papers.

[MrsBadger]

someone tried to make it by mixing ingredients together without cooking it and wondered why it was all soft

we have helped

[Kimellajoe]

I would like the recipe for play dough as my kids just leave the tops off the pots and surely its gotta be cheaper to make ur own.
Due to the current H&S on this thread I would appreciate the disclaimer about using cooker etc. pmsl

[AbRoller]

Thanks Franny, I found it.

[oregonianabroad]

am going to try this when ds wakes up. couldn't possibly be any more dangerous than the games he thinks up on his own! thanks, franny.

[mcnoodle]

I enjoy the going to sleep game too. DS has classic two year old Ants In Pants Syndrome though, so I make him go up and down stairs getting Important Things for me. I take particular satisfaction in asking him to go down and get me a teddy, then when he gets upstairs saying that it is the wrong one (his fave bedtime procrastination trick). I also request match box cars, blankets, apples etc. Can get a good thirty min doze this way.

Clearly there are huge health and safety implications here but we are both sooooo happy - would be criminal to deprive us of our 'activity'.

[stealthsquiggle]

Kathy - design spec for Playmobil lift, please? I was thinking of an ice cream tub but I think if it spins the wrong way to would just get stuck...

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

Stealthsquiggle - it was a plastic shopping basket which went down through the banisters on string (two strings to minimise spinning), with a meccano windlass at the top. They loved it.

[TigerFeet]

oooh MrsB you have just reminded me..

In 1st year Uni I lived in student flats in two rows of houses opposite each other across a small green (all uni owned, all inhabited by 1st years)

We stretched a washing line so it zig zagged across the green between about six of the houses, you could then peg a message to the line, tug it and someone in the next house along would pull the message across and foward it if necessary

Uni people came along and told us to take it down

[stealthsquiggle]

Ah - our stairs go round and round and round - so even with changing lifts one of the lifts will have to go down the middle of the stairs which is a narrow gap. I will experiment when/if I have time and when DS has dealt with the ~25 cuddly animals sitting in the hall which he got out before he decided it would be more fun to go and play at Granny's house while I was working!

[pooka]

God I love Milly Molly Mandy. Makes me feel all wistful though - would love to have fields/farm/village school and stuff. Those were the days - one dress and that's your lot. The sheer joy she had at what seem (today) to be such small pleasures - a bit of sugar, picking blackberries, helping round the house and so on.
My mother used to make Milly Molly Mandy soup, which was basically lots of vegetables, stock and bits of left over bacon. Sounds like crap but boy did it taste fanstastic! We also used to have the lidded potatoes too.

[WriggleJiggle]

My god, if sending baskets out of an upstairs window to an adult waiting below is considered too dangerous I hate to admit what we used to send out the bedroom window as children. Lets just say it involved things slightly larger and heavier than baskets going out the windows, and the only things involved were a (strong) rope and ourselves!

Climbing in a wicker linnen basket and being rolled down the stair was also a popular game. Good job the glass windows are the bottom were reinforced !

[lionheart]

What about the danger to innocent passers-by?

No one has mentioned that particular hazard. I'm thinking lawyers, compensation, financial ruin, shunning.

[Fauve]

I think it's bad mothering to put your Playmobil people in a lift. What if they have vertigo? Poor little mites, have you no compassion?

[lionheart]

Playmobil Stress Disorder does actually exist you know, even if you haven't actually real first hand experience of it yourself.

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

My Playmobil people were smiling broadly throughout the experience, so I think they must have enjoyed it.

[lionheart]

Were their smiles fixed and unchanging at all? Like this .

If so, and I don't want to make you feel bad, but they may have just been petrified.

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

now you come to mention it, they were a bit like this

[SoupDragon]

Ahhh.... we used to surf down the stairs on tea trays!

[OrmIrian]

My DCs like sliding down the stairs on their duvets. Which is undoubtedly potentially very very dangerous. And more importantly risks tearing the duvets . But bloody good fun apparently.

[lionheart]

They were scared on the inside, Kathy.