Memorable moments in parenting
 

Father's Day is making me nostalgic. Does anybody have good stories to share?

My children are still very young (5 and 3, my daughter was just registered for the upcoming session of kindergarten) and I am a stay at home dad, so my days are filled with magic and mayhem. "Daddy, watch this" might lead to a heart swelling with pride... or bandages and ice packs.

The world is new and amazing to them and they regularly amaze me and make me wish I could stop time to linger on particularly memorable incidents. Some are likely to become family legend, like my son wildly dancing to Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" a few days before his third birthday, or his Calvinesque aversion to bathing.

But my daughter, as is her wont, tends to steal the spotlight. A couple of weeks ago, while she was coloring at the table, I told her to clean up for lunch. She asked what I was making (sandwiches). She held up one finger, signaling me to wait for her reply, and picked out a fresh sheet of paper. After a few seconds, she held this drawing, like a mask, in front of her face.

I was so impressed by her creativity that I wasn't annoyed by her impertinence.

And last night, she ran up to tell me she was going shopping, but it was a surprise and I had to stay home. I heard the rest of the story from my wife. She had to pick up some groceries, and my daughter wanted to go so she could pick out a present for me. She chose flowers and a pack of gum. She proudly walked up to the register and announced "I am buying pink roses for Daddy for Father's Day!" The cashier, finding this adorable, laughed. My daughter scowled, clenched her fists, stamped her foot and declared "It's NOT funny!!!" The laughter was stifled, but just barely.

It all goes by too fast.

lol wait till their my age... then you'll still wish they were small children:rolleyes:

Great story. I've got to say that being a father has been the most meaningful experience of my life. The best three days in life were the birth of the two boys. The wedding comes third. It's the boy's who've made life special. They're both in their 30s now. The birth of the grandchildren (1 girl and 1 boy) are best days 4 and 5.

Or maybe when they're your age I'll wish they were grown and gone so I can have some peace and quiet (except when the grandchildren visit).

I've got a four year old daughter and a two year old son. My son is going through an assertive phase where he contradicts everything.

"That's not <whatever you said> that's a <whatever he thinks it is>."

The funniest one was watching Walking With Dinosaurs the other day when he contradicted the narrator with "That's not an ambush predator, that's a dinosaur."

(Took a while to download the picture, might want to make it half the size next time.)

Anyway, I started late in life. I am 52 and my kids are 8 and 13. Our son, the new teen, can be either overly silly, or overly morose. My daughter of 8 is a pistol, just like yours. Here is one of my favorite daughter/daddy stories...

Last year I told her that she needed to get some new supplies for school. She said she had already been to school, that she knows everything, and that she didn't need to go anymore.

"Oh really?" I said with one eye glaring, "OK, tell me, what is the Capitol of California?"

She put her hands on her hips and smugly replied, "C!"

I stopped in my tracks and said, "Well, I can't argue with THAT answer, now can I?"

Oops. It downloaded quickly for me (I checked before posting) but I should remember that not everybody has a fast connection.

Oy.

The last time my daughter did that it was to say "I am TOO a teenager."

My son is 18 and my daughter 15. At times I still view them as small and snuggle-able, and I want them to sigt on my lap and hug me. Needless to say they are not snuggle-able and will not sit on my lap. :)

Don't blink - they will suddenly be adults.

Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Cats In The Cradle - Harry Chapin

My nephew, whom we have helped raise (We essentially did raise him for the first half of his life. He called my wife - not his mother - "Mummy" at first and had his own room in our house until our kids were born.) is now 15 and 1/2. I feel like I blinked.

Sigh.

My two year old had a cookie as a treat in a small plastic bowl. He tipped the cookie on the floor and threw the bowl down, then lay on top of it with his stomach in the bowl before declaring "I'm a cookie!"

My three year old recently old peed in a small plastic bowl - apparently the short walk to the bathroom was inconvenient. It could have been worse.

And my daughter asked for God's phone number. Our neighbor was killed in a motorcycle accident one night last month (he was only 25, the assumption is that he was avoiding an animal in the road). It was just before my daughter's sixth birthday, and she wanted to ask God to let our neighbor come home to visit so he wouldn't miss her party. :(

That's a tough lesson I'm not looking forward to. The only deaths I've had to explain so far are Nemo's mum and animals in various nature docos.


Another recent joy of parenting. The whole family's been down with the flu. My son was feeling particularly poorly the other night and came to me for a cuddle. Next thing he vomited right in my face leaving me completely drenched and covered in the semi-digested remains of his dinner. Funny how you lose your disgust when you have to help a sick child. Normally being vomited on would leave me pretty freaked out but I just had to ignore it until I'd helped him.

Ooh, I hope your mouth was closed. I too have been surprised at my fortitude under similar, or even worse, circumstances.

Regarding tough life lessons, a week and a half ago, my children were waiting in the car in the driveway while I broke into my mother-in-law's house too see why she wasn't answering the door. I found her on the couch. I got them inside a neighbor's house before the ambulance arrived and explained to my daughter (my son is too young to understand what was happening) that Nana was very sick and needed to go to the hospital (I needed time to find the words to gently explain the truth of the situation, which was immediately clear to me). But they were both very well behaved and patient.

My daughter was a little angry that she didn't get to see her Nana before we left the hospital. We explained that Mama didn't see Nana either, so she could remember her happy and healthy. My daughter thought that was a good idea.

The next morning, I got up early to clean up after the EMTs. I didn't want my wife to see the house in shambles. My daughter insisted on coming with me. She helped me rearrange the furniture. She found a button that had popped off her Nana's pajama top. I thanked her and sent her to check on another room so I could find the rest of the buttons. She made her Nana's bed all by herself. Then she walked through the house looking for anything that was out of place.

I'm very proud of her. Both of them. Their lives have been turned upside down for the time being, but they've been very good - better than we have a right to expect from them.

My condolences to you and your family.

My kids are all in their early to middle 40s now, but I think what you'll remember the longest, CapJ, is their sayings, some of which will stick with you forever.

Example: My youngest, about 3, watched a younger visiting child who was in the stage of passing everything he picked up to her. She looked up at us and said to the little boy's mother: "He's very shareful, isn't he". Same daughter's favorite color was "purpender". She wrote on her father's day card (in crayon) "My heart sinks into my mind about you dad." Not sure exactly what that meant, but I still have the card 40 years later.

I could go on for the other two kids and 7 grandchildren, but will resist the impulse.

Indeed. My son's infectious "Hank you", and my daughters adamant "Ten thousand thumbs down" (with a forceful thumbs down motion) to whatever she disagrees with, are memorable.

Thank you.

I have a set of twins, 4.5 years old, one boy and one girl. Amazing how different they are. Mommy and Daddy are both programmers and gadget fanatics, and it shows in our offspring. They are very funny little people.

Which brings me to my little story. We planted seeds in our garden in hopes of growing some tomatoes and sure enough, up they sprang, and the kids just thought that was the coolest thing ever. After they were ripe enough to pick and eat, we had one on our hamburgers one night, and they were in awe that the tomatoes made seeds and that you could plant those and they in turn would make new tomato plants. While we were eating our hamburgers, I looked up to see my daughter picking something off the hamburger bun. I watched for a minute and then asked her "What are you doing?" and she said she was picking hamburger seeds to grow in the garden.

Sesame seeds.

I love my kids. :-)

Hamburger seeds, that's funny.

The little ones have a clear view of the world, it's just sometimes a little different.

My favorites from years ago: Ducks have "plastic bills." And melted cheese is, of course, "cheese juice."

Cheese juice - Ha ha ha ha! I love it.

My nephew once asked my if I knew any cavemen when I was younger (I was in my early thirties at the time, ancient to a 5 year old).

The kids are getting excited about Christmas so we were trying to find all the characters for our little people nativity when there was a knock at the door. We opened the door to some Jehovah's Witnesses and before they could say anything my son cries out "I found baby Jesus!"

We were driving home last night and my son said "Look Daddy, a Moon face!". I looked up and the crescent moon formed a smily mouth with two bright stars forming the eyes above it. Turns out the eyes were actually Jupiter and Venus. The image on the link shows the eyes below the mouth but they were above it when we saw it.

(I tried to take some photos on my digital camera but had a few issues. One was overriding the auto-focus. Two was sensitivity. Three was no tripod. I only got a blurry image of a smile and the brighter of the two eyes. The second eye came out when I adjusted the levels.


)

My daughter has expanded upon the time-honored tradition of blowing kisses. Last night she stood with her hands behind her, smirked, then held her cupped hands in front of her mouth and blew. She also blows burps and raspberries.

My son was watching football at my cousin's house on Thankgsgiving and acted out the plays - running around the living room and falling when "tackled". He even did a dance or two. I don't know where he picked it up; my wife and I aren't sports fans.

Took me a while to work out what my daughter was talking about. She kept telling me about her "colour eyes" and pointing out things on the wall that weren't there. I finally realised she was looking up at the light and then enjoying the coloured spots on the walls.

I wish I were more fluent in child-speak. Once one has made the leap, it seems obvious, but too often my children give up trying to explain themselves before I can share their amazement.

We have the same set. My daughter's obsession this Christmas is my beard. (She talks about it more than toys!) She wants it big and bushy like Santa's. It's getting there, but she wants me to start earlier next year. Apparently we have a new tradition.

We had an old clay set but after a few beheadings we decided the play set was probably a better way to go.


LOL. Since I turned forty my stomach region is slowly filling out to Santa's girth but I don't think I could pull off the beard. :D

My wife was shopping with the kids, just entering a store (Big W), when a wall collapse caused a loud bang and subsequent evacuation of the centre. When my son recounts the story now the bang was caused by a T-Rex in Big W.

hehe.. my daughter calls guacamole "salad ice cream."

My son's new exclamation of choice is a mishearing of what Dad often says (fortunately he has not yet been influenced by Mom's occasionally saltier vocabulary).

Whenever he is frustrated, he yells "Oh, crack!"

We're getting snow right now, and I looked out the window and at first I didn't see a decoration hung in one of our trees (a very large ornament I had made when I was still blowing glass). My daughter's explanation: "That's because it's wearing a snow wig."

We were trying to get the kids to clean up a bit. My daughter had started to pick up some toys but my son was still playing so we encouraged him to help his sister. His reply was "But Amelie's doing such a good job."

My son's logic was hardly original but I was just impressed to see it in a two and a half year old.

We were at Melbourne Zoo yesterday and asked our son if he wanted to go into the Platypusary. He said no he wanted to go to the Lionary :D.

I found the removable tooth from my model skull in my daughter's bed. I asked her how it ended up there, and she just looked at me with great big eyes. My daughter tried to fool the Tooth Fairy!

LOL. That's hilarious.

[OT]
I was going to say it's a pisser but realised it's probably not known in that context outside of Aus.

pisser |ˈpisər|
noun vulgar slang
1 [in sing. ] an annoying or disappointing event or circumstance.
2 an unpleasant person; a person who causes difficulties.
3 really funny (as in "That's a pisser")
[/OT]

Means the same thing here. It can also mean very cool - at least it did when I was a kid.

And here in Canada too.

The kind of expressions that don't carry well are like a Kiwi friend's "Rattle your dags", for hurry up. Dags are the clumps hanging near a sheep's bum that rattle back and forth when the sheep runs. Called dinkleberries here.

Hmmm, pisser just means toilet where I am...

This does make me think. Some of you have teenage children, or did have teenagers, any interesting stories about them?

That's the definition I was familiar with but it's not mentioned in the OSX Dictionary. Dag is more commonly used here to refer to someone as being kind of amusingly clueless. It's mostly a term of affection but can be derogatory depending on the context. Kath in the Australian Kath and Kim is a perfect example of daggy.

The Tooth Fairy is coming tonight!
 

My daughter was so excited to find a gap in her teeth that it took a moment for her to realize that she had no idea when it happened.

She started to cry and said she had to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy. But she got excited again and started telling her little brother that this means she's growing up.

She was eating a slice of pizza just before she noticed the missing tooth. I had already told her how my first lost tooth fell into a pond while I was fishing with my father, but everything worked out - just in case something like this happened.

I'm a little disappointed. I wanted to save her tooth. But I'm not disappointed enough to go looking for it when it, um, reemerges.

Drove my kids 250 km to see glow worms and some rainforest but they were more excited by watching the dvds they bought from home in the holiday unit.

They were briefly excited by the sight of the Milky Way in the clear country sky but that could have been because it reminded them of a scene in Madagascar :rolleyes:.

My son has this bedtime thing where he gives his mum various animal kisses. These consist of preceding a kiss with whatever noise the animal might make. He was a bit stumped though when he tried to do a giraffe kiss. After thinking for a minute about what noise they make he sat up as tall as he could and said "giraffe" in his gruffest voice.

My daughter's kindergarten class ends with a short recess. She often asks to play "just a little longer". Yesterday, when I told her it was time to leave, she begged for "just three more minutes" but I said no because she'd already had five. She ran away and hid.

I trudged through the snow with my three year old son, eventually cornering my daughter and taking her by the hand. She began screaming that she needed to say goodbye to her friends. They were between us and the gate, so I told her we would say goodbye on the way out.

She tried to pull her hand free, but I said that she had to hold my hand because she'd already run away and we were on our way to the parking lot, where holding hands was a rule. She began crying that she needed to fix her glove. I let go of her hand, and she pulled it inside her sleeve.

I took her arm, pulled her hand out of her sleeve, and led her toward the gate. She said she still needed to fix her glove, but I wasn't going to fall for that again. She was yelling that she wanted to play, that she hadn't said goodbye to all her friends, that her glove felt funny... desperately trying to delay the inevitable. I warned her that she was going to be punished if she didn't stop.

Her teacher asked if I needed help. "No, she just doesn't want to go home." I told my daughter that she would see her friends tomorrow then said goodbye to her teacher. By now my son was getting agitated.

I could have (and have in the past) picked them up and carried them under each arm like wailing, hiccuping sacks of potatoes, but I prefer to appear aggrieved rather than unhinged, so I led them to my car without losing my patience or raising my voice - even while my daughter was screaming "You've turned this into the worst day of my life!"

Buckling the unhappy children was a minor wresting match. I persevered, but my daughter refused to admit defeat. As I drove home, she yelled, she cried, she called me mean and unfair. I told her that she would be going into Time Out when we got home and warned her that it would be for the rest of the evening if she didn't behave.

She didn't behave. I finally yelled. I told her that she was not to speak until we were home or I would confiscate her Barbie dolls.

When we got home, I sent her to her room. On the way, she flung her coat, boot, and gloves willy-nilly around the house as the lull in her tantrum ended. There were stomping feet, slamming doors, and screams.

I told her to pick up what she had thrown to the floor, then told her to clean her room. Apparently, that is the worst punishment ever. I had to remind her that she was allowed to leave her room for dinner and potty breaks.

I left her in her room and went to balance the checkbook - because I had not yet suffered enough. About an hour later, I went to check on her. She had made significant progress despite taking a break to watch Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid" on the portable DVD player that I hadn't thought to take away until she was finished picking up her toys.

I told her I she was doing a good job. She told me she had one more thing to show me. It was a letter she had written to me.

"Dear
DaDDY
I ALL
ReDy
Know
that
you
Do'Nt Love ME"

...signed with a little heart, then her name.

She fell against me, sobbing sad, not angry, tears. I held her tight and told her that I will always love her, no matter what.

Then I drank some hot chocolate.

As the parent of three, grandparent of seven, married to a retired kindergarten teacher, I can say (FWIW from a stranger) that you did all the right things. Kudos.

It's nice to hear validation from a voice of experience. I have walked a mile in the shoes of that frantic mother we've all seen in the supermarket, and I am girding myself for the many more miles ahead.

One of my daughters has twin boys (fraternal, not identical). When they were in their terrible 2s (now 11), one of them was given to tantrums and had one when my wife (after a meal with us) was putting on his snow suit to go home. Her method (and advice to the daughter) was not to listen, not to interact, to ignore the tantrum and just put on the snow suit, which my wife, bigger than a 2-year old, proceeded to do, ignoring all protests. On another occasion, while we were barbecuing some burgers, he had a snit and wasn't going to eat. His father simply picked him up, carried him kicking and squirming to his bedroom, put him in there with warnings not to return to the table, and we ate a nice meal without him. That methodology has worked very well. The boy soon outgrew the tantrums which, after all, were ignored completely except that both parents were cool after the fact. Many years before, that strategy worked on the parents of these kids, and it will work for you too.

Last night, despite being warned about the consequences, my daughter thought it would be funny to eat the bubbles in her bath. Today, well… she is less amused by herself.

Ahh, the learning curve of life. In my view it does no harm for kids to discover some of these little truths themselves: two lessons here; don't eat soap, and your parents weren't lying about the effects of eating soap.

It reminds me of the day I learned that the secret stash of chocolate my mother denied existed was, in fact, beef bullion. Bleah.

I'm sure my children will have eaten their peck of dirt long before they die. It's good for the immune system.

My brother ate a square of ExLax at my grandmother's house once (believing it was chocolate). The results were predictable. My dad admitted that he as a kid had eaten a whole bunch of grapes and ended up impacting his bowel with grape skins. My son ate a bright red button once. Made it through in a very poor state of repair.

When I make a pot of soup I make an extra pot with a concentrated Jalapeno concoction so I can spice up my bowl. One day over dinner my daughter became quite distressed and couldn't explain what was wrong. It wasn't until she admitted sneaking a spoonful from my bowl that I realised what the problem was. At least she knows what spicy means now.

"I'm all dirty" my three year old son complained in the bathtub today. "You got soap on me."

My son has decided his favourite topping for toast is green klumpf. Thankfully it's invisible and tastes a lot like plain margarine.

i was on a plane with my kids - coming in to land and my ears started to pop. I saw my eldest rub her ear - I asked her "do your ears hurt?". She replied "No", then looked up at me, tugged down on the lobe of one of them and said "Except when I do this".

I love my son's resilience. Yesterday he was lying on the couch with a 39ºC temperature, running nose, watery eyes and barky cough and he was still able to do a boppy head dance when his favourite ABC song came on.

Recently, my almost 4 year old son wanted me to guess which hand held a penny. He held out two chubby fists and said "Click to choose."

That's funny. My son holds up these imaginary bits of jigsaw puzzle and asks me to click and drag them into their imaginary place.

This morning, my daughter came up with a scheme to keep me from spoiling the surprise and opening the package containing my Father's Day present, which will arrive quite early and while my wife is at work.

"Don't worry" she told my wife, "I'll tell him it's your new poison ivy collection."

It began raining while we were in the grocery store yesterday. We ran to the car and, after buckling in my kids, I swung the rear passenger door shut while turning to rush towards mine.

The click of the latch didn't sound right, so I was already turning back to close the door fully before my son yelled "Daddy, Daddy!" I thought he was warning about the door, but he began to cry. Loudly. That's when I saw four little fingertips poking through. My son has a terrible habit of trying to stop the door from closing. He thinks it's funny. In my hurry to get out of the rain, I didn't see him reach out.

I quickly opened the door. He was sobbing and hiccuping. We live less than two miles from the store, so we were home with his hand wrapped in ice within a few minutes. After a while, he calmed down enough for me to asses the damage - a little bruising, minor swelling, it didn't look bad. Not wanting to poke and prod too much, so I told him to make a fist, then squeeze my hand, but he looked puzzled. In a flash on inspiration, I told him to pull my finger. He grabbed tightly and gave a good yank. His hand was fine.

Whether he learned his lesson remains to be seen.

Had my son in hospital over the weekend after he had a couple of febrile convulsions. He had one at home on friday afternoon when his temperature went over 40ºC and he took an ambulance to the hospital with my wife. By the time I got there he was sitting up and fully alert but we stayed in emergency for the next 6 hours for observation. They had just decided we could go home but they were swaddling him to take a blood sample when he had another seizure. Suddenly he was surrounded by doctors, nurses and EMTs. To make matters worse as all this was going on I started to feel myself getting faint. I looked around for a chair but there were too many people around. Luckily someone grabbed me and I found myself laid out on a stretcher on oxygen. I was freaking out wanting to see my son but they assured me he was ok and my wife was with him. Finally when I was allowed to get up and see him he was coming too and my brother in law had arrived to help my wife who was understandably having a hard time with everything. Anyway after an overnight stay for observation we were allowed to go home. My son seems ok now. He is still getting over the virus that caused the temperature spike but hopefully I will never see another seizure like that.

Oy, fazstp, that's terrible! I wish there was anything I could do! Hopefully your son (and yourself) continues to get well. Truly this is memorably moment I hope you never have to repeat!

.
Some years ago, my boss at the time told me had walked in on his son repeatedly banging his head against the wall.

"What are you doing?!" he asked aghast.

"Reformatting my harddisk," replied the five-year-old.
.

My three year old son has a bit of an oedipal thing going with my wife. The other day he was on her lap trying to monopolise her attention.

Son: Look at me, only I love you. Daddy doesn't love you.
Wife: Daddy loves me too.
Son: No, only I love you.
Wife: Why don't I ask daddy?
Son: No because daddy isn't talking to you.
Wife: Yes he is. Daddy do you love me?
Me: Yes.
Son: This is how daddy says no... "yes".

I removed the training wheels from my daughter's bike today. She was angry with me and told me that I am not the boss of her. When I told her I am, she said I'm not the boss of her bike. Oh, but I am. Within half an hour she was able to ride about a hundred feet on her own - gasping and shrieking the whole time - before succumbing completely to self-doubt. She's proud of herself, but still a little angry with me.

My kids have a toy piano. Very basic four note. I think it's basically a major chord with a doubled root. My son was playing it from highest note to lowest singing a rudimentary song to each note. "Bang on the house.. bang on the house.. bang on the house." What made me laugh was when his sister took the piano off him he kept singing his song but in the order his sister was playing. "Bang bang.. bang on.. bang on bang.. bang house."

We were getting ready for the day, and I couldn't remember if my four-year-old son, sitting in my wife's lap, had taken a bath the night before. I asked I should put him in the tub. My wife said no. As I walked away, my son looked up at her and said "Whew, that was close!"

We took our son to the local Maternal and Child Health Nurse for a routine assessment. While we were there she was explaining to us that kids his age (3 1/2) don't have good peripheral vision. She then addressed my son to explain that he had to hold mummy or daddy's hand when crossing the road because he wasn't good at seeing the cars. He thought for a moment then said "No because I see cars all the time."

The back of my son's tricycle had filled up with rain overnight. I tipped the water out and it ran across the path and down the drain. My son on observing this asked me "How does the water know where the drain is?"

Good question too. I remember giving my son a decongestant to clear a very clogged nose. His question: "How long does it take to melt?"

I love that about kids. They make you stop and think about something that we just take for granted. I made a small hill out of a play mat and told him to pretend his cars are water and put them on top of the hill.

My daughter put her hands together, closed her eyes and began to pray "Dear God.." she then paused and quickly corrected herself "I mean Dear Santa.." before reeling off her Christmas wish list.

My three and a half year old's vocabulary and reasoning are a constant source of amusement. My wife was putting the kids to bed when she said a quick "Dear God, thank you for giving me the best girl in the world and the best boy in the world." My son came back with "You know mum, God is just in your imagination."

Oh wow! That is very funny and impressive! Where do you think that came from? Is it something he's repeating? Or something he's applied from elsewhere - like an imaginary friend? Or is it possible he's actually done some reasoning at that abstract level at that age? If so - frightening!

I think he came to that conclusion himself. He has many light bulb moments where he connects different things he has learned. It was really funny watching him eat the other day. He had a lump of cheese or something and he was just turning it different ways and transforming it into different things like "It's a giraffe,.. it's a building,.. it's a dinosaur.." but really firing them off. It was really interesting to watch.

Memorable moments in parenting
 

I was just sat thinking the year is almost over and I was wondering when thinking about your business whats the most memorable moment for you this year?? good or bad but good would be nice Ill go first:

I have 3
One was when I alterated a dress for someone and they thought I had forgotten to do I said I have altered it, have you tried the dress on?? "oh not yet" she says, "I will ring you back" 5 minutes later... " I cant believe how amazing it looks, you cant even see where you have taken it in" well my work here is done the 2nd was when i made a prom dress for a girl I used to babysit as a teenager very surreal I was very proud of her and me I liked the last fitting just because it was helpign a friend and nice seeing something through to the end in a weird kind of way. anyway and the 3rd was my first bad client but I love that experience it had to happen one day and now i just giggle about it whats yours??

Laura x

Memorable moments in parenting
 

I was just sat thinking the year is almost over and I was wondering when thinking about your business whats the most memorable moment for you this year?? good or bad but good would be nice Ill go first:

I have 3
One was when I alterated a dress for someone and they thought I had forgotten to do I said I have altered it, have you tried the dress on?? "oh not yet" she says, "I will ring you back" 5 minutes later... " I cant believe how amazing it looks, you cant even see where you have taken it in" well my work here is done the 2nd was when i made a prom dress for a girl I used to babysit as a teenager very surreal I was very proud of her and me I liked the last fitting just because it was helpign a friend and nice seeing something through to the end in a weird kind of way. anyway and the 3rd was my first bad client but I love that experience it had to happen one day and now i just giggle about it whats yours??

Laura x

That's kind of weird and random, especially as it seems to be taken from someone else's post on another forum? In fact many of MomenumsKem's posts seem to be randomly mirrored from other forums.

Well observed!
I left MomenumsKem’s posts unapproved in the Moderator’s Queue because something about them just didn’t ring true. With Google search I find this post from Alyssa Rose in Nottingham on Shell LiveWIRE:

Enough said. Poster banned!
.

Dear Santa...
 

My four year old son recited his list as he "wrote" to Santa. The heavy scribbling is where he was explaining how much he wants a Nintendo DSi.

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/528...aslist2009.jpg

We bought the fixings for a hearty Christmas breakfast. My son asked about a carton in the refrigerator. "Do you want some orange juice?" I asked. "Yes. I am sick. I need to get my germs wet."

My wife and I were sitting in the lounge last night when our daughter got up and wandered into the adjoining kitchen. She opened a small cupboard, then looked in a plastic bag. When we asked what she was doing she said she was looking for her brother. That's when we realised she was sleep walking and I carried her back to bed.

My daughter is in bed, sick. My son, apparently jealous of the extra attention his big sister is getting, said "I am sick too, look" then stuck out his tongue and made retching noises. He wasn't pleased by our amusement.

My four-year-old told us he couldn't find his dog. My wife held up his Pillow Pet,
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/245...sl500aa230.jpg
but he said "No, my legular [sic] dog. He's missing"

We reminded him that we don't have a regular dog. "He's in a cage. He's waiting for me. He's sad." he said with a pout. I was briefly taken aback by the multiple layers of guilt he had woven together, but then my wife turned on the Wii. Distraction accomplished.

So after disappointing my son by not finding the dog we don't own, I offended my daughter by laughing out loud at something she said.

She likes to hear stories about my childhood, so today, with the help of Google Maps, I found the elementary school in Michigan where I went to kindergarten and part of first grade. I showed her the path I took to school and the house we lived in and where I crashed my bike. When I told her that the subdivision behind the house used to be a farm, she was incredulous.

"What, a farm? You didn't tell me you lived there in the olden days!"

I laughed so hard that she cried. Now I have to smooth her ruffled feathers.

Man I'm always doing that with my nearly six year old daughter. I don't know if explaining that I found her trivial grievance amusing would help my case either :o. I know it's not trivial to her but sometimes you can't help but laugh and you know the rest :).

We took the kids over to Adelaide for the week. While we were sitting outside the museum having some lunch the kids were playing this "I love you as far as..." game where you pick some distance to quantify your love for someone. They got it from a kids book "I love you this much". Anyway my daughter was teasing my wife saying she loved her all the way to a window she was sitting right next to (ie. not much). To make my wife feel better my son said "Well when we're back home the window will be far away."

A group of neighborhood children circled a mud puddle, tossing rocks and trying to make the biggest splash. I told them to stand together on one side or they'd all end up filthy. Everybody but my daughter moved; she is in the shower, her clothes are in the laundry.

Many years ago on vacation at a cottage we bought a then young son a rain slicker, rain hat and mid-calf boots so he could go out in the rain without getting too soaked. To test it he ran out (in the rain of course) and stood under a teeming downspout for filling a washtub (for washing sand off feet on return from the beach). Satisfied with that, he went roaring off in search of a mud puddle. When he returned his clothing was soaked to the neck. He'd been jumping in the puddle to splash it. Didn't seem to notice that raincoats only work for downward moving water; not for up. That kid has a PhD in cell biology now, but at the time.......

Hungry for a snack, my seven year old daughter asked if she could get herself a spoonful of soy butter (peanut allergy). I didn't want to deal with the mess she usually makes, so I told her I'd get it for her. She angrily yelled "Sudo let me do it myself!" and I had to literally bite my tongue to maintain a straight face.

Edited to add: Apparently she was paying attention when I explained this to her teenage cousin last month.

My four year old son got hold of my Kindle and managed to buy a book. I just wrote an embarrassing email to Amazon asking for a refund.

My son's only recently taken to toileting and in an effort to make it more fun we put a few squares of toilet paper in for target practice (they're sharks apparently). The other day after number ones we thought he forgot to flush. When we reminded him he said no he wanted to leave them so he could come back later and throw some hot brown rocks at them.

Ba ha ha ha ha!

My son has really taken to heart this "Don't Palm Us Off" campaign they're running at the zoo to raise awareness of palm oil plantations encroaching on Orangutan habitat. At the supermarket the other day my daughter tried to put a box of savoury biscuits in the trolley and my son recognised them from one of the posters. He insisted on taking them out of the trolley screaming that his sister was killing the Orangutans :( .

My son also asked me recently if I could take him to the doctor so he can do something to stop him growing. After some discussion I found out he was worried about growing old and dying. He really thinks too much.

A friend and her sister took her seven year old nephew to a Chinese restaurant. While they were sitting waiting for their food he was staring at the take away counter with a puzzled look on his face, watching as waitresses came in and out of the kitchen with peoples' orders. When they asked him what was wrong he said he was trying to work out why the lady at the counter kept going in the kitchen and changing her outfit.

As I tucked my daughter into bed, she excitedly announced that she had learned a new word from a boy at school. "It's another word for bum... Ash." It turns out that the boy at school has a speech impediment. I explained that ash is what is left after something burns, and that there are certain "grownup" words, like the real other word for bum, that she is not allowed to use. Her eyes went from shining with pride to welling up in fear. "It's not my fault, I didn't know!" I reassured her that I wasn't upset and that she hadn't done anything wrong. It was a disappointing teaching moment because she felt ashamed.

My children were in our yard, playing ball (a game of their own creation, with ever-changing rules) with some friends from the neighborhood. The ball belonged to my four-year-old, who was trying to play along, but the older kids tend to ignore him in the heat of the game. He became frustrated and asked for his ball back. Repeatedly. But he was ignored and nearly in tears. So my seven-year-old daughter, a good six inches shorter and 25 pounds lighter than the boy currently holding the ball, demanded that he return the it to her little brother. She was also ignored... until she punched the boy in the stomach and took the ball back. The boy angrily marched home, red faced and trying not to cry.

I told my daughter that, while I was proud of her for sticking up for her brother, I was disappointed in her for hitting, which is not allowed. I asked why she hadn't come for an adult (several of us were in the front yard while the children were in the back) and she said she did tell them she was gong to get an adult, but the other kids said they didn't have to give the ball back and their parents wouldn't make them, and that made her angry.

I made her apololgize, but I didn't punish her.

I drove my wife to an appointment with my four year old son in the back. We were looking for an address in Keilor Rd when my son got upset in the back. He said now we won't have a son any more. We asked him what he meant and he said he was scared because we were going on Killer Rd.

We recently went away for my son's birthday down the coast here past Apollo Bay. On his birthday we gave him the choice between going to see the 12 Apostles (a natural rock formation along a stretch of coast) or going to see some rubber dinosaurs and going on a tree-top walk on this elevated walkway. He said he wanted to see the 12 a-fossils.