Not a great idea to leave the Teenager in charge of a lot of kids...

AND so Christmas is done and dusted for another year. Santa delivered the goods, (well most of them anyway. I have a bone to pick with him about the missing Littlest Pet Shop!) I didn’t poison anyone with the dinner and there were no major rows. A few minor arguments perhaps but at Christmas that’s par for the course.

I got shamed into doing the Christmas Day Swim by Himself who told me I had to do it in honour of my Late Mother in Law who braved the elements every year up until her illness. If I’d known in time, I’d have gone on a diet or at least shaved my legs! In the end I donned a big flowery shower cap so no one would recognise me.

Everything was going according to plan until St. Stephen’s Day when a night out resulted in all the cousins coming to our house to be babysat by The Teenager who incidentally doesn’t really like children at all. However he was warned his payment would be performance related so we were assured the four under eights and two under elevens would be treated well.

That was until some bright spark who shall remain nameless came up with the idea of banning all electronic devices while the adults went to the pub. Genius! What happens when you put six kids in a house and take away their iPods, Nintendos and iPads? Bloody carnage, that’s what happens!

We were only settling in approximately 30 minutes after our arrival when we received the first phone call from the Teenager. The Squirts were starting to kick off, he said. I did what any responsible mum would do and told him to give them sweets!

Twenty minutes later another phone call. The smallest squirt had found markers and drawn all over the living room wall. I passed the phone to the person responsible for the electronics ban and told her to deal with it. She told the Teenager to put them all to bed...in my feckin’ house!

Ten minutes passed and another phone call. A cacophony of wailing and shouting could be heard in the background. ‘I. Am. Losing. The. Will. To. Live!’ the Teenager declared, telling me to tell the aunts and uncles to come and collect their offspring tout suite.

And so our night came to an abrupt end. We marched the ten minute walk back with me giving out, ‘stupid bloody idea taking the electronics off them,’ whilst the guilty party told me my son wasn’t a very good babysitter. A certain frostiness descended. The men hung behind staying well out of it.

By the time we got home they were all fast asleep, the living room looked like it had been ransacked by lime green marker wielding burglars and the Teenager was drinking coffee to calm himself down! Sleeping children were carried to taxis and we closed the door in relief. We are currently incommunicado.

Sure it wouldn’t be Christmas without a bit of a tiff!

10 MINUTES PASSED AND ANOTHER PHONE CALL, A CACOPHONY OF WAILING AND SHOUTING COULD BE HEARD IN THE BACKGROUND