The joy of being a parent

I remember being told when I was pregnant there is nothing quite like being a parent and as a mum of five people will often say things like "Wow! Five kids? You must really like children!"

Firstly No I don't really like kids,they are just easier than adults as they tend to be more honest.

Secondly, my kids are now grown but as youngsters they were hellians!!

As you can imagine there would be plenty of fun and games, what no one ever tells you about is when those go too far. The husband,ever the child would do things with the kids like playing sock golf,this would entail them each having a different coloured pair of socks, which they would then proceed to bat around the course (house) and putting it into the hole,(waste paperbin) cue the house descending into madness as balls of socks fly everywhere as do tempers and the inevitable landing in the pond (toilet) from someone and shrieks of disgust as it has to be fished out. Nothing quite compares to your son finding a you tube channel entirely for pranks and then him putting them into action!

Don't get it wrong, you tube didn't start this, Home alone did. You remember the Christmas film of the cute kid that defends the family home by booby trapping the house? Imagine if you will, chucky the doll,but as a real boy,that's my son. Ginger hair, freckles,impish grin and a naughty streak that would stretch the oceans. He had sat and watched home alone with his dad,oldest sister and younger sister and was totally enamoured with the whole concept,that was when home descended into madness.The husband and I were used to random tricks, I don't think you can experience real fear in your own bed unless you have had a catnipped kitten dumped on you at 3am,hissing, spitting, yowling and clawing. Then managing to extricate yourself only to find a six year old sat giggling by your door learning new swear words!! Anyway, as our bedroom was downstairs we could usually hear the little chucky whenever he was out of bed but the night after watching home alone,well, we didn't hear anything that sounded out of the ordinary,padding about between bedrooms and the bathroom,occasional toilet flushing, and the sound of the tv programme we were watching.

The eldest was in her bedroom above ours and had been asleep for a while when we heard movement on the bed of her getting up,pretty standard most nights, I mean we all need the loo in the night right?

One almighty crash later and a huge amount of swearing,the chucky boy came flying through our bedroom door shrieking with laughter,closely followed by his baby sister also in fits of laughter,dived onto our bed and proceeded to bury themselves under our duvet and between the husband and I, making us both unwitting accessories after the fact.

There was a brief pause before something very angry and very slimy stood in the doorway bellowing about little shits,conditioner and wanting to strangle them both.

By this point both myself and the husband had worked out some sort of trick was involved but the full extent wasn't what we had expected at all.

After the bedtime routine had been completed and the husband and I had gone downstairs again to our own room, the little sods had collaborated on how to create their own version of home alone with their biggest sister as the target. When asked why they decided on her, the chuckiest said to us, "She's the bossy one that keeps telling us to get back to bed so we wanted to teach her a lesson!"

What they had done was greased the door handle of her bedroom door,after pouring shampoo and conditioner all over her bedroom floor. Had we had carpetting in there none of this would have been achievable for the monsters. The almighty crash we had heard was the eldest,half asleep, getting up and skidding across the floor of her bedroom,grabbing at her door handle for balance and promptly sliding off of it to tumble into a heap at the foot of the bed, where there was an even bigger puddle of conditioner that had been mixed with bath oils. This is why she now looked like the creature from the black lagoon and was swearing like a navvy.

Trying to keep a straight face both the husband and I extricated the monsters, shrieking from under the duvet, and handed them over to their big sister for her retribution.

It was swift and came in the form of them being chased up the stairs with a mop and bucket followed by a pummelling with pillows and the chuckiest being picked up and thrown on to the eldests bed and sworn at A LOT whilst being tickled,the babiest didn't get off lightly either and was retrieved from underneath her bed where she had hidden for safety not realising that she would be found out and unceremoniously pulled out by her ankle to be tickled and pinched within an inch of her stomach splitting with mirth.

Looking round at the clock and spotting that it was an ungodly hour of the morning still the husband and I ushered the monsters back into their bedrooms and got them wedged under their duvets whilst they continued to giggle,more sleepily than hysterically now. I was then left to calm the hurricane that was the eldest and help try to find a solution for the oiled up flooring she now had and try to keep a straight face whilst she moaned about not being a patsy anymore to the terrorists we had spawned.