“>The first day of 2016 saw me rise with unfounded optimism about this New Year and clean start. That lasted less than 2 minutes.

The kids had kindly wrecked nearly every room in the house between 6 am and 6.30 am before dragging me from my bed. Mel was sick with flu, so I found myself feeling like a shabby boat lost in a sea of coloured plastic with no equipment to send an SOS. Nonethleless, I put on my best happy mummy face and supervised play with jigsaws with missing pieces, colouring (and wiping pen off the work surfaces), TV and the never ending snack requests.

By 1 pm my happy mummy face was long gone, the house looked like it had been ransacked by a team of inexperienced burglars. The only one not crying was Mel, mainly because he was asleep. It was then I made the brave decision to walk to the park with all 4 kids. Halfway down the road it started raining. Obviously as it wasn’t raining as I left, I had not prepared for rain. Nonetheless we paraded on. As I approached the end of our road Ben leapt from the moving pram with no warning, resulting in a muddy face, split lip and much wailing. Determined to carry on, I made it to the next road before breaking the chocolate cake I had thrown in whole under the pram, into 4 pieces, shoving a bit at each child. By the time I reached the next road, it was clear I wasn’t going to make it.

I can multitask, but I have today established that I can’t carry two two year old twins in my arms while pushing a three year old in a pram and making sure the 5 year old doesn’t run onto the road. I phoned Mel who picked us up and drove us to the park. He stayed in the car as I negotiated the slide. We are lucky to have a super long steep slide in the playground, but it is usually quite slow. As I shoved Ben from the top, I hadn’t factored in the added slippery values of his shiny puddle suit and the fact it was pouring with rain, so had become a waterslide. Ben landed at least 2 metres from the end of the slide, wailing in terror. Ben went to drive the car with Daddy, and I spent the next hour in the pouring rain catching the other three as they sped down the slide. I don’t think I or they have ever been as wet.

As I supervised, I thought back to the days pre-kids. We were never really party goers, preferring instead to stay at home and have a nice meal on New Years Eve. New Year’s Day was one of my favourites. We would take the dogs and go on a lovely New Forest ramble, before settling into a nice pub for a long lunch by the fire. Here I was standing in the local park dripping wet and shivering with three soaked, muddy, but delighted infants, a sick husband, and another infant sitting with him in the car park. Oh, I mustn’t forget the house strewn with coloured plastic and food debris.

A trip home and a kids bath for four later, I went to dry my own hair, and there on my pillow I found that Patch had written a note saying “too Jille Jons, Jille Jons, happey noo yer” and I thought again about the days pre kids.

Looking back older, possibly wiser, and as a parent to four, I can see that we had ended up with two dogs as we needed something to love and care for in our life. We clearly felt the need to create a family, but we’re just too young to have realised that yet. The dogs were like our kids, and I wouldn’t even go on my honeymoon without them coming too. So while there may be moments like today where a particular day feels like it is giving me a kick in the teeth, the majority of days have many moments which are so much better and so much more fulfilled because I am a mother to four very young totally wonderful little people. Happy 2016 to you all, especially my new blogging friends. Xxx

Best New Years Day card ever!

Wet and muddy!

Bubbles!