It’s Mothers’ Day – time for mums everywhere to be pampered and spoilt.  By way of celebration, I thought I would give you a little snapshot of my life as mum to 3 fetid, flatulent, feisty boys (well, 4 if you include Handsome Hubby…).

As a parent of multiple boys, you learn to accept very early on that your laundry basket will never be empty. In fact some clothes will end up so filthy that they will almost walk out of the laundry basket unaided. On the very rare occasion that you do reach the bottom of the basket, you will find yourself dancing a little celebratory jig as you reach for the nearest bottle of wine. Even if it is only 11am.

Your television will only possess 3 channels: Dave, Quest and Sports. Best reach for that bottle of wine again as you learn all about the history of aluminium *groan*

This.

Yes, you hang a new photo frame on the wall, minus the family photos that you will search for at a later date. Then you leave your boys in the house alone. And you find this on your return, along with much hilarity. (Clue: look at the photo in the middle of the frame…)

You will develop an automatic ‘duck’ reflex which will be activated any time an object of length nears your head. For example, when you’re in a supermarket and a lady reaches behind you to grab a long roll of wrapping paper… so you duck instinctively, expecting her to wallop you across the back of the head with it before she puts it in the trolley. Awkward.

Your kitchen will resemble that of Mother Hubbard – the moment you fill the cupboards, they will be raided by a bunch of gannets who will empty them within hours. Take son no 2: Mr Sports Fanatic. He will come flying through the door, grab a large bowl and fill it with 2 bananas, 4 oranges, a bunch of grapes, an apple, a yoghurt, a bag of frazzles (slurp) and a chocolate bar. Having polished that off, he will then lick his lips and ask cheerfully, “What’s for tea, mum?”

You will be assigned your very own seat in A&E at the local hospital (cue fluorescent eyeballs, dislocations, broken bones, plus lots of headbutting and falling over…) (just to clarify: that’s the boys, not you).
Son no 2 is the most accident prone child I have ever met. In the space of a year, he had an operation on a broken ankle (resulting in friction burns on his other foot due to hopping about like a lunatic, thus rendering him in a wheelchair), he also dislocated his shoulder and broke his nose in not 1 but 2 places – yay! Way to go!
Then there are those times when all 3 boys are sporting injuries at the same time: seriously, you imagine Social Services to come knocking when you have one child in an aircast boot, one with a bandaged elbow and your eldest boy then staggers through the front door with various injuries after falling off his bike.
The most bizarre injury wasn’t from son no 3 (dislocating his elbow in a violent sing-song session of ‘row, row, row your boat’) or son no 2 (jumping off a postbox to break his ankle). No, that accolade went to son no 1 who decided to take up a spot of tree surgery in his early teens. So how did his injury occur? Not from throwing his saw up into the tree; not from climbing up a high tree in a howling gale; not from falling off a branch; not from sawing swaying branches up high in the sky; not from swinging about with a saw when descending the tree… no. It came as he was standing with both feet safely on the ground, admiring his handiwork afterwards – as he dropped the saw on his hand and cut his finger to the bone *claps hands slowly*.

Your car will smell like a men’s locker room at the gym (not that I’ve ever been in one, obviously – I’m hypothesising here!) as you collect random boys to drop home after football/athletics/kung fu practice. Either that or you are treated to the pungent whiff of over-enthusiastically applied deodorant when you drop off a heap of lads for a night out. Both smells make your eyes water as you craftily open a window just to stop yourself from passing out.

You can walk into the house at any time to discover an engine in the bedroom (“It’s OK mum, I’ve drained out all of the oil!” “Where? All over the carpet??”).
Or a turbo in the middle of the lounge floor.
Or maybe a gearbox on the dining room table.

You realise that only a certain style of bribe will work.
Me: “Let’s go for a walk along the canal.”
Boys: “Nah.”
Me: “We could feed the swans and the geese.”
Boys: “Nah.”
Me: “We might see some traditional houseboats.”
Boys: “Nah.”
Me: “You can take pictures with my camera.”
Boys: “Nah.”
Me: *sigh* “Apparently there’s a dead animal floating in the water…”
Boys: “Cool!! Can we go right now?!”
*rolls eyes*

Any rancid smells in the house will automatically be blamed on your boys. Even if you inadvertently leave a vase of rotting flowers on the windowsill, or the chuffin cat has just had a major incident in the litter tray.

Board games take on a whole new meaning. Scrabble becomes ‘who can make the rudest word with their letters’. Whereas in Monopoly, the thimble will no longer be known as a thimble; it will be placed upside down and called a DALEK.

You will find Nerf darts in the strangest of places. Such as in a flowerpot, on a shelf, in the washing machine. Or in the freezer.

You will be asked the most interesting of questions, such as “Have you ever been in a Chinese jail?” or “How does petrol make a car work?” or even “If you have an arm wrestle with the Queen and you win, will she throw you into prison?”
My all-time favourite though came from son no 2. As we were all sitting in the lounge watching TV one evening, he noticed the chuffin cat sat enthusiastically licking her arse. He looked across, sighed and in a thoughtful voice said, “I wonder what that tastes like?” Yes, really.

You will realise it is time to do some housework when you discover your boys have written rude words to each other in the dust.

Brotherly love will be expressed in a variety of ways. Such as walking past the bathroom to throw up across your brother’s bed. Or the conversation overheard one afternoon between sons no 2 and 3:
3: “Please can I come into your bedroom?”
2: “Nah.”
3: “Oh pleeease??”
2: *sigh* “Only if you let me wipe my bare foot around your face.”
**2 second silence**
3: “Yes, OK.”
And there followed a large amount of chuckling and squealing as I quietly heaved into my cup of tea. Yuk.

I could go on; the list is endless. Enough for a book? Ha yes, one day!
You see, boys don’t only create noise, mess and havoc. They also create a sense of fun and nonsense wherever they go. Not to mention the wonderful hugs they give you. Arguments may be explosive, but at least they’re over with in 5 minutes. I look at our boys today and I feel proud. We have such fun, once I’ve finished washing, cooking and cleaning up after them of course. And do you know what? These boys are our greatest achievement, and I wouldn’t change them for the world.