Playdate Mahem

There’s nothing like having six kids tearing through your house and trashing it to make you change your mind about loving the school holidays.

Yeah, nah, they can go back to school now.

There comes a point, somewhere after the pre-school years, where many parents welcome the lazy, late mornings, following the late nights and lack of deadlines to be out the door that the holidays bring. By then the kids can entertain themselves for the most part so it doesn’t matter that all activities have shut down for the summer, something which could throw a mum of pre-schoolers into panic-mode.

It’s been on my ‘to-do’ list all holidays to finally have their friends over for a playdate. They are always getting invited places and we can never seem to find the time to return the favour.

Because of all the adventures they’ve been having, it got left to the last day possible and so it was that I found myself with six kids ripping through the place.

The good thing was it was an even number so there was no ganging up or exclusion. And the bad part … well let’s just say it was them against me. I was mad to think I could meet a work deadline that day or do the housework. Absolutely starkers.

In the morning I received an invite to the beach to which I replied I wasn’t in a position to go that day as I had six kids.

“Six kids?!” they replied.

“Yeah, I find even numbers are easier than one toddler,” I confidently texted back.

About an hour later, as I watched my house get turned upside-down and when I realised they would all need feeding, I took my words back.

I sent Master Ten and his mate up to the supermarket to buy some food. No sooner had they polished that lot off and I had cleaned up the carnage, then it was lunchtime.

In between mealtimes there was the three youngest deciding it was a good idea to squirt a wasp nest with their water pistols before tearing, shrieking with laughter, back into the house with wasps in hot pursuit. There was the transformation of my lounge and dining room and everything pulled out of the linen cupboard as they built huts before they abandoned these to have some kind of war game wearing camo gear and carrying walkie-talkies. This lead them all round the property and through the house, trampling dirt and leaves to the constant sound track of the thumping on the stairs and the thud-thud-thud of one of the older boys making a weapon in the work shop with the hammer under the house.

Then out came the go-cart at full speed down the steep driveway – something I can’t bear to watch. It was at this point I realised that sometimes you’ve just got to leave them to learn the hard way and make sure there’s enough seats in the seven-seater, should a mad-dash to A&E be called for.

When three of them asked if they could walk up to the dairy with $1 of their pocket money I welcomed the semi-silence and sat down and churned out half an hour’s work. But then they returned brandishing a can each of the dreaded fizzy drink and the craziness resumed.

After finding it spilt on the carpet in my b&b I’d had enough and settled them all down with a movie. They chose Forrest Gump, which kept them absorbed until a naked lady playing the guitar came into view and they convulsed with pink-cheeked hilarity.

Apart from a bleeding tooth, there were no casualties. Just my house. After seven hours of crazy-town I shepherded them all into the car and delivered them to their abodes and that wrapped up probably one of the most un-pc playdates in today’s times. Who would ever send their kids to my house for a play date?!