6 Babies, 7 Mummies, 1 Daddy and Sydney The Space Hopper

As a full time housewife, I feel a certain pressure to have a perfectly clean and tidy home at all times. After all, everyone knows I don’t do ironing, so if the house was a dump as well, I may as well advertise that all I do all day is watch Hallmark Channel which, of course, I don’t.

It’s just pure coincidence that I happen to know the daily schedule off by heart: 9am McClouds Daughters, 10am Picket Fences, 11am Seventh Heaven, 12pm Diagnosis Murder, 1pm Hallmark Quiz, 3pm Afternoon Movie.

Anyway, the last minute change of venue to my house for our Christmas NCT meet up this afternoon launched me off the sofa like a firework. I then performed the cleaning equivalent of Supermarket Sweep and explained to Chickie that I had raised domestic readiness conditions to Defcon 3. Unfortunately, I failed to impress upon him the seriousness of the situation and he just followed in my frenzied wake untidying everything I had just tidied.

The next challenge was converting the house into an adventure playground fit for seven unruly toddlers to wreck. Then, health and safety considerations, checking plug socket covers, general hazards and emergency exits to ensure aforementioned toddlers left in the mint condition in which they arrived.

Lastly, the catering. The additional pressure to that of good housekeeping. A basic requirement for a real housewife is to have a larder full of home baked treats, the sweet scent of which should waft up your guest’s nostrils as they arrive. When I was pregnant, imagining Mummy-Me, I was generally sporting a fetching apron whilst stirring an angel cake mixture with a wooden spoon, smiling serenely at my perfect child who had volunteered to do the washing up. Instead, the scent of nappy bags is the welcome whiff of choice at Chez Chickie and I leave all baking to Mr Kipling.

All seven tots were in attendance and destroyed my carefully created illusion of domestic perfection in minutes. The devastation after three hours was total. By the end, fights were breaking out over the Helter Skelter toy, breadstick missiles were being launched at the babies who had the good toys, Isabella got her leg squished under the stair gate and Lucie did a giant face first ka-splat and left with a big red circle on her forehead and a matching one on her nose.

Luckily, Santa Em was on hand to cause a temporary distraction from the brawling and falling as she dished out some pressies to a group of babies dangerously close to the edge. One lucky baby even got a Space Hopper. Oh, No, my mistake, that's actually the Sydders who I don't think appreciated her friend's constant attempts to climb on her back and bounce her round the house.