The kids and I have just spent a week in Port Stephens (a huge bay 3 hours north of Sydney) with the La-La's and the mini-La-La's. In total there were 15 of us staying in 2 adjoining townhouses and these are the things I learnt whilst on holiday:
- 7 year old boys are manageable in groups of no more than 2 - otherwise the testosterone levels become noticeable;
- with 5 women living together there is always at least 1 in the kitchen at any one time and a lot of tea is consumed;
- meal times for 9 children need to be carefully controlled with opening and closing times for the kitchen otherwise you are constantly feeding children because they don't eat properly at the allotted time;
- pregnant women don't pull any punches (go Angie!);
- Tom and Charlie can not be trusted under any circumstances, see details further down;
- it doesn't matter how young or old you are, everyone loves SingStar!
One of the highlights of our trip was a dolphin watching cruise where we saw at least 30 dolphins very close to the boat. Another highlight was playing and swimming at Dutchies Beach where there was an amazing playground and dolphins playing 100m off the beach (who needed the cruise?!).
Tom and Charlie completely and utterly disgraced themselves this holiday. It started when I heard lots of thumps coming from my bedroom which had bunkbeds in it and I assumed that the kids were jumping off the top bunks which probably wasn't the safest thing to do. I marched up there to give them what for and was instantly distracted by the smell of some of my beauty products - I looked around and found that all of them had been emptied into Tess' drink bottle with quite a lot spilt on the floor. Suffice it to say that I turned into a Fury lashing out right and left and blaming everyone in sight when I suddenly noticed Tom, perfectly still and humming a little tune to himself on the top bunk, a sure sign of guilt if there ever was one. The older kids confirmed that he and Charlie had done all the damage so Tom was severely punished including having his new bike taken from him for a whole day.
The following day, amid the "mummy can I have my new bike back" requests from Tom, Leanne and I noticed that the 2 naughty boys had not been sighted for at least 5 minutes. I marshalled the older children on their bikes to look for them and they were found with no shoes on (in our first 10 minutes of being there we had found a red back spider and been told by a permanent resident that they were prevalent so a "shoes all the time" rule was imposed), standing in the storm water drains and playing with broken glass. Tom's finger was bleeding from a glass cut and when I tried to tell him how dangerous it was to play with broken glass he replied "well, at least I'm brave" because he wasn't crying??!! Another "telling off" for both of them and vows from Leanne and I not to let them out of our sight.
The following day Leanne had the 2 of them in her townhouse whilst the others were allowed to bike ride when suddenly Leanne realised that they were both very quiet. She went looking for them and found them hiding behind her bed with a packet of biscuits and a pot of jam - it was a new pot of jam - think how hard they are to open. After that they were both attached to our sides for the rest of the holiday - not fun for anyone.
Incidentally, Tom's new bike came from the next-door neighbour who gave it to me half-an-hour before we were due to leave on holiday. The wheels were flat and the brake and bell were broken but Tom fell in love with it and begged me to take it with us. Whilst up there I found Spocky at the local bike shop who completely fixed the bike up including putting on a bike stand which Tom loves. The best part is that I had brought Tom's old bike with us in case I couldn't get the new one fixed and we were able to give that to Jonas the youngest child on the holiday - perfect recycling!
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