With 3 boys under 5, there’s never a dull moment. Certainly never a quiet one… Buggy Blogger mum to J (4), B (3) and S (1) does her best not to lose it with them.

Testing, testing 1 2 3. And they frequently are. All three of them.

Now mostly I’m a laid back kind of a gal, but sometimes this lot would test the patience of a saint. Flashpoints include mealtimes, leaving the house for school and bath time. If I had a pound for every time I've said 'CAN you concentrate on your food!' or 'come ON we'll be late for school!' …

Take meal times. I spend quality time preparing them delicious and nutritious grub. It's served on favourite plates. Everyone's got friendly 'character' cutlery. It's neither Winalot Prime nor alien fodder. What could go wrong?

Well. S will alternate between squishing handfuls of food and flinging the plate on the floor, or performing crazy cutlery percussion and Houdini-ing out of the highchair straps. B invariably has a hissy fit over the way I've prepared the food ('no! not ripped/rolled/cut/uncut') or the way I've served the cheese (too much/too little/mixed in/sprinkled on top) or the temperature (too hot even if it's been sitting untouched for half an hour). Meanwhile J's taken to playing the supremely irksome echo game in which he repeats my crescendoing entreaties to B to 'EAT YOUR DINNER!'.

And what about leaving the house in the morning? J's usually got some essential 'can't wait' scooter maintenance requirement while B wavers indecisively over whether to wear his shoes or wellies, shoes or wellies, shoes or …

And when that great dilemma’s been resolved, we start on gloves or no gloves, gloves or no gloves. Then, once everyone's fully clothed to their complete satisfaction, we've hunted around for that MUST-bring toy and I've shouted 'Come ON kids we're LATE' for the dozenth time, then S decides it's the perfect moment to fill his nappy. Impeccable timing.

Then there's bath time. B will do anything to delay the moment of hitting the Matey Bubbles. Yesterday he was bombing around naked, slippery fishing out of my hands as I desperately try to grab and dunk him in the bath. Meanwhile, S quietly gets hold of the bath mat and plunges it in the loo. I stick a recalcitrant B into the bath and fish out the sodden mat while J announces he needs to get out of the bath NOW to answer the call of nature. Pull him out dripping and send him off to the other loo. Try calming B while pursuing an errant S. Things look like they can't get much worse when J shrieks 'there’s a man in the toilet!'. Luckily I don't need to dial 999 as it's only a Playmobil soldier posted there earlier by S, but by now I'm a gibbering wreck. And so passes another relaxing bath time …

Still, I must keep reminding myself these things are sent to try us. Sooner or later, the erratic habits will pass, otherwise they’ll find it hard to get flatmates in later life <S. 19 yrs old. Male. Student. GSOH. Seeks room in shared house. Propensity to post misc items in loo but OK really>.

In the meantime, I'll keep working on my 'let it all wash over you' mantra. It just wouldn't be right to throw in the towel either by losing patience and joining in the general meltdown and/or quite literally lobbing a towel into the toilet bowl in a fit of pique. Wouldn't look good in terms of teaching by example would it?

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