You think your parenting duties keep you busy?

Last week the Boys and I walked past a pair of swans and their nine cygnets.

I'll say that again; their NINE cygnets.

Don't believe me?  Here's a photo.



You might be forgiven for assuming this was some sort of swan creche - I know that I did - but I checked and no, it's not; those swans really do have nine little beaks to keep fed.

Is it just me, or do the parents look a little... harrassed?  Somewhat beset?  A little bit, 'can I just have 5 minutes to myself to go to the loo in private?'  Or slightly 'well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that all those eggs have hatched I'm not sure this was exactly what I intended...'?

Captions in the comments box, please...

British Mummy Blogger of the Week

Whenever Husband and I, in the sweet ignorance of youth, spoke about having children (before we actually did, that is), we always said that we wanted either two, or four. I know that three kids is a good number - that's how many there were in both of our families, in fact - but we felt that sometimes - just sometimes - the dynamic worked out as 2 plus one, and that it was usually the same 'one' who was left on the outside.

So, two or four. That's what we believed we wanted, and continued to do until Boy #2 arrived and suddenly the wheels fell off our well-worked out plans when it became clear that having 2 children didn't just double the work, it tripled it. (For us, at any rate). There was of course also the small fact that we weren't getting any younger and if we kept the same spacing - approximately 2 years between each child - I would be 43 before our 4th child arrived (always assuming that everything went smoothly and things went to plan, which of course was highly unlikely).

So we stopped at 2 boys. And whilst I'm (mostly) OK with that, I do wonder from time to time what it would have been like to have a tribe of boys rather than just the two (because you just know, don't you, that they would all have been boys.) Luckily for me, however, there are plenty of bloggers out there who can tell me what larger families than mine get up to, and this week's recommended British Mummy Blogger is one of them. 'FourDownMumToGo' writes of herself:

'Do you know, I never liked children (I still don't some days). I never rushed across the office to wrest newborns from the arms their frazzled mothers taking a brief break from maternity leave, resisted the pleas of tiny relatives to read them stories and failed to earn a penny babysitting during my misspent teenage years, so just how did I end up mum to four boys? And more importantly just how will I cope without the assistance of round the clock childcare or at the very least a lifetime supply of Gordons and tonic?'

You have to love a writer who so neatly encapsulates the pang of saying goodbye to early motherhood with the regret that she will never again 'trail out of a hospital dragging foil helium balloons and a car seat filled with the rest of my life'.

For the British Mummy Bloggers Ning, click here. (Note: it's called 'Mummy', but Dads can be members too...)