The Only Girl in the House

10 Ways Thomson Holidays Busied Our Boys

10 Ways Thomson Holidays Busied Our Boys

Our family can be a logistical nightmare: ferrying the 14 year old to town to hang out with his friends whilst getting the 12 year old over to his mates house to play on the PlayStation, then herding the 8 & 9 year olds to a football match – meanwhile, poor little Casper gets dragged along on the promise of a jammy dodger. My point being, keeping all 5 boys entertained in one place is a huge ask. So when I started talking to Thomson about our latest family holiday (see more details here), my biggest challenge to them was to keep our brood so busy for a week, in the sun, that they wouldn’t pick up their iPad or whinge about not having their beloved PlayStations.

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Elderflower Fields Family Festival

Elderflower Fields Family Festival

When I received an email asking if we wanted to head to Elderflower Fields Festival in the days leading up to our first ever family holiday (which you can read about HERE), I was dubious and even typed out the declining email due to the mammoth packing task that lay ahead. But, of course, not before clicking the link to see what it was all about. About 30 seconds into my browsing experience, I retyped my email and it was a resounding YES! This was a family festival, taking place in the heart of the Sussex country side with a plethora of boy-friendly madness – although we couldn’t go for the whole weekend, we could certainly put the packing, washing and ironing to one side for a day trip of fun.

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Pre-Kidders on Planes

Pre-Kidders on Planes

There’s an unspoken understanding between parents on planes: Do whatever the hell it takes to get through. Be it seat swapping, sweet giving, playing peekaboo over a seat, snorting the innards of a sherbet lemon in a vague hope of some legal high or simply accepting that normal rules will not apply for the duration of the flight. This seems to be if your children are aged 1, 10 or 33. If you’ve ever been a parent on an aircraft, you just get it. Then there’s those pesky people that fill up the family-void spaces on a plane: The pre-kidders or the people that made the life-choice to never have the little darlings (is it too late to make this choice?!).

Here’s just some of the questions and comments I would like to put to the pre-kidders who occupied 34A and 34B on our recent travels…

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First Family Holiday with 5 Kids

First Family Holiday with 5 Kids

It was this time last year when I cautiously made my way over to the Thomson Holiday’s stand (actually a replica airplane) at the spectacular Blogtacular conference. Like many of the bloggers in attendance I fancied a go at pitching my holiday idea to the company behind sending so many British families on their hols every year. I challenged Thomson Holidays to keep our 5 boys so entertained for a week in the sun that they wouldn’t be tempted by their gadgets – and they accepted!

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The Awe of 5 Boys

The Awe of 5 Boys

En mass, I get it, we’re not only a larger than the norm family, but luck also swung firmly in the male direction when it came to our procreative efforts generating 5 boys. We get a myriad of comments ranging from the friendly, yet sympathetic “you deserve a medal – wow, 5 boys!”, after dinner has been inhaled at a restaurant; to slightly icy stares as couples mutter “god, haven’t they heard of contraception?!”, as we herd our monsters through a packed checkout in Tesco’s on a Sunday afternoon. What none of these people realise, and why would they, is that we never set out to have 5 kids, let alone 5 of the same rambunctious sex. Mr Only Girl and I were happily bumbling along as single parents with two mild-mannered (that’s a whopping lie!) boys each, until one day, we met whilst playing football in the park, fell madly in love (not a whopping lie!), became a family with four boys and then thought we’d give the baby-sex-wheel-of-fortune one more spin at having THAT girl – ooops, there’s another boy. So, in a relatively short space of time, we went from two each to five collectively! BAM! A family of seven was created.

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