What are your treasured moments of family chaos? Tell Bassetts Vitamins for a chance to win a £300 John Lewis voucher! NOW CLOSED

[RebeccaEMumsnet]

Family life can often be chaotic at times, but often chaos can create the best family memories. Bassetts Vitamins would love to know your stories of when things didn’t quite go to plan, that you can look back on and laugh at.

Here’s what Bassetts Vitamins have to say: “At Bassetts Vitamins we know that family life is colourful and rarely straightforward. However, whilst family days out are a great opportunity to enjoy precious and active time together, families need to be ready and set to go, to deal with whatever challenges the day may bring. Our intention is to support families through the ups and downs of family life.”

So, tell us about a moment of chaos in your family which (eventually) made a funny story. Have camping trips been cut short by a tent collapsing in the middle of the night? Or an attempt to present yourself as a perfectly normal family went horribly wrong.

Whatever your treasured family chaos, Bassetts Vitamins would love to hear it, so post your story below.

All those who share a story below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 John Lewis voucher.

Thanks and good luck

MNHQ

T&Cs Apply

I had a 10 hour flight to the US to visit family when I was on mat leave with DD. She was 11 months old at the time and just trying to walk. I didn't sit down the whole flight, toddling up and down the aisle - we literally walked across the Atlantic. It was an ordeal at the time but luckily she's a cheery soul so it didn't annoy anyone and quite cute to look back at now.

The day when DD and DS decided to make and go on a home made go cart. Out of sight.
Cue one burst lip and the other one in hysterics over the blood loss.
Life lessons were learned that day. I discovered that chocolate does indeed solve all problems, DC learned that a sheet of unsecured plywood and a skateboard does not a go cart make.

The day we left the house with no dummies- cue a screaming 10 week old all the way round the high street!

Trying to leave the house to go to a wedding. I get DD (17 months old at the time) ready, sort my self out, put my lippy on and I'm looking good. I pop to the loo and when I come back DD has decided she wants to put some makeup on and ends up putting bright red lipstick in her hair!!!!!! We did end up going but missed the church ceremony, as I spent ages trying to get it out of her hair. My fault for leaving makeup within toddler reach. Lesson well learnt.

"Treasured family chaos", great phrase

For us that would have to be the day my DM attempted a lovely painting activity outdoors with DD. Only to end up being chased round the garden by a paint-covered child.

The warning "Don't get paint on me darling" is better delivered with a firm voice than a jokey chuckle, was the lesson we all learned!

We left home on Christmas Eve to travel to DM's to stay for the Christmas holiday. The journey is only 60 miles away but does involve a very expensive ferry crossing. We arrived to find that 3 DCs hadn't any clothes. DH had picked up their case and decided as it was so light I had not packed anything in it. They survived in some very random clothing until the day after Boxing day. It didn't matter it was family.

Husband bathed baby who pooed in the bath. A really big poo! He took the baby out the bath dripping poo all over the bathroom floor and popped her in the shower to hose her down. Poo all over the bathroom floor, bath, shower, towels. The incident is now known as poomageddon

The day DD first did a wee on the potty! I was so overjoyed and rang my mum to tell her. Which meant I completely missed the poo she subsequently did on the floor.....which she walked through.....and which the dog then ate!

Cue DH walking in and shrieking. I then carried the poo-covered child upstairs, whilst she wiped poo all over my legs, the bath....... I had no option but to laugh.

On a uk family holiday, DH, DS and I wee in a lovely little craft shop, admiring all the pretty things. I was careful not to let DS touch anything, but has we were leaving he brushed passed a shelf and everything on it smashed. Oops.

I was very apologetic, but the shop keeper said the shelf was wobbly and he should have fixed it before. He was lovely and didn't blame DS at all. He even tried to cheer up DS who was crying through the shock of the large crash.

We were on a day out, DS wanted to go in a paddling pool but we didn't have towel. He promised to just paddle for a few mins then walk bare foot till he was dry... Course, he slipped and ended up soaked! As I was trying to wring out his clothes, DS2 thought it looked fun so jumped in! I had to giggle at the 2 naked DC in the car! It was fun, and I now have a towel in my glovebox just in case!

(Love the phrase treasured family chaos, think that might become our family motto!)

Earlier today my DS decided to stick his hand in the cat bowl, so I took him to the sink where he proceeded to swipe the glass on to the floor where it smashed. So I popped him in the tub as I didn't want him to walk over the glass. By the time I've got the dustpan he's unraveled and entire toilet roll into the bath. I had to laugh or I'd have cried.

A month after Dd was born our boiler broke down in the middle of winter and our house was so so cold. So we went to stay with my parents and sister who lived in a tiny house and there were 6 adults and a baby all crammed in.
We could barely move around and it was mayhem but we were happy to be snowed in together!

It was even funnier when Mil and Fil popped in for a visit. It was like being transported into a cosy rabbit warren.

At least Dd was literally surrounded by her nearest and dearest.

DS left Bear on the bus when he was 2. He screamed for 2 hours until he crashed out from sheer exhaustion. We had a spare at home but he can't sleep without him.

One year we were due to go to the IL's for Christmas (a 2.5 hr drive away).

In the days leading up to Christmas it snowed a lot and, as we live on a difficult to access road on the side of a hill we had to park the car some distance away down the hill side.

We'd thought the snow would be gone by the time we needed to leave for the ILs but it didn't.....it just snowed some more.

Anyway it got to the day we were due to leave and we decided we had to go for it as we had no food in the house let alone a turkey, and it would have been as difficult to go shopping and get the food home as it would be to go away.

Also I remembered that in a moment of being super-organised I'd already sent all the Christmas stocking presents off with the ILs when they'd visited 2 months beforehand so if we stayed at home Father Christmas wouldn't be arriving and the DC would wake up to empty stockings !!

Anyway we managed (with a sledge and many, many trips up and down the hillside, through deep snow and with excited children) to load the car and get away.

We had an experience with a camping trip once. A few years ago we pitched up our tent and then we went to the holiday camp entertainment for the evening. On our return we got in our tent and as the evening progressed we noticed water seeping in through the front zipped door. The water level rose as a river had broken its banks and all chaos broke loose! We had to immediately clear our tent and belongings to higher ground in the middle of the night as did everyone else in the campsite. It was chaotic but we still laugh about it now!

The day I thought it would be nice to make the most of the sunshine and do some painting in the garden with dd. Doesn't matter about the mess then or so I thought! When my dh came home from work my 2.5 year old was totally naked covered head to toe in paint and I was also covered. We were both standing in the kitchen while I tried to figure out how to get to the bathroom without leaving a trail of paint. Shrieking at my dd to not take another step! My dh couldn't have been better in his timing as he could carry dd straight to the shower.

We took lots of photos first though to show her when she's 18!

The day when I was on my own on a motorway drive with DS, 5 months. Stopped at the services for a coffee and a feed. Got back to the car, he poos. Can't be bothered to walk back to the services so I take the pram out of the boot and change him there. All done, back in the car, strapped in and engine on. He poos again. Repeat process! Guy parked in the van was loling. I was hot and just wanted to drink my coffee and get going!!

When we lived at the top of a block of flats, playing in the garden was as much of an expedition Ada trip to the park. The garden, though unfenced, was lovely, and we were virtually the only people who used it, so we were able to leave a paddling pool out for ourselves all summer. Lovely.

So, late one afternoon, having spent several hours in the garden, complete with picnic, I'm packing everything up - except, of course, the paddling pool itself - when ds asks for the potty to have a poo. Oh dear, the potty is in the flat, as ds hasn't needed it for a couple of weeks. But in that moment of distraction, dd steps back into the paddling pool, fully dressed, wearing her first pair of proper leather shoes (no, the dye isn't always waterproof ). While I'm sorting her out, ds says "It's OK Mummy, I've done it". He had used a Tupperware and found the wipes. Unfortunately he used a Tupperware still full of a rather nice fruit salad. Well, it wasn't nice any more! His wiping wasn't too good, either, and that's why I discovered that the picnic rug wasn't machine-washable.

"The hell with it", I thought, and abandoned everything in the garden while we dropped out way back up to the flat.

Half an hour later dh gets home from work and brings everything up.

"Why did you leave all the stuff in the garden? This looks good, BTW, chocolatey fruit salad."

"NOOOO! Don't open it!"

Too late.

We'd just moved into our new house from a flat in London. In comparison to what we were used to, the house was enormous. We'd had quite a traumatic move as we'd been 'camping' in my mum's spare room for some months, and before that travelling around in a van for a couple of months. The move was also logistically difficult as mum had sold her flat too, and was moving in with us. So we had all our stuff (dh and I are hoarders, so lots of stuff) and mum had at least 2 generations' worth of stuff too.

When the removal men had gone and we were able to just sit down with a cuppa and view our new domain and the number boxes and the amount of furniture, I said "I think we need to move into a bigger house..." And dd (6yo) just burst into tears.

Poor little thing, it had been very unsettling for her throughout. She does laugh about it now. (No, we haven't moved into a bigger house.)

staying in adleborough and the car broke down visiting great yarmouth! had to spend the night there! Kids loved it!

We got a flat tyre on Bodmin Moor, in a dreadful rainstorm, with the car loaded to the ceiling with holiday stuff. We had to empty the boot at the side of the road to get to the spare, and used children to anchor our stuff to stop it getting blown/washed away. We do laugh about it now, but the journey home was mostly silent in case DH's anyone's valve popped again

The holiday were we rented a villa in the middle of nowhere in Spain. The plan was on arrival there was a secure safe box by the front door, we had the code, and the house keys would be inside, perfect. Arrive at midnight to find the electric gates had been shut by the cleaners, the box was inside the gates. DH on the phone to the rental company who said it would be at least 3 hours before someone could get to us with the spare set of keys, so DH decided to climb the fence.

2 dcs were cheering him on "go on daddy, you can break in!" V loudly, thank god there wasn't neighbours to call the police. Once he got in, found the code we'd been given didn't work! Thankfully we got the rep back on the phone to give us the correct code - particularly as the rep had suggested first that we might just have gone to the wrong villa and just climbed into someone else's garden....

Too many!

The time we went camping with three children under the age of 5 on a hill in Cornwall, cue a thunderstorm with gales, 3 terrified, screaming kids, us abandoning our tent at about 11 pm and finding a 4* hotel for the night with a massive family suite available, that they gave us for half-price if we booked two nights. So, we did.

Turned out to be the best "rugged" camping trip ever.

DS2 had an accident on holiday in Greece playing on the beach so we had to rush him to the local clinic for stitches. We were on the other side of the island to the clinic at the time and were driven by our tour guide there, but we were booked on another ferry leaving that evening, so DP had to travel back to our apartment on his own using local buses and bring all of our luggage on his own back across the island to the ferry port. Lots of rushing back and forth between the villages and trying to contact each other with a poor phone signal.

My extended family and I were all staying in a rental cottage in Norfolk - my partner was last out and came to join us playing crazy golf before heading off in the car to a work event.

At the end of the game we went back to the cottage for lunch only to realise my partner still had the key, was two hours away and there was no way of contacting him.

Luckily we did have the key to the beach hut and ended up having an enjoyable lazy day reading and playing on the seafront - he felt terrible about it when he got back .