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

We were so stressed out trying to get to the airport on time with two small children and a car full of bags that we managed to leave the bag with all the shoes in it on the driveway!!

DH trying to set up the Christmas tree, toddler number 1 "helpfully" trailing around after him tangling up the just-untangled-lights, 4yr old DC standing on a chair pointing out all the "gaps that daddy is leaving, why isn't daddy putting the lights there?"

Cat shoots into the living room, straight under the tree, and in slow motion chaos, said tree sloooooooowly upends, falls onto DH, whilst toddler, DC1, myself and cat stand to the side, trying desperately not to laugh.

Dear reader, DH actually popped his head out of the tree as if he was wearing it

Disclaimer: I now decorate the tree

First day of new routine on maternity. Where DS1 almost 8 didn't attend after school club. I was 36+5weeks pregnant.
(We live 20 seconds away from school gates)
DS1 decided to go to a friends house instead of coming home.

Cue panic stations, police called. Everyone looking for him, statements taken. Just as statement finished being taken, he strolls in. The police woman had a nice talk to him though. Police man joked baby will come in a week due to stress. Yep baby arrived the Sunday, this happened the Monday.

He still says sorry, this happened at the end of May. I was sobbing uncontrollably when came in.

We'd gone to do some shopping and have lunch. DS was a toddler, but we didn't tend to carry a change of clothes as the resuable nappies never leaked, and the long sleeved bib dealt with everything else.

Anyway, sat down at lunch, jug of tap water on table. Which dh then knocks over, soaking me and ds. Que old ladies tutting that I should have a change of clothes for him! We dried off as best we could under the hand drier, then bought new outfits!

When we missed the flight home for 5 of us from our Easter holiday, but instead of DH and I screaming at each other we stayed calm and sorted another flight in 2 days and made the best of it.

Camping in a Yurt at the end of March (it was cheap,ok?!) DC 3 & 6... forecast cold, wet and snow! Took all the waterproofs, fleeces and thick socks we could lay our hands on and off we went for a week (a week, you hear?!). Best and most marvellous holiday of all... Middle of nowhere, boys, sticks and lashings of mud... A derobing, debooting system the military would've been proud of... We stayed warm and dry and had a very basic but very lovely family time!

Visiting my parents at the other end of the country for Christmas - 2 days after I had left hospital having had an emergency c-section, with a week old baby, two step DD's and my partner - all squashed in to one small car. It was chaos but we had such a lovely time from what I can remember!

It was such chaos on my wedding day that I was ironing the DC clothes stood in my wedding dress. We got half way there and my DD realised she had the wrong shoes on so we had to turn back.

We have a garden on a slope, and two weeks ago, on a sunny afternoon, our older child had three friends over. They were running around the garden, and we got out the paddling pool. They decided to run about in their pants, then discovered rolling down the hill towards the house was brilliantly fun. All the adults were in the garden, enjoying a glass of something chilled.. Went into the house about half an hour later.. And the kids had realised that rolling their grassy selves across the carpet made the carpet look 'like the garden'!!!! I was furious, but since they're only little, I couldn't get too cross... And it was very cute.. Plus, we made a game of 'pick up the bits of grass!!!' Thank god for vacuum cleaners. Oh, and gin.

A favourite family moment is when we went for wintry walk. Just as we got to the furthest point away from the car and cafe, the heavens opened on us! Never seen hail like it! We squeezed our 4 and 5 year old in a single buggy and the 1 year old was carried. By the time we got back to the car most of us had seen the funny side despite being soaked to the bone. Everyone rode home wearing no trousers we were so wet!

We went to stay with my mum for Christmas and got snowed in. Dh was working and couldn't get to us and we couldn't get out.

Ds ran out of nappies, we had some very random food combinations and I didn't see dh until new year!

Mum was a dab hand with a towel and a safety pin tho for nappies!

Definitely lots of 'poonami' incidents! In the car, at home, other peoples homes, the library, the shops, the bath - the list goes on!
One in particular comes to mind when DH was changing DD and all I heard from upstairs was 'oh sh*t, literally'!! When I went up I found poo everywhere - floor, ceiling, walls, DH! An unhappy DH and a very giggly DD!!

Just about every day here. As special chaos is the once a month when DP floods the flat because he has got absorbed in some philosophical tract or some such while running the bath. Then it Is all hands on deck for mopping

dds first wee on the potty dh ran in excitedly and kicked it right over...

I'm just sitting down in a quiet room after the lovely chaos of having my 8 year old niece and nephew stay. Now my girls are older we don't have the same level of toys everywhere, people dive-bombing off sofas onto the dog cushions, happy shouty voices etc. It's been lovely, but I'm knackered now.

on our transfer bus to airport for flight home, bus took longer than planned, i started stressing while whole time kids kept asking what times the flight!
arrived with about 2 minutes till check in closed flushed and really stressed to be told by check in girl that flight is delayed no need to rush! could only happen to us i said!

Getting lost in Tunisia, with a 4 and 2 year old, in the middle of the day, no idea where we were and completely out of the tourist area - fortunately some lovely guy took pity on us and unlocked a gate that went straight onto the beach, just followed it back up to our hotel but it was a bit scary at the time

I remember going on a long drive, as we drove back on to the motorway my 3 year old remembered he really does need a poo, and my 5 year old was sick into my hands, and I was stuck like it for quite a while until we could remove the vomit.....BOY, that was a long drive!!!!!

My first child and first Health Visitor check up at the clinic - i.e. leaving the house! So with a reflux, 6 day old baby, and having run out of baby clothes because of said reflux - I put my son in a fancy dress cat costume and wrapped him up in a nice swaddle blanket to cover my tracks!
Managed to get myself out the door, and made it just in time to the clinic - secretly very please with myself that I had successfully problem solved AND got myself to the clinic on time 6 days after a C-section!
That's when I find out that I have come a day early for my appointment and promptly burst into tears. Think that got me seen anyway and that's when I find out that for health checks they want to strip the baby down to check them over. So I find myself having to explain why my son is in a fancy dress costume complete with drawn on bow tie and convince them that I am a responsible parent capable of looking after an infant (whilst highly doubting it inside)!
Checks all went well in the end and I reward myself with a treat coffee in a local café. I go to the baby change toilet whilst waiting for my drink to be made and catch myself in the low down mirror, to see my pj top still on, with sick on it and toothpaste in my hair! I just burst out laughing because I'd must have looked so ridiculous but realised that amongst the chaos I could hold my head up high because I had actually grown a human and 6 days in it was still alive and just accepted that family life was not ever going to quite be the same!
P.S. 3years my son is still going strong - result!

One Christmas, due to a family death pretty much our whole family decided to get together in our house for that day, we couldn't face it being like any other Christmas but with a huge void. So 23 of us, ranging in age from 1 to about 70 crammed into our kitchen/living room at the longest table ever. It was chaos, but our chaos. A lot of food was eaten, a lot of drink drunk, DM decided she didn't care anymore by 10am and was drunk by 11, DSis and DBIL followed in her approach and DM miraculously sobered up by about 5pm when she realised DSis was in no fit state to look after the kids and they'd have to stay with us! DGrandad had to go home early because of the noise, DCousin had brought his XBox round and ended up packing away our DVD remote with his stuff, we never got it back in the end so can only press 'OK' and can't chose any other options. It was also the Christmas DNiece (then 1) learned that farting on the wooden floors created the best noises ever! She will never live it down!

Family camping trip. Woken at 3am in pitch darkness by 5 year old DD calling "I feel sick", and before I got to her then heard splashing noises as vomit hit every surface. Sides of tent, sleeping bag, air bed, etc. No running water within 50 metres. Feeble torch and one pack of wet wipes were the best we had! And back and forth to tap with small saucepan. Guess who couldn't get back to sleep for fear of repeat!

Moving house whilst 7 months pregnant and with a toddler was pretty chaotic! I was packing boxes and just as quickly he was unpacking them. We have also had several incidents during which everyone involved ended up covered in poo.

Breakfast in bed - made for me by a 4 year old and 1 year old. Suffice it to say that I am still finding coco pops in extraordinary places, stain remover doesn't get strawberry jam totally out of my (lovely, new) white bed linen and a cup of tea made with cold water and most of the sugar bowl is truly vile! Hopefully my best acting skills came into play and the kids were convinced by my declarations of delight!

We've just got back from a week away with the lovely inlaws. Flight there was fine, flight back was awful; the 4yr old say next to me, constantly dropping the lego that was supposed to keep her quiet and busy, the 7 week old sat on me wouldn't stop feeding and crying, my dh sat in the next row with the 20 month old on his knee having the biggest meltdown I've ever witnessed him have (he bust open dh lip while flailing)... It was all made slightly worse because none of us had slept properly as we all got unexpectedly shuved in a room together for a week to make way for the number 1 grandson!

I've already started laughing about it, not sure my dh is ever going to forgive me for insisting on a 3rd child and the chaos that is now our life!

We did indeed have to cut short a camping trip - the tent started leaking. Not just a bit - it was full on raining from the ceiling. Lesson learnt - bring waterproof tent!