Kiddy Kaos: Wisteria Lane - but only sort of

Friday after-work drinks took on a new meaning for some of us mothers about six years ago.

I had travelled to Christchurch where I stayed with a friend who took me along with her two small daughters to her Friday Work Drinx Group. "It's not called "After Work Drinx" because our job never ends," she explained. I thought it a great idea - I don't drink coffee anyway so flagged the coffee group and formed my own Whangarei branch of the Friday Work Drinx.

It wasn't hard to find members. It seemed, come the end of the week, many of us were hanging out for a glass of wine. So from 3pm-5pm every Friday, we'd take turns at hosting this event.

The host would provide the wine while everyone else brought a plate of nibbles and, basically, like any coffee group, turn a blind eye while the house got trashed. (This is a lot easier to do when drinking wine, by the way).

At its peak, there were up to 10 of us - and then all the kids. We learned in hindsight that the fewer the members the better because, at times it was pure chaos. One child might be crabby, having missed a sleep, another (host child) might resent his precious train being played with and personalities would clash. A combination of too much excitement, junk food and tiredness would lead to fights breaking out, accidents happening and it could all end up a shambolic disaster.

But sometimes all the stars were aligned so they complied while us mothers sat and plotted our next weekend escape or girls' night out.

It wasn't quite the glamorous card-playing gossip fest of the desperate housewives of Wisteria Lane, but similar, somewhat.

Eventually, after five years, our drinks group dispersed when the inevitable call of work arose or members moved on.

But recently, on a whim, I decided to resurrect the drinks group.

The bi-annual three-day surf safari had come round all too soon and I found myself a surfer's widow once again. I decided to make life as easy as possible that weekend and stay put but, with the relentless rain, that proved challenging.

A bottle of feijoa bubbly had been twinkling at me from the fridge since my birthday and needed drinking so I rang a couple of fellow "widows" and invited them around.

They were there with bells on. It seemed they'd had enough of the rain too and I guess my enticement of a liquid afternoon tea had conjured up pleasant images.

But somehow I'd failed to factor in the kids and, this time, the stars were misaligned - very misaligned. There were only eight of them but enough to turn the place into a madhouse.

The two oldest boys ganged up on the girl their age and spent the entire time tearing through the house laughing hysterically and slamming doors with her hot on their heels. Both the 1-year-olds decided it was time to exercise their vocal chords and shrieked in their mothers' faces every time they tried to talk. Miss Three ran around being my resident nark informing me of what was going on in other parts of the house and Master Three decided to just make noise for the sake of it.

The middle boy - a Thomas fanatic - was happy once he discovered the train track.

The conversation, if you could call it that, was stilted, accidents happened, there were tears, a bar of soap got eaten (by a 1-year-old) and, yes, the house got trashed.

It all came to a head when almost all the infants were in tears and we could no longer shout to one another over the ruckus. In a mad whirlwind, mothers scooped up their lots and were out the door leaving behind silence and shambles.

But it wasn't so bad, I thought after restoring my house and tucking the three knackered munchkins into bed. The wine still got drunk and it made the afternoon fly by.

Then I leaned in to kiss one of the twins goodnight and trod on a lollipop stuck to the carpet and changed my mind. Yes, it would definitely be a one-off.