4. There Are No Alone Moments. 🚽
I can’t even go to the toilet alone – two of our dogs follow my every move from the moment I wake to the moment they can flop exhausted into our bed at night. We normally don’t allow any creatures (apart from our children) in the bed with us, but if it means they and we get some sleep, why not?

5. Don’t Take Goldfish on an Overnight Evacuation 🐟
When you pack four kids, three dogs, two cats, five guinea pigs, one rabbit and four goldfish into a car at a moment’s notice and high tail it down to the Main Wharf to spend the night with 4000 of your new best friends, don’t be surprised when everyone doesn’t survive. Scooping up our goldfish at the last minute (despite protestations that they would be more comfortable at home in their big cool spacious tank), early next morning they were all floaters. Whether it was the ash that mysteriously found its way into their container through closed car windows or the fact that their water was suspiciously warmer than when we left home, they were gone. Yeah, you say, they were only fish but we had one each and they all had names and we loved them.
Lesson learnt.