text: In her working life, she has covered terrorist attacks, murders and explosions. But nothing, it seems, has been a greater challenge for Samantha Simmonds than a car journey with her three children. The Sky newsreader has revealed how an Easter holiday outing with her family saw ‘blood and saliva flying’ between her boisterous sons in the backseat – and ended with her six-year-old having a tooth knocked out. Butter wouldn’t melt! Samantha Simmonds and husband Phillip Davies with their children, two, four and six . In a searingly honest account that plenty of exhausted parents will relate to, Miss Simmonds, 42, described how she took some time off work to spend with her children – but said the break turned into a string of tantrums and bickering. Miss Simmonds is married to Phillip Davies, the owner of online auction business Flogit4u, and the couple have a daughter aged two and sons aged four and six. Describing a trip back from Manchester to London, the newsreader wrote on her blog that four hours into a fraught journey, her six-year-old son started screaming. She said: ‘I turned round to see blood and saliva flying towards me and all over [the six-year-old’s] face. I started yelling in shock and shouted to the four-year-old, “What have you done?” ‘What he had done was knock one of his brother’s teeth out! How is that even possible?’ After ‘one packet of wet wipes, a lot of blood and tears’, she wrote, the situation was calmer, and it wasn’t long before her enterprising son was negotiating more money from the tooth fairy ‘due to blood loss and trauma’. Honest: In her blog post, the Sky newsreader and mother-of-three also describes ‘working mum guilt’ The newsreader – who has worked for Channel 5 and BBC News as well as Sky – said she struggled to cope when the boys turned on each other in the car. ‘On their own they are all gorgeous – a delight – a pleasure! Together they are a ticking time bomb,’ she wrote. ‘Just how long before the first verbal or physical punch is thrown is anyone’s guess. It is this – the dynamics of the three of them all together that I find the single hardest thing about being a parent … I feel unprepared and frustratingly un-forewarned of the trials and tribulations of dealing with my children en masse.’ In the post, which does not give her children’s names, she also describes the ‘working mum guilt’ shared by many, and how she tries to squeeze in as many activities as possible during precious time off. ‘Many would argue I do too much …. that may well be so, but I genuinely love our outings and seeing the joy and wonder on their faces,’ she wrote. But the dream can quickly turn into a nightmare when ‘their testosterone-fuelled little bodies means they cannot keep their hands off each other for more than a few minutes at a time’. She added: ‘Either kicking one another while sitting on the sofa, or wrestling around the house and taking it in turn to jump on each other’s heads – our two-year-old daughter included. ‘Pre parenthood, like many childless adults I would stare agog in the streets and in restaurants – at the out of control parent screaming at their equally out of control children … Oh how easy it is to judge! I am now that parent!’
target: Samantha Simmonds posted honest blog about Easter family break .
  Detailed how youngest son, four, knocked six-year-old's tooth out .
  Wrote of 'ticking time bomb' when all three children are together .
  In the post the newsreader, 42, also describes ‘working mum guilt’