Meet the Sorry About The Mess family…
Chloe
I am Chloe – writer of Sorry About The Mess, mother of four, unapologetic fan of musicals and books and TV aimed at teenagers. Because I think I still am one.
Having grown up in London all my life, we have now settled into our own family life in a corner of South East London. For five years, we lived with two children in the tiniest two bed cottage – you could almost touch both sides in most of the rooms! We moved to our first proper family house and renovated it from head to toe. We’ve recently moved once again, and hope to embark on a huge two floor extension and whole house renovation in the next few years.
I love recording our memories through words, photos, and video – I am the documenter of the family. Having always worked in photography, my interest in my own photography really exploded when I had children. All images on this blog are taken by me (and occasionally Sam). I run my own photography business, and people are my passion in photography – I am addicted to the feeling of nailing the right expression, and I love the fun unpredictability of photographing children.
Before I had babies, I was project manager for a leading retouching and creative production house. These days, alongside my photography work, I work from home as a photographer, video maker, writer, social media and blogger outreach and SEO consultant. My blog is my platform to earning a living, and I am often commissioned to make creative content through brand collaborations. I absolutely love being able to flex my creativity across a variety of different mediums.
Sam
Sam and I met at university. He lived in the flat upstairs, I lived in the flat downstairs. Our ‘similar interest level’ was through the roof, and we quickly become friends. After a year, we (not-so-quickly) realised we wanted to be more than just friends.
Despite neither of us planning to become parents at twenty four, Sam fell in love with parenthood straight away. There are four small people who think that he is the best, most fun person EVER.
Without Sam, our house would be a sorry state. He does the cooking, the cleaning, and all the things I bypass entirely in day-to-day life in favour of my other full time job: moaning that it’s hard for a creatively-inclined person to find the time to be creative when you have children.
Sam likes to watch every single type of sport there is. I’m convinced he does this purely to annoy me.
Arlo
He made a big entrance into our lives as soon as we saw those two lines on a pregnancy test, and he continues to surprise us. As our first child, our parenting “firsts” happen through Arlo, through which we continue to learn things about parenting, and things about ourselves.
Arlo is 12 years old.
Arlo is very articulate about his way of seeing the world. He is considered and precise. As a young child, his observations and musings on life made me smile, and also sometimes cry with laughter like no other. Take a look at the #StuffArloSays hashtag on Twitter
Rory
10 year old Rory is our sensitive and smiley animal-loving second born.
Despite Arlo’s one-off conception, it took a little longer for me to successfully conceive baby number two, with several losses along the way.
Otto
Our third little boy is Otto, who is 7 years old.
He hurtled into the world three weeks early and with a very quick labour, proving that just when you think you have this parenting thing down, you can be surprised with a very different experience.
Otto is creative, fun-loving, and slightly bonkers half the time. He makes us laugh a lot with his antics.
Bay
Bay is our fourth and final human family member. I felt so strongly ‘not done’ after our third baby, that the planned 3 children turned into 4.
Now three year old, Bay was born in 2020, at the beginning of a Covid pandemic that we didn’t know was coming when he was conceived.
Yes, I have four boys! – This is something we get comments about on an almost daily basis. I have written candidly about the experience of being an all-boy mum, the comments and assumptions that other people make about all boy or all girl families, and my honest account of gender disappointment and saying goodbye to the idea of a daughter. These subjects are some of my most engaged-with content.
As they get older, my children have become more vocal about not always wanting to be in front of my camera. Any photos and videos have been documented on their own terms.
Ambrose
Ambrose is a Stabyhoun, which is a dutch breed that no one ever seems to have heard of in the UK – we seriously underestimated how many times we’d get asked about his breed when out and about with him!
Bear
We adopted our cat, Bear, after his first family made a big move to Australia, leading Otto to spend the first years of his life thinking that cats were called bears. Bear is often my favourite person in this family ; )
Never miss a post
You can keep up with the latest posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Bloglovin’. Follow my travels and musings on Instagram and check out what I’m currently reading on Goodreads. I also use Pinterest regularly, pinning the places I want to go, the indispensable parenting advice I should have followed, and the interiors I wish I had the time to create in my own home.
Where to next?
Check out my blog sections on travel, my musings on life and motherhood / parenting. Or click here to watch our latest videos.
To read more about my unexpected start to parenting and where it has lead us to now, read Our Story.
Or if you would like to work with us, check out my media kit and take a look at our recent brand collaborations.
Want to get in touch? Drop me an email: chloebridge@gmail.com
