Twins at my age! Thoughts from an older Mum

What did parents do before Calpol? I have absolutely no idea.

Baby wipes. You know the moment when you are changing a nappy and you are faced with quickly needing another for countless reasons (e.g. twisting baby and poo soon to be distributed everywhere) and with one hand you can't dislodge a single wipe they have stuck together in a ribbon. You do a one handed shake but one still won't come loose. Or in said delicate operation the bloody wipe sticks to the nappy'S Velcro and the twist manoeuvre leaves you defenceless. I could cheerfully rant and scream at this point, totally beaten by f'ing wipes.

Honestly some days I feel I fight an endless and never ending wave of poo.  Often I have changed them both twice before breakfast but then some days the ricochet effect seems to be calculated, first one then the other, then the first one again and so on! I am often late because one did a poo just before leaving the house.  When I receive quiet judgements on my late arrival I so want to re-enact our exiting scene, while dangling the said nappy as exhibit A, and explaining clearly that in fact we started preparing to leave at least an HOUR before other normal people but there is no accounting for the pre-exit poo! Today I was held hostage by poo and in the end we didn't leave the house all day. Hey ho.  I try to imagine the nappy mountain I am climbing.  Apparently you change on average 4,500 per child until they are potty trained, so that's 9,000 I need to wrack up.  I must be well on my way...

Do you have it?  When in the middle of the night you have tried to cradle, sing, cradle, bring into bed, stroke and after what seems like hours of being kicked and nothing working you break.  In my case you pick them up and put them firmly back into their cot saying in a quiet but desperate voice "shut the fuck up." In these moments I feel possessed, or like something has burst and I am lost.. These breaking points happen more than when I had just one. (There is now the added terror of one or two or three waking and everything unravelling.) But Then I lie down and try to still my fury, confusion, guilt..  "How do I regain myself and look after my little baby like a proper mother?"  I breath slowly and dig dig for a grain more patience.  Then I sit up and try to think of another strategy...are they in pain? need more food? What haven't I tried?And I just give in and sit on the edge of the bed and rock them again and again whispering "am so sorry to speak...

I can feel so black some days.  Nothing lifts my spirits.  I manage to perform my mothering duties but then the overwhelming worries flood in like crashing waves on a delicate shoreline dragging yet more debris with them...how to earn money again, how to make my son happy again, where to live now that we burst out of our small terraced house, how to ever get on top of the clutter as my days are filled with washing, cleaning and cooking like never before.  Will I ever regain myself and my dried brain? Then the following day I have a few more hours sleep.  I wake and seem to glide down the stairs a little more easily and when L demands a 'snack plate' (a ritual we have), I receive his glare with a smile.  Gosh today I have more patience and the blackness has lifted a bit.  In this mood the incremental shift of the dial in me affects everyone else.  L's gaze softens and he puts his clothes on the second not sixth time of asking and so on and so forth at...

Are those quizzical looks people wondering if I am the mother or grandmother? I like to think  I could be in my 30s but the sleeplessness is showing me up, slightly bloodshot eyes, a dull hue to my skin which highlights the wrinkles . But what a mistake to ask the lovely girl that is doing some childcare to guess my age. Without much hesitation she said 45. When I said with heavy  disappointment "oh god really" and then admitted to being 48.  She said "well what's the problem? And I was being honest."  "Yes yes that's the problem I thought you might honestly say 35!"

People told me I would be ‘so different this time’ and I thought...surely I will be the same. I don’t really remember anything about how to look after babies. But oh how right they were. First time I was obsessed by the detail.  Ensuring everything was boiled, steamed never just wiped with any old jay cloth, and he feasted in an organic world without a hint of pesticide.  Following my sons queues, observing him intently and routine was everything.  He had a favourite this and that, and time for that and the other and I followed it to the minute.  Then I bought carefully researched age appropriate toys and beautiful new clothes.  As he got older I went to more and more groups and concocted outings until we spun in to carefully mapped circles. Then there were seminal moments like the times we cooked together.. because don't all functional happy parents cook with their children?  After the first puff of flour to fill the air and cake my boiled surfaces o...

I seem to have made every mistake in the book backed up by those around me who underlined and then emboldened them. “Oh the big brother. You must be sooo proud?” The cries would ring out... My first born was the apple of my eye, in fact that doesn’t sum it up, a loose phrase and I don’t even know what it really means? (I don’t have apples for eyes or any fruit parts as far as I know.) He was just my prized golden boy, challenging in many ways but we were on a journey of discovery together and I was learning how to be his mother and hoping to be the best I could possibly be, while discovering many falabities. The thought of a second child was always suppressed as I didn’t want to supplant him in anyway. But as time went on and he was subjected to the full torchbeam of his attentive older parents I began to see us as a pressure and burden, a sibling would ease the load, bring in some light? Then I discovered I was expecting twins. My word what a shock. I wondered a lot if I would m...