Twins at my age! Thoughts from an older Mum

Another moment snatched, this time to dress with W by my side and I leave R happily playing with the pram in the corridor. As I have my top half on I realise one of those eerie silences has descended. So I nip downstairs R has left the corridor and has somehow got onto the sideboard where she is casually eating Porridge with a pair of scissors....

We joked about the pending toddling phase and the inevitable twin approach for maximum effect...one goes one way and one the other. But add to that that I live next to a road next to the Thames and that my electric bumblebee type toddlers are high speed. It is very hairy. One refuses to hold my hand and the other won’t be picked up. This mobile phase is coupled with extreme interest in cupboards and drawers and my house is so unchild friendly that I don’t know where to begin. There isn’t a square centimetre above their head height that it’s already occupied. Today I nipped to put the rubbish out having left them in the bathroom. At least there I can put the loo brush out of reach and have finally found a way to secure the undersink cupboard using a toothbrush wedged into the hinge. By the time I return W has done an Andrex puppy game with the loopaper looping it like a celebratory ribbon over everything and is embarking on tearing it into small pieces but R had escaped scuttled downs...

And tried to achieve something.  It could have been a perfectly nice day if I had just left it alone. ...But I made that novice mistake and thought I would try to strike something/anything off my ‘to do’ list. As it was I ruined everything trying to find a moment to escape and pay bills, sort that mountain of clothes for eBay etc. When R woke far too early from her nap we played in Ls room, I tried to engage but was mainly consumed by frustration that my golden ‘window’ had closed, and my worries would grow larger, untamed. But at about 2.30 I paused and gave myself a talking to...”Remember Sophie forget expectations, they add huge pressure and are a thing of the past...for now...enjoy this precious time with the girls, they will grow, ‘windows’ Will appear, the ‘to do’ list may get done eventually, you will function again...one day.”

It’s extraordinary that just when the nights get a bit more manageable (waking 4-6 times not 8-12) a tidal wave of illness hits. I was just reflecting on the fact that they hadn’t both been well for more than a few days since Christmas. Nasty chest infection, hand, foot and mouth, then a monstrous cold and teething troubles. But my friend Katy’s daughter has squeezed in conjunctivitis and a sick bug, on top of h,f,m and two colds. It’s a terrible sort of top trumps. And at play groups you can’t help but circle like a deranged crow in case they grab another child’s drinking cup or get in the path of a coughing fit. Throughout this I get a version of the soup of infection, not as bad but enough to drain me of the last whisker of energy.. However after the horrendous hand, foot and mouth episode that began with W hysyerical for four nights before the blisters appeared....I didn’t catch it. And spent a lot of time being thankful as a local mum friend did and lost four toenails from the...

In my view there’s no debate take the chance offered for a little peace and control and PLUG IN! But I have matured that view. First time round I worked tirelessly to avoid what I thought of as ‘the dummy trap’. Thinking terrible thoughts like they are designed for lazy mums...my god how little I knew. I now have one dummy loving twin, who was pretty ambivalent about breast feeding and one dummy avoider who lived for breast milk. But now that breast feeding has stopped R found the dummy all on her own and walks around with it triumphantly, as if she’s found the answer to life’s struggles. If there is a battle it’s when to pluck it out.. but I do that readily and I only plug her in at sleep time. (There are times when thrusting a dummy into someone’s mouth might be highly appropriate such as D Trump but that’s a different story.)

turned 49 at the weekend, a great shock as it’s nudging that whopper of a birthday and I just don’t know where the years have gone. And the life milestones seem very slim in fact my life has done a reverse wedge. I had career successes in my 30s infact some I am very proud of, such as the Darwin Centre. Then I spent my 40s doing creative strange things that were out of any spotlight eg getting married, working in Mozambique, and the breadth of my succeses slowly diminished but I had children and more than expected. So the achievements greatly changed shape and name. But standing on the edge of being 50 I don’t feel very grown up or shiny in fact dry and frayed at the edges! I have just picked up my nerve to tell D am writing this blog... to which he said “why don’t you write something useful!” That about sums up my current sense of achievement! Anyway I have a year to work on improving that as I want to approach 50 head on like a rutting stag. In the meantime the one thing I do k...

Oh thank you neorophen for giving me a four hour window to exit the house and see a rare glimpse of bar life. I don’t remember when I last went out to where the young hang out. In fact this was only the Duke of Cambridge on little Clarendon street but it felt wild. As well as thigh high boots and a lot of makeup there were a good handful of shiny bald heads which took the pressure off - as I had nothing glittering about me but a rare lick of mascara - the lights were low, tunes pumping and we got a comfy seat. And thank you my darling sister for persuading me out then buying me what she called an elderflower fizz, I assumed a mocktail but infact a delicious concoction with Prosecco. I was off the leash for a glorious few hours, despite both girls having nasty colds. Cheers neurophen and C xx

It’s a struggle to fit washing of self in. Nowadays I do a daily cat wash and occasional 2 m shower but a luxurious bath (the sort my husband enjoys) happens once every 6-8 months, and sadly that’s not an exaggeration. So on the eve of my birthday, a day when I plan to feel officially old...(Well actually I am trying to see age as a meaningless number but have quite a lot of work to do on that front)...I ask D if I can have  said bath and Plan to add oils and think meaningful thoughts. As I’m running the bath Laurie appears and snarls that he doesn’t want to go on one of daddy’s outside adventures. I say “well do you want to sit in that chair next to the bath and explain to me why?” I suddenly think it might be a moment for us to chat in a mature mother to 6 3/4 old way. He sits, I add the last of my badeadas and some ‘pick me up’ oil and get in to my very hot lovely bath. L fidgets and can’t explain why he doesn’t want to go to the woods except...”I don’t”. Mature conversation o...

Their lovely bear jumpers got well and truly splatted today with black paint. In the bathroom after I had changed R and just taken W out of the bath, and put her in her nightie with lovely clean hair, I quickly grab the jumpers and zap them with stain remover. In that minute of distraction R escaped and weed on my stripy carpet and W squeezed a pair of dirty nappy pants on to her head, a trick D has taught her as she looks like the sweetest gnome in a pampers hat. The stripy carpet is about the only thing in my house that I am precious about, well try to be, and the nappy was urine drenched. It’s amazing how long a minute can seem...

Last night W slept through, extraordinary, nearly 12 hours. BUT I have two babies. R has terrible cold and woke screaming and not able to breath 12 times...I managed 20 m bursts of sleep now and then. Today I feel utterly shattered with a cold myself and it’s hard to cope with my well rested, lively W. The twin factor has many ripples.