Wot no milk?!

Given my public ranting campaigning over the baby milk FARCE, lots of new people have come to this blog (woo!) so I thought it might be helpful to write an open letter to folks who’ve just seen two little tadpoles on the scan. Here’s what I wish we’d known and done and not done. And then a few cases of where we’ve got it right too!

Dear Parents-to-be

So, you’re expecting twins! Congratulations! Just steel yourself for the fact that most people’s first words won’t be ‘congratulations’, they’ll be distinctly unhelpful sharp drawings in of breath or ‘sh*t’…

Someone really needs to design more cards for twins!

Get some flyers printed immediately to hand out to the zillion people who stop you in the street with a tailored version of:

• Yes, they’re twins
• No, they’re not identical. You can tell that really by looking, can’t you.
• No, they’re both girls. The dresses are a bit of a giveaway.
• No, we didn’t do IVF. And actually that’s a bit cheeky.
• No, we don’t have ‘an evil one’, thank you very much, you strange old lady you..

Be prepared to become a bit of a local celebrity. Every baby is special but people are peculiarly fascinated with twins. Sometimes that’s lovely – that strangers share your wonder. But sometimes you can feel like you’ve given birth to bearded ladies.

Buy shares in muslin factories. Not muslim factories. That’s quite another matter (though probably very successful in their own right I’m sure). Baby books recommend a layette of 6. I bought 12 initially. And then another 12 on Amazon within a few days of them being born. I think we now have 72 but we still frequently seem precariously close to running out. And you can always use them to make jam with all the spare time you have on maternity leave. JOKE!

Having twins is a bit of a numbers game. Two of them. Doubling up on some things; buying extra large for others. But those numbers apply to much more than just Stuff. Acquaint yourself with all the numbers as that way you’ll be prepared for the worst (but hopefully what happens will be the best). If you work, assume that you will have to go on maternity leave much sooner than a singleton, and have this conversation early doors with HR. 60% of twins are born before 34 weeks. You have much more frequent prenatal hospital appointments (weekly scans and consultations towards the end, even more so if you’re at risk of twin to twin transfusion). Plus, given we’re not designed to carry two, pregnancy can (not always) be much harder. I was in agony with a split pelvis, broken ribs (from the inside), and could hardly walk from about 7 months. In hindsight, I worked far too long. I remember one meeting where I literally had to present while lying on the floor. Commuting was horrendous (I had one woman refuse to give up her seat because I didn’t have a ‘baby on board’ badge, despite being the size of the Olympic Park). You just end up in a hideous guilt trip: that you’re not doing your job properly, and that you’re not taking care of the little beans/yourself.

Do not, on any account, move house at 7 months. Even if you live in a shoebox. Frankly, most twins could fit in an actual one. I was in constant white-faced panic that I’d go into labour pre- or mid- move. So much so I may well have done. And then you’re just this big lumbering whale when it comes to carrying and unpacking boxes.

Yes, it’s blue. We’re renting!

Make sure everything’s ready – nursery set up, hospital bags packed, you’re off work, and nothing major is happening – by about 28 weeks. Which hopefully then gives you 10 weeks (most hospitals induce twins at 38 weeks if they haven’t come out already) to slob on the sofa, eat cake, consider trying out the kids’ potty because you can’t face the stairs to the bathroom, and watch that Borgen box set you never got round to.

This also impacts on Dad. If there is any way whatsoever he can get more than the standard two weeks’ paternity leave, try. Otherwise that may all get used up while you’re still in hospital. You really need him at home with you. Especially if, as happens with most multiples, you’ve had a Caeserean. Do not under any circumstances do what we did and agree that, within 10 days of you coming home, he can work 400 miles away from home and weekly commute. You will go pop; I did.

You may be as proud as a Queen, and as poor as a church mouse, but GET HELP. If you can afford it, try to get a maternity nurse. They’re an extra pair of hands, help your confidence levels and, most importantly, their job is to leave you with the twins in A Routine (more anon). If you can’t afford it, humble that pride and ask all the friends and family who would be spending money on endless cute outfits that they’ll grow out of in a week to subsidise her instead. Lots of people will offer practical help too; take them up on it. Don’t have ‘I’m fine’ as the default, and wrong, answer to any requests. Draw up a list of what would be helpful so people can be assigned tasks. For example my MIL was brilliant at cooking lots of family meals and bringing them round.

And then invest in outside help afterwards too. You CAN look after twins yourself, and run the house/shopping/cooking/cleaning/look after other children/occasionally brush your teeth. You can. But don’t. None of you will be happy. Remember – you are their world. If you’re on the verge of a breakdown, that’s not a nice world for them to be in.

I’ve sometimes felt guilty about having help. After all, lots of people have more than one child, and cope perfectly well. But, by definition, in ‘normal’ situations one child is older, and more biddable. There are lots of practical issues about having two small babies (just try the wartime mission that is bathing two of them safely on your own) but also emotional ones too which are, in many ways, just as hard. When people say ‘double trouble’ to me I say, no, it’s DIFFERENT trouble. After all, if you’re making up one portion of cheesey tuna pasta, there’s no problem in making two. What I have found hardest of all is when they’re both upset, and the dreadful Sophie’s Choice of deciding which baby to comfort. And also the fact that you can’t do any of that delicious basking in your baby’s wonderfulness. Lying with one of them on your bed and gazing into each other’s eyes. Getting to know them as their own little person. Proper one-on-one play. Having someone to help out means you can whisk one twin off and spend a lovely half hour with them. Just them. So they grow to know that they’re one whole person, not just half a set of twins. Otherwise life with twins can become very mechanical; make sure you have space for some joy.

High five!

On which note, the numbers are also stark when it comes to post natal depression. Assume you will get it, and make sure you, and Dad, know the warning signs. Officially it stands at 36% for Mums of multiples; TAMBA (and other twin Mums) put it much higher. It’s no surprise – a devastating cocktail of double the hormones, probable hospitalisation, an EMCS, fatigue, the physical drain of breastfeeding two, the sheer logistical difficulty of it all, probably not eating properly, being even more housebound than most new Mums (even in London there were loads of shops I couldn’t get into with a double buggy, public transport is a no-no, plus it’s just so much effort in the early days to get them ready and out the house when you’re shattered and most things are a mouseclick away)…The wonderful news is that it’s completely treatable. Your brain’s been chemically altered; medicine can alter it back again. Do that early. There are no prizes for struggling through and your twins will suffer as a result.

So, The Routine. Get one. I got Gina Ford’s book and whilst not following her (often slightly crazy) advice to the letter, I DID follow her timetables. Feeding/putting down one baby on demand is masochistic enough; doing it with two, who may well have very different demands, is practically suicidal. It means the first few weeks will be hard. I remember sitting on the steps outside their nursery sobbing as I listened to theirs. But it means we’ve had babies who sleep 7pm to 7am from about 2 months. And it’s amazing how rosier the world looks when you’ve had a proper sleep. Their milk and meal times and their naps are not just set in stone; they’ve been laser drilled into it and I breathe fire on anyone who tries to alter it by a minute.

Talking to other twin devotees of The Routine about this it may explain why a lot of twins, contrary to the ‘double trouble’ prediction are actually quite calm and amenable babies. They know what’s going to happen, when. Positively Pavlovian. You put them in their cot and they’re straight in with the thumb and up with the teddy because that’s Just What Happens. To such an extent, a friend of ours can’t leave hers at the nursery all day because even at aged three they’re expecting their lunchtime nap!

I’ve written extensively in the post Of Cabbages and Slings  (http://tinyurl.com/cple2en) about what products to buy, and not buy. Get Bumbos early. They’re brilliantly handy when it comes to bottle feeding two little people at the same time. Get highchairs early too. Buy cot mattresses, buggies and car seats new; buy everything else secondhand. It’s crazy buying new for a tadpole who, if they kept growing at the same rate as they do in their first two years, would be a 29 feet tall frog by the time they’re ten. Especially when you have two. Learn to love a BOGOFF. On no account actually visit a supermarket (none of the twin buggies have a big enough tray for shopping anyway); do it all online and bulk buy. Become an eBay powerseller/buyer. I’m operating a two out, two in policy ie I don’t buy any new clothes till I’ve sold what they have.

Cheesy tuna pasta, sweet as

Also works as effective face mask

If you’re going to attempt breastfeeding a) get as much help as you can in hospital b) buy nipple shields and Jellonet beforehand (it’s like gauze impregnated with Vaseline, used for burns and wounds, and you can wear it in between feeds). The problem is with two that you can never rest one boob, so for the first week or so it can be tear-inducing agony in the small hours. And don’t beat yourself up if you can’t. We’re not meant to.

If you’re not on it already, switch to the cheapest dual fuel tariff with heavy usage you can find. Assume that the tumbledrier will be on twice a day, you’ll have the heating on all day for them and you, microwaves and kettles will be on all the time (also get another kettle especially for bottles as it is The Single Most Annoying Thing In The World when you’ve got water to the perfect temperature for milk and someone decides to make a cup of tea).

Tea. Resign yourself to never having a hot cup thereof again. Or buy a thermos.

Stock the freezer with ready meals and hang onto every takeaway menu that plops through the door. You ain’t going nowhere, honey. And if you’re breastfeeding you can star in your own series of Woman vs Food. Guilt-free gorging. In fact, treat the whole thing just like Christmas; cook in advance, both literally and figuratively. Assume you will have no time as soon as they’re born so, heck, you may as well write their wedding speeches now.

I’ve also written at great length (takes almost as long to read as the birth itself!) about our experience with hospitals and twins in Bumblers, Beeyatches and Bonny Babes (http://tinyurl.com/d78w2yg). Essentially, assume that you’ll be surrounded by the incompetent and mean-spirited, swat up on your rights, and be ready to go into battle for your babies, and you. Scroll down to the end of the birth story post for all my recommendations.

Find other local twin Mums. Twinsclubuk and TAMBA should have lists of local clubs. Go and meet them beforehand to get some tips and make friends so you have someone to call and ask all the endless ‘how the blazes’ questions.

Borrow two large and heavy dolls from a small child and practise how you will lift two babies safely, how you’ll manage getting them both into the bathroom, undressed, into the bath, not drowned, out of the bath, dressed and downstairs…and how you’ll get them both onto the sofa, then onto the breastfeeding cushion, positioned, and then off again. Or if you’re bottle feeding, how you can prop one up in the corner of the sofa and one in your arm, one handed. There are some useful clips on Youtube to help!

Tell everyone in good time that you don’t want to do the matchy matchy look with twins (unless you do!)

Give us your black market milk. Or the teddy gets it.

If you have high maintenance hair, start growing it out. You may just manage to visit a hairdresser once a year to get your fringe cut.

Never ever let onto your partner in the early days that you sometimes get them confused too! Even if they’re not identical, babies (whisper this) all look pretty similar when they’re wee. Find a secret sign to distinguish them (Romilly had a frilly top to her ear).

Keep a chart each day which sets out how long each has drunk, from which boob (TMI men but you often have a less efficient boob), and what’s come out the other end, and when. This helps avoid the nightmare one triplet Mum told me about when she realised she’d fed one of them three times and one of them had had nothing!!! The chart can then be modified to include what they’ve eaten too.

Lower your expectations. Your house may have been featured in Elle Deco; your dinner parties rivalled Nigella. Just getting through each day, one day at a time, with twins should earn you admiration enough from your family, friends and the world at large.

But finally, feel blessed. I talked about numbers at the beginning. The incidence of twins is very low (we think it’s higher than it is because we tend to notice them more, because of their specialness). You have two little miracles in your tummy; you are a latterday Mary! ‘Normals’ don’t get the heartstopping wonderfulness of watching two mites snuggled up in the same Moses basket sucking each other’s thumbs. One year on, mine have just worked out that they can tickle each other too . Endless hilarity. I honestly think if the airline sit us together next month then the three hours to Portugal can be spent perfectly amusingly if I just take their socks off.

Oh, and very last finally – never have sex again. Unless you’re mad. I was told my chance of any subsequent pregnancy being twins – or MORE! – was 90% based on a combination of age, and the fact my body is obviously deciding to have one last hurrah. No, no, NO!

Most of all, best of British as you head over the trenches. You will survive. It may be double the pooh, in all senses, but it’s very frequently double the joy too. And those moments more than compensate. It also just seems, well, very Alpha Female and efficient; you get a nuclear family in one (very long, very sore) push. So well done you!

I’m very happy to answer anybody’s questions online or over the phone or in person if you’re adding to the Wirral’s paucity of multiples. I have Eccles cakes!

Have just been interviewed by the Sunday Times who’re running a piece on the baby milk rationing and wanted to highlight the impact on multiples.

If anyone else would be happy to speak to the journalist please let me know and I’ll put you in touch.

Fingers crossed this’ll make Danone rethink their policy as there is STILL no word, four days on, about what multiples are meant to do! Pretty soon we’re going to run out!

Oo the plot thickens. As well as my blood.

I have been procrastinating driving theory revision by commenting on the very active threads on the Guardian, Mumsnet and all-of-a-Twitter and there is widespread fury. Danone (the manufacturers behind Aptamil and Cow & Gate) have scored a spectacular own goal here. Because it transpires the illegal export/contaminated Chinese milk story is a smokescreen to hide the fact they started selling directly to China last month, and they are the ones who have limited supply to UK supermarkets in order to ensure they have enough product to fulfill Chinese demands. Somebody in Supply Chain obviously made a catastrophic miscalculation and they would rather inconvenience their loyal UK consumers than muck up new Chinese orders and let another brand cut in. And obviously they want to be the ones turning a profit, rather than UK entrepreneurs exporting.

I received a reply from Justin King, Sainsburys CEO saying he has assigned ‘an Executive Case Manager’ to look into this. I await with bated breath. Meanwhile Danone haven’t responded to my email apart from inane comments from their Aptaclub UK Facebook page advising multiple Mums to ‘shop around various stores’, or ‘buy two, then another two on your next shop’, or ‘take some friends with you so they can buy tins too’, thus showing a blatant misunderstanding of the reality of life with multiples, let alone those who live in rural locations who don’t have a dozen shops to nip into with a double buggy. For Heswall has now officially run out as the rationing has obviously met with panic buying. The Co-op pharmacy even rang their national warehouse for me, to be told they’re empty. Tins are going for £134 on Amazon!!!

It also shows borderline contempt from Danone about the fact that twins, although a small percentage of their users, consume the highest volume. Multiples are more likely to be bottlefed, not least because they tend to be born premature and get hooked on formula in hospital. And the formula that the NHS uses? Yep, Aptamil. Plus breastfeeding twins IS hard, and there are more mouths to fill.

I witnessed the unusual situation today of Mumsnetters actually praising Nestle, who haven’t rationed SMA. Hm.

And what are TAMBA doing in all this? The organisation I have previously praised and to whom I pay a gold subscription, in name and kind, for their campaigning advocacy for multiple parents in situations exactly like this? Nothing, as far as I am aware. I have had no response from them, to emails or Tweets.

If we do have to have rationing – and frankly, I don’t think we should and that UK retailers should stand up to Danone (having worked in marketing I NEVER witnessed a supplier bullying a retailer, it was always the other way round) – then make it two tins PER BABY. Prove that by, er, having two babies with you. Or presenting a TAMBA card. Or two red medical books. Simples.

Right, back to ‘fault detections and its impact on your vehicle’s safety’…

Not a proper post today BUT…

On the very day that The Great Milk Snatcher dies, the supermarkets are taking away baby milk! Sainsburys, Tesco et al have just announced that customers will be limited to TWO tins of formula (we’re on Aptamil) per shop, because people have been bulk buying for unofficial export to China, where there’s a high demand for Western formula. They want to make sure there’s enough to go round, says the charitable institution that is Tesco.

Well, two tins is not enough for twins. We get through between three and four a week. Which means I either need to go through the whole palava of getting twins dressed, out the house, up the hill, and braving Romilly’s Tesco-induced tantrums TWICE each week. Or I need to pay for online delivery twice.

Am going to email TAMBA and Sainsburys as, benefit of the doubt, this is an unintended consequence. But beware the wrath of a multiple Mum if I find otherwise!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22066243

So the twins have now been one whole year on this earth, and I have read back through some of my earlier posts, in particular pausing to laugh at the fact I had ever thought they might be identical. Because they are about as different as Jack Spratt and his missus, and that gap is widening every day. It makes for a wonderful mix, of both their twinness and closeness to each other (there’s a lot of hand holding going on at the moment, and the first glimmers of cooperation eg when unwrapping birthday presents), along with their distinctiveness as mini characters.

That took you HOW long?

I’m just nibbling it out of politeness

Nice…

That was in evidence at their birthday tea. I was rather proud of my chocolate birthday cake, as was Charlotte, who almost choked with the size of pieces she was cramming in. Romilly instead looked longingly at the John West tuna pasta she’d had for her main, and ended up finishing that off and pushing away the chocolate. Said customer preference obviously making its appearance in Daddy’s presentation the next day! Sweet by nature, she’s distinctly savoury by appetite.

Charlotte continues to cover vast distances, mostly backwards; Romilly is perfectly content to sit, observing, or to be helped to stand. We had issues with this for a while in her cot as she hadn’t worked out how to un-sit, so would haul herself up and then be too scared to flop backwards, so cry for Mummy. That little problem has passed, and she’s realised the mattress provides a soft landing. However it is a different matter in the lounge. Our latest hilarious game is to fling ourselves backwards in a baby version of the trust game, knowing that Mummy’s arm will flick out to catch us. Except when Mummy’s not there, and she suffers the indignation of falling backwards onto the rug. In contrast to Romilly’s stillness, Charlotte has cracked perpetual motion, and is constantly fidgeting. She’ll get completely hyper, trying to do all her tricks simultaneously, so we’ll get finger clicking and toe pointing and tongue out and roaring and squealing and DaDaDa at full pelt until she falls over. Or is literally sick with excitement, which is what happened on her birthday, and this was even before the cake.

Charlotte is very VERY interested in clothes and, when getting dressed in the morning, will select the outfit she wants, being particularly drawn to anything with loud patterns, and even more so to the clothes laid out for her sister. She suits pink and red; Romilly is a cool blonde in blue or lilac.

Charlotte’s hair is much thicker than Romilly’s, who is now beginning to resemble a Hassidic Jew with her long curled sideburns, and not much else. Romilly’s much fairer and just more sensitive in general. She hates bright lights, and certain sounds (we still can’t take her into supermarkets). She’s also, sad day, just been diagnosed with eczema. Her skin had been getting progressively drier since we moved North, and I had at first put it down to a change in water. But then she had the telltale redness behind her knees. Little lamb. We’ve now ditched the bubble bath, and have an emollient to smother her with each night, and hydrocortisone for flare-ups. It doesn’t seem to be bothering her yet, which is a blessing. Daddy is now feeling VERY guilty about the teasing meted out to the school ‘leper’. Any tips on dealing with eczema warmly welcomed, particularly how to cope with the sun.

Woah, bubbles!

Cue Mummy pleading with the GP (and, hurrah, the new McClaren Twin Techno buggy actually fits through the surgery door!) who was brilliant and called round all the drug companies, as there’s precious little available for under 2s. We now have a Piriton-like antihistamine, which was trialled at the weekend whilst househunting. And, happy days, we were vomit-free AND had a rather drowsy, acquiescent child, who charmed all the vendors with her unusual silence. This bodes EXTREMELY well for the plane!

Because silence is unusual for Chatalotte, who has also now discovered the concept of screaming. And Mummy made the schoolgirl error of laughing the first few times, so it is now trotted out repeatedly as part of her sit-up comedy routine. She’s much more vocal than Romilly, with a pretty constant babbling commentary on her life (I can hear her now on the monitor lecturing her sister whilst they’re meant to be having their morning nap). When Romilly does talk, though, it’s in the form of a deadly serious monologue, which we’re not allowed to interrupt, and is often accompanied by slamming her hand down on the table for emphasis. It all seems very dramatic, and she’s learning about inflexion and tone. Whatever story she’s relating certainly seems to have its twists and turns and scenes of mild peril.

There are no words yet, but they’re definitely associating sounds with things. They’re obviously trying to say variations on Fred and Cat when he comes warily by. Daddy’s shirts being ironed is patently hilarious because he’s not in them, and they get a ‘Da’. They’re responding to words too, and constantly surprise me with what they understand. I asked Romilly to give a ball to Joe today, and she did, and when Charlotte was examining my fingers, I asked where hers were, and she showed me. By slapping me with them.

Romilly is borderline obsessed with her giant brother Joe, and will clap when he enters the room. She claps in a polite night-at-the-opera fashion, with one hand coming gently down onto the other. Bravo! Charlotte has much more of a Liverpool Echo Arena whoop. She loves Joe too, but mostly because of his beard, and will lie on him during The Night Garden, twiddling it dozily like a comfort blanket.

Most of all in the world though, she loves Charlie Bear, and nuzzles him as soon as she gets into the cot, and then her whole collection of plush toys get stroked against her cheek, whereas Romilly’s is really not that interested in cuddly toys, and prefers her thumb, or the labels on her blanket. Charlotte in general is snuggly and drapey and loves nothing more than sliming your face in her best attempt at kissing. Romilly is affectionate, but usually demonstrated by putting her fingers in your mouth, or examining your face minutely before clocking you one.

Romilly loves books. Sometimes they are the right way up. She’s a whizz on the xylophone already; we’ll be selling out her UK tour soon. She’s quite happy playing away on her own; Charlotte wants company.

As different from each other as any sibling would be; they just happened to be womb-mates. But then sometimes, just sometimes, their whole lovely twinniness strums a love song on your heart strings. It’s the little stolen looks, checking that the other one’s there. It’s covering their face with a muslin and playing peekaboo for their sister. It’s applauding each other when they do something cool. It’s gazing at each other at the dinner table and if one tries to hold a note as long as possible, or blow a raspberry whilst eating them, the other will. It’s when I put Romilly into Charlotte’s cot to play safely whilst I’m putting away laundry, and I turn back, and they’re snuggled up together, sucking each other’s thumbs and fiddling with their ears, and smiling, and looking into each other’s eyes.

We’re on telly!!!

Almost as brilliant as the fact we got their birthday card read out on CBeebies, huzzah! This has obviously led to Joe complaining that I never did that for him, to which I pointed out that I was only a year older than he is now and seeing as he insists on me accompanying him to the hairdresser still…

Finally, for any twin parents out there, I am conducting an exhaustive survey of local primary schools and their twin policies, and also speaking to the Councils as some houses we’re considering are on the Wirral and some in West Cheshire. Most primaries seem to seek the parents’ view about whether the twins should be kept together, or separated, which is encouraging. Even more so is that both Councils have said there is a special ‘twin exemption’ for class sizes (I think this was the result of a TAMBA campaign). In other words, each twin is treated as a separate application BUT if one gets into a school, the other will too, EVEN IF THAT WOULD TAKE THE CLASS OVER THE MAXIMUM SIZE. It’s so different this time around. There are SIX local primary schools that are rated Outstanding by OFSTED, and three state grammars that score the same. If we do stay here for the foreseeable – keep buying tuna, folks, and contact me for 101 things to do with a tinned sardine – then it’s going to be a darn sight less of a white knuckle ride than London.

Famous last words…

This shot was taken for Granny on Mother’s Day, until we realised what Joe’s T shirt said!

Apologies for the short interlude. We have had something of A Family Moment and I have been occupied with Child One – the twins’ 19 year old Eric the Viking lookalike brother. I will spare his blushes and remain enigmatic about the nature of said crisis, but it looks like all will be well, so I am slowly exhaling the breath that has been held for 3 weeks.

It all got me thinking, what with Mother’s Day at the weekend as well, what it is to be a Mum. Because whether they’re 19 years or 19 days, it’s still basically cuddles/food/ mopping up pooh. Just for the 19 year olds the pooh is more likely to be of the figurative variety. Usually.

I make no apology for the inherent sexism in this. Daddies are sometimes much better Mummies than Mummies. But there is something different about motherhood which stems from the fact that, to my knowledge, no father’s rib has ever been broken by his child FROM THE INSIDE.

So here is my definition of motherhood:

Coca Cola’s mission is for everyone to be within an arm’s reach of a Coke; a mother is never more than a grab away from a wet wipe.

The ability, despite a triple dose of Night Nurse, and them being two closed doors and a corridor away, to waken at a baby’s Tinkerbell cough (it might be pneumonia, or a psychopath with a frog in his throat).  In fact, let’s be honest, motherhood is saying goodbye to proper, nourishing, deep sleep FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Because even when you’re apart, your body clock doesn’t change, and you have one ear cocked. And if the monitor is silent, well, that’s probably because they’re not breathing. So you have to check. I bet when Hilary Clinton is President she doesn’t moan about lack of sleep. She’ll cruise it.

Getting incredibly excited when they add an extra verse to the Night Night song on CBeebies. Sod Devolution; this was real Change!

Not having a name any more. I am Mum. As you are Mum. We are all the same. At least when you get married you get to keep your own first name. But I remember being at a Parents’ Evening for Joe and being given a name badge which didn’t even say ‘Joe’s Mum’. It just said Joe. So actually I’m not even Mum. I am merely the chromosomes that went into forming him. I am semi-Joe.

Which, height-wise, I practically am. But he’s still 4 and naked and wrapped in a leopard skin, with diamond earrings pretending to be Julius Caesar (don’t ask). I consistently cried every time that P&G ad came on during the Olympics which showed parents watching tiny children on the starting blocks surrounded by giants, or teetering on the edge of the 10m diving board, before it revealed they were all our GB athletes seen through their Mum’s eyes.

Talking of crying…at everything. I’d probably even cry if Underdog finally got out of his plaster cast. I cried at how sweet it was that Joe accidentally got me a Mother’s Day card that said Happy Birthday. I cried at his ‘you’re not perfect, but neither am I, and that’s why the twins will be raised well’ message because the double-handed compliment showed it was genuine and HE LOVES ME. I cry at anything and everything that features a child and their mother. I was in floods during Black Mirror when I thought she was searching for her lost girl and then felt utterly violated when it transpired she was a child killer. I even got a bit moist seeing the sun set over the Albert Docks yesterday. Swan Lake is formed by Odette’s mother’s cries for her bewitched child; if we harvested all the mother’s tears in the world we’d eradicate water poverty in a sob.

Forget Derren Brown and his memory tricks; motherhood is the ability to hold mental to do lists which, if written down, would stretch to multiple sheets of A4.

Yet despite that, and not sitting down for a moment all day, your mind going blank when faced with your partner’s evening question ‘so what have you been up to today?’ Er…Charlotte did FOUR poos!

Also thinking ‘Charlotte did FOUR poos!’ is a suitable conversation starter on Date Night.

Taking infinitely more pride in your children’s appearance than your own. I genuinely can’t remember the last time I bought clothes for myself; the girls were dressed in their best Footballers’ Babies cream fur jackets for playgroup today. Styling it out…

Daytime subsistence on baby’s leftovers.

The fact that it never leaves you. In my own mother’s case, dropping everything, including shortening a rare romantic break, when her daughter and her family needed her. No decision making process; it’s just what you do. In the case of her own mother, my Granny, sitting up till 3am in her dressing gown to wait for her then 50 year old daughter to return from a night out.

The huge high from being thanked. When a present is described as ‘genuinely awesome’. When a favourite dish cooked for their return is met with ‘wow’. King Lear rails ‘how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child’. He was the Fool. The reason you get a rush from being thanked is Mums simply don’t expect it. We’re just doing what we do.

Morbid fantasies. Actually, I even have these about Fred the Cat (whom I call Joe all the time, go figure). A whole procession of ‘what if’s in the small hours which end up with you sat in the front pew beside a tiny coffin.

Decision making rendered ruthlessly easy. Because there is always a trump factor – them. We’re househunting at the moment and would gladly live in a cave if it was next to an Ofsted-rated ‘outstanding’ school. And said cave came with a beautiful doll’s house.

You are never ill. Well, you are, but you can’t be. You can never go to bed or take it easy or slump in front of the telly with Lemsip. Hospitalisable conditions aside, you just get on with it. Motherhood is one big old lesson in the power of PMA.

But, ah, if THEY are…trying to crawl inside your baby’s mind to understand what’s sore and to explain to them that it WILL go away, it will, not to be scared, and your heart breaking every time a brave little smile shines through the blotches. And for bigger kids that guilty, secret pleasure of them regressing a decade and actually wanting a snuggle.

There is nothing – NOTHING – that they could do that would make you love them any less. You may shout, you may cry, but it’s anger and disappointment that they have sold themselves short. And of course your post partum brain wastes cells working this through to its logical conclusion. Would you love a murderer? Every part of you would be sick. But yes. And it would be your fault. Naturally.

E may well not equal MC squared. This world may not exist. But the one absolute certainty in the universe is that your child is BRILLIANT, and woe betide the idiot who does not recognise it. I remember the years of frustration with Joe’s primary school who, amongst other things, kept not casting him in musical roles. He was a chorister at Southwark blooming cathedral! Snarl. And then in his final year he sang the Tin Man in Oz (a song all about wishing he could love and GOD try to be a mother and bite your lip to stop the tears during that) and got a standing ovation and the Headmistress came up to me and said ‘I never knew’ and I turned my back on her. Again, snarl.

Because that’s what we do, isn’t it. We’re lionesses. All quiet and feminine and serene and then someone wrongs our cub and ROAR. The years of fighting – bureaucracy, the medical establishment, schools, jeez I’d take on the UN if I had to. When you’re confronted by  a 17 stage answering system to book an appointment for yourself, you give up. But if it’s for your children, never. You find this hidden strength, sometimes literally. I remember being on Etna when Joe was 8 and hearing a rumble and thinking the obvious, and I scooped up this large child and ran across lava boulders. Your arms only ache afterwards. And your pride a little bit when you realise it was just thunder…

That’s how you can tell Life of Pi was written by a bloke; if that really was his mother, the cook would’ve been swimming with the fishes before the sinking ship was out of sight.

You would sit your child’s exams for them if you could get away with it. And it takes Olympian willpower not to write their UCAS statement too…

That weird internal tussle between wanting your baby to get to the next stage of development (obviously much earlier than average) and wanting to freeze them, just as they are, a portrait of the perfect doll in the locket of your heart.

Thinking how tasty your baby’s bottom would be. Thinking, actually, if you ate them all, they’d be back inside you, where they belong.

Automatically siding with your child on everything. No matter how much you disagree with them and agree with the other person. Quite often that other person being your partner…

The serenity that comes with its sheer rightness. I imagine men get an inkling of this when they fuss over a barbecue. We are fulfilling our primary purpose. The sun shines, the rain rains, and a mother mothers. As ‘mother’ is both noun and verb, it is our doing, and our very being.

Loving purely, selflessly, primitively. It is the only properly altruistic love. Because what do you get back? An empty pickled onion Monster Munch packet and a milky posset on your best jumper. I was at a discussion group the other night and someone started talking about our inherent selfishness, that we never loved freely, never did a good turn without, deep down, expecting something back. He quoted some rabbi saying that man came from soil, and in our journey from baseness to fulfilment we need to understand that there is an ‘I’ in soil, but ‘u’ in soul. After I was a little bit sick in my mouth… I looked at all the men nodding, and I thought, I have no I, and what is motherhood if not turning your whole life into one good, undemanding turn?

So endeth my musings for the day.

Onto the infinitely more profound. In events which sent a shockwave through Twinland and no one could have predicted, it turned out the girls’ first taste of cake – Joe’s birthday cake to be precise – went down rather better than the day’s other first taste, Marmite. Bizarre.

Most excitingly of all, Charlotte actually went FORWARDS today. About 10cm. See, I told you – my children are BRILLIANT.

There’s blossoming aplenty in Twinsville at the moment. For all the ladies of the house. And hopefully some of the menfolk too…

Charlotte can crawl. In the ‘sort of’ sense. And only backwards. If you put something in front of her, just out of reach, she’ll flop on her tummy, panting, legs and arms akimbo, like a beached seal pup, and grunting like one, before giving up, and making the lateral decision to crawl backwards in a circle to reach her goal. She can also kiss. Or at least launch herself at you open-mouthed and slime your cheek.

Romilly meanwhile likes to sit, perfectly still, observing her sister, life and everything. I’d love to know what goes on in her brain. She may not be moving, but she’s beginning to communicate. I was undressing her in the nursery the other evening and she looked at me, smiling, and said ‘bar?’ I am assuming this was her working out that it was bath time, and not suggesting a quick sortie to the Black Horse.  She can also ‘high five’. Unless you point the video camera at her to gather evidence for doubting Grandparents. She loves covering her own face with a muslin or her feeding apron (especially when it’s covered with gloop) and playing peekaboo. She can stick her tongue out on command. She is at least attempting to get wooden shapes in the right hole. And she’s becoming a great mimicker; I was throwing a ball up in the air yesterday and although she can’t quite do that yet, she kept putting her ball above her head.

Therein lies the rub, and it’ll be interesting to see to what extent it slows development. They’re both great at imitation but, by definition, the person they see, and therefore copy, most is their twin. Both in the moment – if one starts slapping their feeding tray, the other will – but also in general.

I’ve also seen twin jealousy beginning to rear its head. Charlotte has become super snuggly – especially when under the weather. It’s very endearing (there seems to be nothing quite like a Mummy Cuddle) except when I’m holding her sister, and she tries to drape herself over me too. They’re quite big now (all of 2’5”!) and it’s tricky to hug both. But she will try to push Romilly out of the way.

That’s when they’re not cuddling each other. We’ve had some gaspingly cute moments. Before they were interested in examining each other (especially pulling each other’s ears); now they’ll sit contentedly holding hands, or with an arm round each other, or in this classic which is going to be brought out at their weddings to show they first shared a French kiss with their sister!This, incidentally, was part of the photo shoot for their CBeebies birthday card which needs to be sent into the BBC FOUR WEEKS before the big day. Major league stress. Only half the submissions make it! I am knee deep in cut out rainbows and windmills and glitter.

They both love telly, hence the card (although I’m sure I will be infinitely more excited about the card’s appearance than them!) Mostly Baby Jake, In The Night Garden, and the lower end of the advertising industry’s output. Anything involving Bingo, high interest rate loans and cheap car insurance being particular favourites. And the theme tune to This Morning. LORD knows how they’ve come across that as we never have the telly on during the day. Honest.

So that’s them; Mummy’s got some milestones approaching too. And that’s not just my driving test…

We’re house hunting again. I have this mild obsession with finding a ‘forever house’ that the girls can grow up in. Poor Joe has had ten different houses and that peripatetic existence doesn’t help with stability and security. I want somewhere that we can mark heights on the wall. Where there’s a funny story behind the wobbly banister. Where there are little crosses for buried goldfish in the garden. Where there is a point to planting bulbs. A house that over the years drinks in stories and memories and laughter and plasters on knees and Daddy’s DIY and baking disasters and becomes a home.

And house hunting leads inevitably to school searches. I am becoming physically dependent on the Good Schools Guide online and particularly their app which lets you see the catchment hotspots – colour coded dots showing the exact addresses of last year’s pupils. There is a house we are probably offering on this week in Neston (‘historic Cheshire market town’ boast the brown road signs; not quite, says the large Aldi in the centre). It’s in between two primaries rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, but going on feel, I’m happy with both, in the sense that they wear gingham dresses, go camping on Anglesey and orienteering in Delamere Forest. Good, wholesome, rounded fun. What’s exciting is that one of them is walking distance and big enough to have two classes per year group, which means the girls could be at the same school, with all the comfort and security that brings, but in different classes, so they’re not competing with each other, and can make their own friends (opinion is very divided on what to do with twins and education; any comments warmly welcomed, but that just seems instinctively the best of both worlds). Obviously Cheshire I’m sure in their wisdom will send them to different schools an hour’s drive away. But they haven’t reckoned on me. Forget Tiger Moms; I sharpened my sabre teeth nightly when fighting Joe’s corner in the educational bullring that was Lewisham.

I am going to be a nightmare parent, again. It feels like a lifetime ago but the girls are bringing back all its guilt-edged memories. There are things I will try to do very differently. A combination of not having any friends with kids at the time, working all the hours God sent and more, and being literally half the age of some of the other Mums at his school, meant play dates were few and far between. And also living in deepest, darkest Lewisham, where it simply wasn’t possible to pack him off to the park for the afternoon. With the benefit of his 18 years’ experience, and the wisdom that comes with studying Philosophy and Theology, Joe is very ready to offer advice on where I have gone wrong…But I do agree with him on the friends front. I look at Jon who is still close to people he went to school with, and I want that for the girls.

So house, schools…the other big ticket item we’ve been discussing is What Helen Does Next. Which obviously both impacts, and is impacted by, where we live. The ‘easy’ decision would be to go back into what I was doing before, and either try to find a client-side marketing job in the North West, work in one of Manchester’s ad agencies, or consult, which would inevitably mean travelling up and down to London. That’s a hell of a commute. And more than that, it’s time away from the girls. I have flashbacks to a four year old Joe literally clinging onto my ankle and begging me not to go. I am incredibly lucky now in having the opportunity, with this enforced break, and Jon earning enough with lower living costs in the North West, to pause and reflect. I’ve always wanted to write. The little nagging voice – that I’ve short sold a half decent brain peddling beer and biscuits to people who already had a bit too much of both – is becoming a bit of a howl now. Call it a mid life crisis; at least I’m not buying a Harley. And the ancient Greek ‘krisis’ simply means a decisive moment. A moment I will never have again. Before I knew it, I would be getting my Freedom Bus Pass and would have regretted both not writing, and not being there for the girls.

Maybe I’ll be rubbish at it. Maybe I’ll shy at the looming fence of the blank page. Maybe. But I owe it to myself, and the girls, to try.

That, in turn, leads us onto childcare. Jon has quite rightly pointed out that two million years of human history will not let me write in a house in which I can hear sobbing. Even with a study and a nanny, I will just end up always going through to them (that’s certainly what happens now, I understand why some nannies insist on sole care!) The Neston property has a very handsome original 1930s clapboard triple garage which we could convert into Mummy’s Writing Room/Mummy’s Secret Cadbury’s Caramel Stash and I could just emerge with wild hair at mealtimes. Or, and this is a big or, we could think about Nursery. Not full time. But maybe three days a week. Can you write a book in 18 hours a week? Hmm…

Decisions, decisions. But it is LOVELY to have so many options and a future that is so excitingly unknown. I must stop mentally redoing bathrooms though. The house is not ours yet. We’re offering low. Do NOT fall in love with it! Stop buying Living Etc! Don’t DARE look up rosewood writing desks on eBay…

But, as the snowdrops and daffodils emerge in our garden, it feels like they’re budding in our lives too. I may be on the brink of a milestone birthday – on which I am retreating to a North Wales hostelry and refusing to mention it – but this feels like the Springtime of my life again, all down to two little lambs in a very large play paddock.

Jon and I had a dark eighteen months, when a combination of messy divorce and lurking exes, job nightmares, teenaged traumas, surprise pregnancies, being apart and career uncertainty taught us a new word: zemblanity, the bewildering coincidence of a string of seemingly unmanageable events. But after every night, the sun inexorably rises. After every winter, the snowdrops force their delicate heads through the still frozen clods. And after zemblanity comes, gently smiling, serendipity.