How do they know?!

Somehow,  even though I don't tell them,  the boys are always aware when I'm going to have a busy day so they can ensure I don't get any sleep. Last night, I was busting a hump trying to get packed and cleaned up for our Christmas visit to mum and Bill's today. About 3 am, I heard the vocal styling of Ben. I ignored him for a while as he often goes back to sleep. Not tonight though. Tonight was full on wails which made me think he was being murdered. I go into him and scoop him up. He gives me his "thank God you rescued me from this trauma" sigh and I survey the damage - bears have been forcibly evicted, even cuddlebunny, and everything on the bedside cabinet has also been chucked off. I take him to the living room and strap him in his chair and rock him back to sleep. It only took 30 minutes which is great compared to last night's 2 1/2 hours.

At 3:45 am I climb into bed, safe in the knowledge that, as the boys didn't get to sleep until late, I would be able to sleep until 8:30, maybe later.

At 6:00, I am woken by Noah crying. Noah isn't generally an arsehole like his twin and only cries when something is really wrong. So I get him out of his cot, he'd done what we maturely refer to in this house as "a stinky". I found this out by sticking my hand down the back of his nappy as I didn't actually think he had been. WTF was I thinking? He is presently relaxing in his chair watching Baby TV. I now hear Ben having a grumble. 

And so the day begins. I haven't even recovered from yesterday which only finished a few hours ago for me.

I now only have 7 hours to finish preparing for our 5 day visit. I've been warned not to bring a load of stuff with me again and it's going well in that aspect,  but I suspect I will panic at some point and throw everything I own into the bags, just in case, because they don't have shops in Herne Bay if I forget anything. 

Time to crack open the Red Bull.

It's the most wonderful time of the year?!

Once again the cinnamon spiced breath of Christmas can be felt on the back of my neck. Yet another event which I must change my entire view of due to having children.

Christmas for me had always been about the food, the drink and the social activities. The search for the perfect glittery outfit for pubbing and clubbing on Christmas eve, the afternoon jaunts to the pub with your friends, sitting around a fire and drinking mulled wine, mulled cider, baileys, hot toddys, winter pimms etc, the work Christmas parties... Now apparently it's all about making your own decorations with the kids, Christmas eve boxes and the phrase "it's all about the children."

I would desperately love to create a winter wonderland in our home for the boys - big trees, colourful hand and foot shaped tree decorations and flashy lights, but I have sadly been afflicted with laziness and a lack of vision and imagination.
 I have so far managed to put some tinsel around the lamp and a Paperchase wreath on the door. I attempted to put up a garland and a little sign, but both broke as there is nothing in the world which will hold them up. Blue tack isn't strong enough  the suction hooks that don't create any suction and the adhesive hooks which will rip the wall off when I try to peel them off after Christmas.

I had visions of my two angelic looking boys dancing around the living room to Christmas music whilst I cheerfully sang along as I transformed the living room in to a festive haven. The harsh reality was a pair of boys whinging because I switched off Baby TV to put Christmas music channels on and then crying at Wizzard because they were scared of the big beards.
Singing along to the festive tunes was replaced by lots of under the breath swearing as I realised the lights were a fraction too short, that the wall stickers look like they were put up by a blind man and that the garland that broke because the suction hooks holding them up were remarkably suction free. Not to mention that every time I dropped a hook or a piece of blue tack, the boys were sitting under the ladder ready to eat anything that came their way.

In all honesty, I'm not that bothered this year. The boys are too young to grasp the concept of Christmas. I haven't bought them many presents as they don't care about toys, especially when there is tupperware, coat hangers and plastic bottles to play with.

To make it worse, I can't even drink at the moment due to taking painkillers for my bad back (yet another symptom of my impending elderly personism). To rub it in further, I have just acquired a bottle of salted caramel liqueur. I can see it out of the corner of my eye now, teasing me. Hinting at what i'm missing out on. The wanton hussy.

Next year the boys will be aware of what's going on and I will invite santa in and some elves. And I will do crafty things involving salt dough, glitter and paint and baking cookies and shit. But this year is the last year I shall entertain my inner Grinch. We've been together a long time, but it's time to say goodbye because from now on, it is all about the children.

One of those days

Today is one of those days.
Today is one of those horrible days when I wish I wasn't a mother, where I question whether or not I am the sort of person that should be a mother.

I should never have been able to have children. The doctor told me so. It never bothered me as I never wanted children.  But when I found out I was pregnant, I somehow knew that these were my babies, that this was meant to be.

Unfortunately today is one of those days when I question that. I don't usually have such beastly thoughts about my boys, not since the PND days, and I suspect a lot of it is down to tiredness. Special thanks to Benny for deciding that he now wants to be awake between 11pm and 2:30am.

Many little things have been irritating me today but I finally had a cry shortly after lunch. I was on the floor picking up bits of lunch the boys deemed to be not good enough for them when Benny launched his cup out of his high chair. It landed on the plate I was collecting the food on and it smashed in half. I told him off. I told myself off for telling him off. He, after all, didn't do it deliberately. I carried on picking the food up when Benny reached over and grabbed a handful of my hair. I gave him another telling off but could feel myself starting to well up. I sat on the floor and felt bits of food hitting the back of my head. I lost it and sat there sobbing. All sorts went through my mind. What had become of me? This isn't me. This enormous fat girl with saggy tits and flabby belly. This girl with no make up on, with frizzy hair in horrible condition. This girl with stubbly legs, cracked lips, rough skin, food stained dress that i've been wearing for three days.as I haven't had a chance to wash any of my own clothes out for nearly a week. I didn't recognise myself. I haven't recognised myself in a long time. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't matter anymore. I want my old life back.

My old life wasn't fantastic. I had a job that paid well but that I was falling out of love with. I had a fancy flat in the town centre and, more importantly, I had complete 100% freedom. I can't even have a wee without an audience screaming at me.


But today is just one of those days. It'll be over soon and tomorrow will be a better day.

Today's letter was D and the word was discipline. Discipline - a word that used to conjure up images of a pale and flabby middle aged woman rummaging around Ann Summers for a paddle and some flimsy furry handcuffs to add a bit of spice to her ailing sex life with her increasingly impotent husband.

Disciplining children is an entirely different kettle of fish. And I am absolutely shit at it. On the whole, Benny and Chops are good boys which makes it harder to differentiate between bad behaviour and normal small child behaviour. So I have been issuing telling offs largely based on how irritating I find their behaviour, whether or not it was funny, if there is potential for something to get broken and whether or not it is dangerous.

Earlier today, Benny bit me on the leg. I squealed, swore and raised my voice to tell him off. He looked at me in shock and his lip started to tremble. Then he started crying, big sobs. I felt awful and apologised to him and gave him a big cuddle. So somehow I get bitten and end up apologising to Benny. Well played son, well played.

The main reason for a telling off occurs when I am trying to change their clothes and nappies. Benny arches his back and goes all rigid whereas Chops is like a noodle. They both try to escape from me and I desperately want them to understand that this would have been over 20 minutes ago if they would just stay still and let me change them. The worst is when they have a stinky nappy. This is where I desperately wish I was an octopus. I have one hand holding up the legs, another hand wiping the bum, another hand trying to swipe away their hands from their bums, another hand trying to keep the other boy from eating the dirty nappy and wet wipes. How many hands is that? 4 hands. Well if I was an octopus I could hold 4 glasses of wine as well.
Anyway, you can guarantee that the baby in question will break away despite my desperate pleas "please stay still Chops. Don't move, don't you even think about it, don't you dare. Just stay still for 5 poxy minutes for the love of God child. Benny, don't you touch the wet wipes. Give it to mummy. Give it to mummy. Give it to mummy please. Give it to mummy now. Chops! Godammit! Get back here now for crying out loud. Get here. Don't you dare move, for Christ's sake". And there it is, Chops is crawling down the hallway, stopping every so often to sit down and leave a poo print on the carpet. Benny is sitting there with a mouth full of wet wipes and I'm sat there with my head in my hands and poo all over my hands and legs.

This ordeal has taken around half an hour. And I now have to repeat it with the other boy.

Twins are twice as nice you say? Yeah, something like that.

Hi, welcome to my blog. I have no idea what I'm doing and this is probably going to be a very common theme in my blog.

My name is Emma. I am 33 years old and am a single mother to 15 month old twin boys, Benny and Chops (not their real names).

I never planned to have children and was told that it wasn't a possibility anyway. I was muddling along just fine until one day in December 2013 when, for reasons unknown, I took a pregnancy test which came back positive. I drank a couple of litres of water and did another test. Another positive. I still didn't believe it so I had it confirmed by the GP. Yep, still positive. The next day I went to Options for some advice on my options  (strangely enough) and I concluded that this baby was here against all the odds and that this pregnancy was meant to be.

I got excited and started telling those closest to me. My mum I told whilst I was hiding behind the fridge. A couple of weeks later I started to bleed. I went to the hospital for an early scan. Everything was A OK and I was told I was carrying twins. I lay there, impaled by some metal implement, squealing "twins, twins, what the fuck do you mean by twins?!" It turns out it meant pretty much how she said it. I was pregnant with twins. Me, the woman who never wanted children. The woman who had held two babies in her entire life. The woman who recoiled when her colleagues brought their newborns into work. The woman with the poo phobia. The irresponsible woman with all the common sense of a pair of hot pants.

How on Earth was I going to deal with this?

If I had thought about it, I would have started this blog then. But it never even occurred to me. Or at least when the boys were born, but I barely had time to fart let alone maintain a blog. But better late than never.

Emma
10/11/15