The trouble with twins - Part I

NB DO NOT READ if you are feeling low, or even just a bit frazzled, at the prospect, or actuality, of raising twins. 

1. Pregnancy - I was always unconvinced that the female form was designed to carry one child, let alone two, and a twin pregnancy did nothing to change my mind. Carrying my two whoppers to 37 weeks, at which point they weighed in at 5lb 15oz and 6lb 6oz, was an inventive form of torture. It started with three months of throwing up or at least feeling as if I wanted to 24/7, followed by a brief lull until my bump reached such gargantuan proportions that by the last few months it was all I could do to shift myself far enough forwards on the sofa to reach the remote. Everyday activities like painting my nails, turning over in bed or walking were beyond me from about 30 weeks. Still I guess it's all good preparation for the inconvenience of being a mother of twins and more. 

2. The birth. Imagine how hard it is to squeeze one baby out. Now double that and you have twins. Is it any wonder that this time round I was too posh to push? 

3. Money, money, money. I'd imagined that baby number three would live in castoffs just as Max had. And if it turned out to be a she at least she'd be bang on trend by wearing boyfriend jeans from birth. But when one became two the bill doubled overnight as suddenly we needed two car seats, cribs, cots and two mortgages to pay for it all. 

4. Transport. Whether its the gas guzzling seven-seater bus I now have to drive, and even worse park, if I want to move all four of my boys around together, or the double buggy that defies any doorway to actually fit around it, getting about with my twins in tow is a pain in the proverbial. Is it any wonder I have resorted to staying at home and working my way through a chocolate biscuit mountain (ordered online of course, online shopping being mum's best friend as I wouldn't dare unleash the brood in a supermarket)? Soon it won't just be the buggy that gets stuck in doorways. 

5. Feeding. A perennial problem with babies. If they aren't screaming for milk, they are refusing to take it from your chosen delivery method, sicking it up, developing an allergy to it, complaining vociferously that it gives them wind or transforming it into unbelievably copious amounts of poo. Twins do all that too - twice. Just when one is fed, burped, clean and settled, the other will start up the whole merry-go-round again, which is a game we parents love, particularly at 3am. 

Stay tuned for Part II when I am next feeling particularly bright and sunny about being a mum of multiples. 

Family photos

Any parent of small children knows what fun it is trying to get a pretty photo of your progeny. I find the moment I whip out a camera they start gurning like fools or run a mile leaving me with a blurry impression of a boy rather than the cute snap I was after. The babies are just as bad. They will be gurgling gorgeously, then out comes the camera and instantly they are crying like possessed children and look all red, blotchy and tortured in the ensuing photos. 

So imagine my joy when I was told that the newspaper I write for wanted to send a photographer and stylist to shoot me and my motley crew to accompany a piece they may (or may not) deign to publish. Add to this the fact that mummy had come down with a horrible throat infection, which left me feeling dreadful and looking like a chipmunk, thanks to my puffed up glands. What better way for my family to be captured for posterity? 

Things didn't start well as my five year old ran away from the glammed up me, screaming 'I want my real mummy back'. Presumably he meant the haggard, tired, tracksuit wearing version, as opposed to this woman wearing make up, back-combed hair and ironed, fashionable clothes? I tried to placate both stylist and child while simultaneously balancing on agonisingly painful, too small high heels - it's a good job mums are experts at multitasking. 

The next trick was to get all five of us (hubby having sensibly retreated to watch the Grand Prix in the next room) smiling for the camera. Well clearly the babies weren't playing ball as they have yet to master this gentle art. Luckily they did keep their eyes open, probably because they heard the snapper threatening to wipe them down with a cold, wet cloth if they dared to shut their peepers. 

The boys were happy to smile, scream, and run around in an entirely uncontrolled manner. I am not sure that's quite what the photographer was after, particularly as they began to destroy his expensive white backdrop - but then he should know never to work with children or animals, and I think that on this particular afternoon my boys fell into both those categories. 

At the end of the day we managed to get some lovely pictures of me looking uncharacteristically human, despite my smile becoming increasingly forced as the shoes gradually sliced off my little toes and the boys attempted to dismantle all the photographer's expensive equipment. 

Whether the results will ever see the light of day in the paper is up to the editor, but at least I will have some lovely photos to remember our day (and those shoes) by. But I am sure that when the boys look at them in the future they will ask who that pretty lady in the photos is, as she sure as hell doesn't look like their dishevelled mum.