Understanding the real meaning of words

I used to feel sad that my daughter was an only child, and as the years passed and she grew older, I felt even sadder. I felt that life could not be as happy for her as it could be for those with siblings; that she would have less fun because there was no brothers or sisters at home to laugh and talk and play with. I know now that that theory is pants, and not because there are two new babies in the house, but because Molly’s cousin has come to stay. Now, this is not a slight on Molly’s cousin who has a) a brother and b) behaved impeccably, but because up until now, I thought I knew what the verb ‘to bicker’ meant. Not so.

I thought ‘to bicker’ meant thus:

Me - “Pick up your shoes, please”

Daughter – “Why do I have to do everything around here?” (Remember, she’s five)

Me – “Just pick them up and stop arguing”

Daughter – (as she pouts, stomps, and grabs the shoes in one continuous action) “You’re just being nice to the babies!” (Door slam).

Bicker over.

I realise now that I am insulting the verb ‘to bicker’ by even using the above as an example. The dictionary describes it as something like the following: to argue; to dispute; to quarrel; to debate (I don’t think so), to squabble (oh yes, that’s better).

I thought I had it rough, this occasional, but daily squabbling with my daughter, but I was a fool and have now seen the light, and would like to offer my own, true version of ‘to bicker’.

To Bicker: When two young girls, perhaps related and under the age of eight, get together and in a non-stop manner, disagree with each other about simply EVERYTHING that each says, does and doesn’t do, from the second they get up in the morning to their final breath before sleep at night (and, quite possibly during their sleep; I don’t know because I am now taking up to six Valium a night just to get me through ‘til dawn).

That’s what it really means and if anyone else EVER tries to give you a watered down version of this; smack ‘em.

Groundhog day

Today I:

Ignored a baby’s cry at four in the morning. I am now beginning to understand the different cries and this one was an “anyone out there?” cry as opposed to a “Waaaaaah, gimme food!” cry. I was right to be dismissive as he promptly fell asleep and didn’t wake again until nine o’clock: a miracle

Collected dog from kennels

Dropped daughter and daughter’s cousin to pony camp

Drove to the supermarket

Forgot purse so drove home again

Drove back to the supermarket

Shopped for the week

Spent way too much time wondering whether it’s cheaper to buy loose onions or onions in a bag. (Still not sure and don't really like onions anyway)

Ate a pack of salami in car outside supermarket

Collected boyfriend’s suit from dry cleaners

Made several enlightening comments about the inclement weather to various strangers

Unpacked shopping (the MOST BORING job in the world)

Collected daughter and cousin from pony camp

Fed babies loads of times but managed to always be busy when there was pooping going on so the Au Pair had to step in there

Made burgers for tea and was told that they were much nicer than the ones you get in that very popular fast food chain

Went to the circus (not joking, honest)

Ate about a hundred gummy bears and realised that if you hold a stick of candyfloss for too long without eating it, it melts all over your lap

Put on a wash

Kissed various children goodnight

And wondered if I have finally reached Supermumdom.

Realised very quickly that my inner yearning to really be drinking tequila shots whilst smoking lots of cigarettes and sleeping every day ‘til noon will exclude me from that club, forever.

Thank God

Happy Days

On July 13th

1568 – The Dean of St Paul's Cathedral perfected a way to bottle beer.

1837 – Queen Victoria moved into Buck Pal.

1922 - My father was born.

1930 – The first world cup Football championships began.

1975 – According to my diary, whilst in London, I went to Mass and then to the zoo where I saw moose, elephants, donkeys and performing dolphins and then had salad for tea and ‘watched a film called “West Side Story.”’

1976 - Elvis’s bodyguards were fired so they wrote a book about him saying lots of nasty things.

1985 - I lounged on a couch, ate nachos and watched Live aid on a crappy telly.

2009 - The Little Boy and The Little Girl were conceived.

Now you know everything.

D -

Two things of note happened recently. Number one is that both babies slept through the night until eight o’clock yesterday morning and I, like the fool that I am, thought – ‘Great, that’s it – they’re sleeping through the night and I can now resume life much as it was before they popped into my world.’ Well, I don’t need to tell you that all that changed when Rose woke screaming her head off for grub at four o’clock this morning and no matter what reason I gave, she was not taking ‘No’ for an answer. And so I stomped around the room half hoping that she would be astute enough to pick up on the bad vibes I was hurling in her direction but all I got was a gummy smile. Either Rosie is not very sensitive to other people’s deep-rooted resentments or she doesn’t really give a toss and has figured out already that she will be able to resolve most of life’s problems with her natural charm. Of course she got her bottle and her back rub and her kisses and hugs. Clever Rosie.

The second thing was that Molly’s school report arrived. Now, being the youngest of six in my family, by the time my school report ever arrived, my mother had become so inured to ‘must try harder’ or ‘doesn’t listen’ or ‘you’re daughter’s uniform is a scandal’ that everything just rolled off her and she would vaguely ponder the report’s dubious contents before saying “Well done, Darling.” These days’ things are different. I counted eight ‘excellents’’ in Molly’s report and one “Outstanding.” From what I can gather I either have a five year old genius who as well as having a more superior intelligence than any man alive is, as can be gleaned from her teacher, the most fun and most obliging person ever or she has been paying off said teacher all year. I am still bemused as to how she can leave my house screaming blue murder and step through those school doors where her behaviour is described as ‘always excellent’ and as having ‘a loving gentle nature.’ She made me read the report out loud twice and as she hadn’t come across the word “outstanding” before (she obviously hasn’t changed a nameless twin’s dirty nappies) wondered what it meant. I thought of the few outstanding experiences of my life so far and wondered whether the taste of a donor kebab after five pints of lager topped the list but decided that perhaps she was too young to appreciate or approve of this so settled for the moment of her arrival into the world at four in the morning on an icy Saturday in December. She was pleased with this explanation and it’s the truth I suppose although five pints of lager and a donor kebab after the trauma of childbirth would have been sweet.

A comma too far

I suppose I could write every day but I don’t. Partly because where in the name of God do you think I can find the time to write when there are bibs to wash and botties to wipe and bottles to be shoved in gaping mouths that now insist on smiling every time they eat thus spilling out most of the nourishing goodness I spend so much of my time trying to squeeze into them? That is one reason but the other is that as they pass most of their every day doing the same thing over and over again, I fear I might run out of things to say. One thing I would like to say, or a question I would like to ask and will not stop asking until I get a satisfactory response is – (and am happy for either baby to answer) ‘for Christ’s sake, when are ye going to sleep through the night?’ To give you a hint, babies, an answer like “tonight” would suit me just fine.

My older daughter slept through the night at six weeks but as she was on her own and not being throttled by a vastly bigger sister at every opportunity, that would be too much to expect from little boy Joe. I could separate him from sister Rose but I feel that that would be wrong. I’m still going with the theory that twins should sleep in the same cot but I imagine that three or four more nights of awake at four thirty then at six fifteen and then again at eight will change my approach. I’m already wondering how I can squash a travel cot plus a little boy into our already stuffed bedroom thus leaving the two girls to snore and grunt the night away to their hearts content.

So, the days pass with each day much the same as the day before. I get older but no wiser and they get older and even lovelier. Then I get sadder ‘cos they’re getting older so then I hug them even harder. Then older daughter gets more convinced that I love them more than her and she gets madder which makes me even sadder and by the end of the day what with one thing and another, we’re all crying and then we sleep. And then? Then we wake up smiling and it starts all over again.

By the way, if any Professors of English are reading this, I would just like to say that ‘Yes, I know my punctuation and grammar and spelling is (are?) appalling.’

Twins do that sort of thing to a person.

Lunch?

Today, Joe noticed his sister and I don’t think he liked what he saw. I can understand his fear as Rose is about twice his size and expanding by the day and if I was sharing a cot, which allows access to all areas including me, I too would be scared. Rosie is very fond of her grub and although she still only enjoys the delights of formula milk, solid food is not far off and once she notices Joe, probably closer than we think.

It was the first time that he really looked at her, really took in the reality of what lies beside him on a daily and nightly basis. Up until this point he had seemingly ignored her, his gaze focussed somewhere off in the middle distance. He is a pensive boy and we often ruminate on what he thinks about. Rose is not so complex. We agree that all Rose thinks about is food. Now it is clear what Joe is thinking. Since realising that the out of focus pink mound beside him that he took to be a huge pillow is actually his sister, he is worrying for his life. As we place her to the furthest extreme in the cot, we reassure him that she can’t yet crawl and he is safe. We have not mentioned that as each day passes she is managing to shuffle closer and closer. Apparently extreme hunger will drive humans to pursue the physically impossible to find food and this obviously extends to twelve-week-old babies. We could get another cot but I’m not ready for that yet. It would mean that my babies are already growing up and it’s just too soon for that. But I am also not ready to wake up one morning to find that Rose has eaten her brother.

It is a dilemma and one to which I think I should resolve in a speedy fashion as this morning when Rose gave me her usual gummy smile; I fear I spotted a tooth.

The Things

The babies are now twelve weeks old and to celebrate this I have decided to list the twelve most valuable things I have learned since their arrival.

Thing 1 – Your life as you knew it is dead and gone forever. You thought this had already happened when elder daughter arrived five years ago but you now realise that you were totally kidding yourself when you thought you had it hard.

Thing 2 – I have worked out, using a complex system of pie charts, set squares and a theorem I remember from my final year at school that out of the next eighteen years I will spend eleven months folding bibs, sixteen months wiping pukey mouths and pooey bottoms and seventeen weeks trying to remember how many scoops of formula I have already put in the bottle.

Thing 3 - Babies are unable to keep socks on and I wager that most will have shed at least one sock within three minutes of putting it on him/her/them so when will we learn not to bother?

Thing 4 – The answer is of course ‘Never’ as it is impossible to pass a rack of newborn baby socks without buying at least two pairs.

Thing 5 - You may have managed to order ‘Rosie and Joe, thank you’ cards and they arrived eight weeks ago and are sitting on a shelf but will probably be still there in five years time. As you write this you are hoping that all the people on your list of ‘thankyous’ are reading it so will then stop thinking what a rude cow you are for not thanking them for their lovely and thoughtful gift in the first place.

Thing 6 - To plan is to fail. You must never plan anything ever again. Even planning to plan when they finish school in eighteen years time is a mistake and you may make that twenty-one years plus if one or more of them decides to pursue further education. God help us but the idea of it would put years on you except for the fact that I am so old already.

Thing 7 - Whoever came up with the idea of heating the bottle of milk/formula before feeding clearly did not have twins. Anyone out there who does have twins and does manage to heat their bottles is welcome to immediately dump their current partner/husband and come marry me. Man, Woman, no questions asked.

Thing 8 – A baby, no matter how happy and well fed and dry and clean he is will always start whinging as soon as he hears a fork scrape a plate. They are programmed not to let any person within 20 yards of them eat a meal in peace.

Thing 8 ½ - This doesn’t really matter as you have no time to cook anyway.

Thing 9 – There is no point whatsoever in putting on clean clothes and then lifting up a baby. They will immediately puke on you even if nothing has passed their lips in forty-eight hours. Like lemmings (or is it prairie dogs?) they have a hidden pouch somewhere in their cheeks where they can store curdled milk for days and that is why babies’ cheeks are so chubby.

Thing 10 – If no food has passed your baby’s lips in forty eight hours it means you are being a very bad parent and should hold back on those four bottles of whiskey you must be drinking every day.

Thing 11 – Your two babies will never wake at the same time to feed in the middle of the night. One will wake and you will feed him whilst in a total sleep deprived stupor (you, not the baby.) He will inexplicably refuse to burp so you will walk the boards for what seems like hours patting his back whilst also thinking of all your single friends who are currently snoring/shagging their brains out like what normal people should be doing. The other baby meanwhile sleeps through all of this like a log and you will find yourself for the umpteenth time seduced into thinking that perhaps tonight is the night when other baby sleeps right through so, you go back to bed. You will get to lie down for approximately four minutes before other baby starts screaming as though she hasn’t eaten in a week.

Thing 12 – One baby is a blessing but challenging as it is, all babies should come in twos.

Excuses

I could say that the reason you have not heard from me in some time is because having twins takes up all my time and until such time as some person somewhere shoves some more time into the day then I will probably never have much time to write.

However, the truth is that that is not strictly the truth.

I had discovered that between the hours of 9.30pm when the rest of the house had begun to snore (including the babies) and 11.00pm when the babies had what we in 'baby advice book' world call the 'dream feed,' there was a free hour and a half of perfect 'must write blog' time.

And it was motoring along quite nicely and regularly until, I discovered 'The Wire."

This box set of five seasons of utterly incomprehensible yet addictive adventures of cops and robbers in Baltimore, USA has taken over my life. I now know that I am using the fact that the babies have to eat as an excuse to watch two episodes a night. I take the babies out of their bed (a complete no-no when it comes to dream feed advocates) and we plonk ourselves on the couch, me, babies, bottles, bibs, those muslin clothes to catch the puke, a cup of tea and whoever else is doing the feed with me. We press ‘PLAY,’ sit back, shove respective bottles in respective mouths and as the theme music begins, all the day’s tension simply flows away.

We have come to ignore the fact that after fifteen minutes the babies have finished their grub and are ready for bed. We throw them over our shoulders and gently pat their backs in a vague effort to get a burp. Sometimes it comes and sometimes it doesn’t. We never know because we are far too busy being seduced by sexy cops with sexier drawls or hooded criminals hauling shed loads of class ‘A’ drugs from one ‘crib’ to another. The language is so profoundly foul that we have accepted that the babies first words are likely to be ‘c*ck sucking mother f*cker’ and not the standard “Dada.” I figure it’s a small price to pay.

The other reason why I may now find myself with a little more time to write is because the new Au Pair has arrived. It’s her first time being an Au Pair and it’s our first time having one so it’s early days.

One word of advice though and you don’t have to be a parent of multiples to listen up.

Do not sit on your couch clutching your baby (or in my case babies) in front of the new Au Pair within hours of her arrival, balling your eyes out at ‘Wife Swap USA’ on the TV. This sort of behaviour does not give a good impression and she will realise way too early in her tenure that you are stone mad.

Another reason to breastfeed.

Who's counting?

The merry month of May is upon us, which only means one thing – First Holy Communions. For the next three Saturdays parishes and towns across the land will be resplendent with little girls in expansive synthetic dresses with matching veils, slips, gloves, tights, tiaras, wands, bags and underpants all of which, if you were a truly responsible parent, should be fireproofed as the materials contained within are so hazardous your daughter is likely to go up in a fireball should someone strike a match with ten feet of her. Indeed the spray tans that will be so abundant are themselves so toxic; there should be chemical warfare suits provided for all.

Puffed and preened to within an inch of their lives the little girls will spend this most memorable day prancing around like fairy princesses on too much caffeine. As the day progresses they will experience the entire gamut of emotions from out-of-control hysteria (this starts at around five in the morning) to inconsolable tears (about half an hour later) with an occasional moment of piousness thrown in. The boys too will have their day in the sun as they loiter with intent looking like miniature South American drug barons with their white suits, slicked back hair and loads of cash.

These seven and eight year olds are deemed to have reached the age of reason and with a First Confession already under their belts are without sin and that is why they are allowed to receive the Eucharist (or eat Jesus, if you’re not very holy and possibly a bit disrespectful to the millions of Catholics who will remember this most holiest of days forever.)

I mention all this because my daughter recently discovered my Communion dress and appeared wearing it, veil, halo and all. She is only five and was sort of beaten into the dress which made me think that I must have been a tiny seven year old or my daughter has turned into a monster five year old overnight. She insisted on wearing the outfit all weekend as she discovered the dress scores high on the ‘twirlability’ scale, which was most useful as we watched Joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat for the millionth time. My faith in her was restored when she suddenly broke from her girlie twirling to stage some frantic head banging that any Whitesnake fan worth their salt would be proud of.

My own Holy Communion was very memorable as it was one of the most miserable days of my life. Early in the proceedings I was caught by my aunt counting my money and was severely admonished for such unholy behaviour. I spent the rest of the day in shameful tears as is obvious from the few photographs that remain from the occasion. I wish I had had the wit to suggest that counting your money is part and parcel of the day and that even the present pope probably counted his but I didn’t think of it at the time, which is probably just as well as I shudder to imagine what the subsequent punishment would have been. Perhaps I was subconsciously demonstrating that by not answering back I had indeed reached the age of reason.

The five-year-old heavy metal fan has certainly reached the age of unreason – this happened when she was about thirteen months and I can confirm that she has become more unreasonable with each passing day.

The babies also seem to be displaying a lot of unreasonable behaviour. They will not smile for their mother. No matter how much cooing and tickling I do, they will not budge. However, The Little Girl in particular is like a fool she’s smiling so much for everyone else. She has smiled for Daddy (of course) and big sister and even her brother who cruelly slept through the event. She has smiled for the dog, for every stranger that has come to have a goo and it seems, for every Tom, Dick and Harry fly that has passed her way. I am considering a trip to THE NAUGHTY STEP to show who is boss but as she can’t even hold her head up yet, that is perhaps a little draconian. I will have to conjure up some sort of more age appropriate reprimand – the naughty bib perhaps.

To be fair, she and her brother did sleep for a solid six hours last Saturday night and at seven weeks that is truly something to rejoice about.

Perhaps the age of reason has come early.

Don't open the champagne

The little girl is having a laugh with me I suspect.

So, the doctor asks "Is she smiling yet?" I proudly announce that she is. I nudge the baby to give her a cue to throw the doctor a smile but she doesn't oblige. I glare at her but I can tell that she doesn't give two hoots. The doctor pokes around at her bits and declares her to be rudely healthy. I then swiftly take her in my arms and shove a nappy on her before she can pee all over me.

Since leaving the doctor's surgery The Little Girl has displayed nothing but a big fat puss on her face. I've seen this sort of behaviour before. She's saving her smiles for someone else and if she is anything like her sister that someone else will be Daddy. So, I'm keeping her away from Daddy. This may sound childish - not the sort of thing that should be coming from the mind of a responsible mother. I don't care. She smiles for me or she smiles for no-one.

Pistols are drawn and the battle of wits has begun...

NEWS FLASH!

The Little Girl smiled today. I'm not joking. I nearly pooped myself when it happened except that there are so many others around here doing that that I held off. However, The Little Boy was not so willing. He's very serious really. Has been from day one. He spends hours gazing into the middle distance contemplating life or whatever a six-week old ruminates about. I can't figure out if he's going to be hyper intelligent or really stupid. Could be both I suppose. Lovely Little Boy. Now I'm just preparing for the all night sleepathon...

A new dawn

Six weeks is apparently a milestone (or is it millstone?) in a baby’s life. It is the time that Doctor’s quote when you are visiting them distraught and deranged when your babies are five weeks old and you are tired beyond belief and your baby (or babies) is/are crying constantly and you haven’t had a shower in a week nor eaten anything other than chocolate biscuits and your partner has mentioned the ‘sex’ word to you in a moment when he really should have gauged the atmosphere a little better not to mention not having noticed that, as you mentioned already, you haven’t had a shower in a week.

But at six weeks everything will be all right again because at six weeks your baby smiles for the first time and they sleep through the night. (Also, you will find yourself thin again even if you were never before and you will all of a sudden want to have loads of sex – even more than you never wanted before.) To be honest, the doctor never said that last bit.

Yes at six weeks it will all be all right.

Tomorrow The Little Boy and The Little Girl are six weeks old and we will be bringing them to the doctor for their…well, you guessed it, six-week check up. Now, there are those who say that a baby does things at their own pace – you cannot just push them into a routine just ‘cos it suits you. You must feed them when they want to be fed and cuddle them when they want to be cuddled and they’ll smile at you when they are good and ready and not before.

Well, I had a few words with them today. Nothing-heavy handed or too pushy-parent vibe. I just mentioned that I would be very happy if they would both smile at me tomorrow. I also said that if they smile for anyone else first that might make me quite cross. If they smile for their father first, I’ll be EXTREMELY ANGRY AND HURT AFTER ALL I HAVE DONE FOR YOU! I think they understood where I was coming from. I also asked them to sleep through the night tomorrow night. They’ve had six weeks of the 1.30am and 5.00am and sure as it’s nearly 7.00am we may as well go again type feeds that could take anything up to two hours to complete. Now that is quite enough of that.

The doctors and the books say that all that shenanigans stops at six weeks.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Baby rage

From today's Irish Times.

A five-week-old baby boy is threatening to sue his father after discovering that he is going bald. Baby 'J' from Co. Wicklow who has asked that his full identity not be revealed, said that he was “totally shocked and devastated” when he spotted himself in the bathroom mirror as he was being burped by his mother after his mid-day feed.

"I'm gutted. I had just finished the last of my grub and was dozing off on your woman's shoulder when I caught a glimpse of myself. I have lost at least 30 percent of my hair in the last two days! By all accounts this is only going to get worse and I've been warned that I am likely to be totally bald by the time I'm seven weeks old." Baby 'J' who was close to tears throughout the interview, carried on to say " I’ve since heard of something called Male Pattern baldness which I’m told I could have ‘cos apparently the old man has it. I’m actually livid really. I mean, there’s was loads of supposedly ‘expert’ health professionals hanging around the hospital when we were born (Baby ‘J’ has a twin sister) and not one of them warned us about this and the old man was kissing and cuddling me and didn’t mention a thing either” At this point The Irish Times had to curtail the interview as baby ‘J’ became so distressed that he soiled his nappy right through to his babygrow and had to be taken away for a bath.

A close friend of the family described baby ‘J’s’ father as “A very nice bloke really but bald as a coot.” The baby's father could not be contacted and at the time of going to press was believed to have gone into hiding.

Me! Me! I know the answer Sir.

This evening I filled out application forms for a school for The Little Boy and The Little Girl. They are four weeks old. If their applications are successful they will attend their first year in this particular school in 2022. I am gone Mad. The world is gone Mad. Someone pass me a bottle of gin.

And on the twenty eighth day...

I actually got some gardening done today. It is the first time I have done any gardening for two years. Last year I moved house and was working and then too busy being pregnant and sick and huge and the year before my mother was sick. So today I dug up one of my big primrose plants and divided it into five small primrose plants. For a brief moment I felt like Jesus who did a similar thing once with a loaf of bread and a haddock although he probably didn’t use a spade and didn’t suffer lower back pain as a result of his efforts. It’s not easy being me. It probably wasn’t easy being Jesus either.

One lump or two?

The district nurse came today but I was prepared. The house was clean as were the babies. I wanted no chance of clandestine phone calls to social services of a ‘mother not coping’ nature.

She took lots of notes and weighed the babies and we then spent a rather lovely ten minutes discussing the consistency of their poo. The little girl obliged by actually pooing in front of us so we could coo over her sample. I was so thrilled with her cleverness that what stopped me from dipping my fingers into it I do not know - perhaps somewhere deep in my mind it occurred to me that if I actually did that in front of a real live sane person I would soon find myself carried off by white-coated heavily built Bulgarian psychiatric aides so I kept my fingers to myself. I then noticed the living room rug upon which was seated said nurse. It was covered in dog hairs. Why hadn’t I hoovered the rug? What was I thinking? Was I mad? I’m sure somewhere in some book it says that dog hairs can kill newborn babies.

But she made no comment and we parted with smiles and many congratulations on the two lovely lumps I had produced. Only as she was walking away and I madly waving goodbye did I realise that I was still wearing my pyjama top and had neglected to put on a bra. I can only assume that she must be used to visiting new mothers who think they are managing just perfectly well but really are quite bonkers.

A good idea at the time

It was going to be easy. Okay, there were two new babies to contend with but we had live-in help for the first eight weeks so really, how hard was it going to be to do an itty bitty blog every day? A frank and humorous account of life as a forty something year old with newborn twins?

The babies are almost four weeks old and this is my first post - that's how easy and already as I type I'm racing against time - I'm sure I can hear one of them crying - or is it both of them? It's feeding time...didn't we just feed them? It's all so confusing except that it's all so simple. Two babies means 6 feeds each a day with each feed taking maybe 40 minutes so that’s 240 minutes per baby which is 4 hours solid feeding so multiply that by 2 cos they don't always eat at the same time so lets round that off at say, 7 hours constant feeding and oh well then you need to allow time for burping after each feed -the DAMN BURPING - why hasn’t someone invented the burpometer or the iburp - a beautiful ergo dynamic device for hands free burping thus giving the long-suffering burp giver (or givers in this case) time to have several large G and T’s on the deck?

The iburp. I'm going to patent that name tonight right after the next feed and if not after that one then definitely the one after and if not that one-