In some ways, it feels like only yesterday that we were sat on the sofa in our living room, having just returned from hospital, with two tiny, helpless babies in car seats, looking at each other like ‘so wtf do we do now?!’ Overwhelmed, emotional and bloody knackered…
I remember vividly the first time the twiglets came home from nursery and started singing a song that I didn’t know. They were about 19/20 months and hadn’t been going there long – their speech was nothing like it is now, but they were clearly attempting to sing a song and I had no idea what it was. It was such a weird feeling hearing words come from their mouths that I knew for a fact had not been learned from us. That was the moment I realised that it was no longer just me and twin.papa.po (and our close family) who were responsible for shaping their little minds. Up to then, pretty much everything they’d experienced in their lives had been with one or both of us. We were trying to teach them right from wrong, trying to explain things in a way they could make sense of, trying to encourage them to be kind and caring towards others, above all trying to ensure they were happy. All obviously guided by our own views, opinions and experiences and how we wanted to parent our children. So that singing moment felt significant to me because it was when I had the realisation that other people, with different views, opinions and experiences to ours, were now really starting to influence our twiglets.
Last week, we had a fab little break away at Drayton Manor Park. It was about a 2 ½ hour journey for us from Surrey so we stayed over for a night in the hotel – we definitely wouldn’t have attempted there and back in one day. Anyway the journey went surprisingly smoothly. We haven’t bought the twiglets i-pads or anything yet (basically trying to put that one off as long as possible 😂) but we managed to keep them entertained singing along to their favourite songs (pretty much the Trolls soundtrack on repeat with the odd Mr Tumble nursery rhyme thrown in 🔫🤣)
So far my blog has been all about telling my parenting journey and discussing issues I’ve encountered along the way, with a few (hopefully) funny stories thrown in. I hope that it brings a smile to a few of your faces and maybe a bit of reassurance when it’s an issue you can relate to 😁 I’ve decided to introduce something new alongside my usual posts and start sharing some fabulous brands and/or products as we come across them. There are so many small businesses out there, particularly on Instagram, and it can be hard to know which ones are great, which ones are not so great or which ones you can trust. I for one, love recommendations and will often end up buying things I’ve seen people I follow wearing or using (#instagrammademedoit 🤣🤣) If you’ve followed me for a while on Insta, I hope it comes across that I’m an honest and genuine person – for example, I would always say if we were sent something for free (we are very lucky that that happens occasionally). I wouldn’t ever recommend something just because it was free but only if I genuinely loved it and thought it could either make things for others that little bit easier, or just to make you happy so they seem easier 🤣 Anyway, introductory spiel over…. Introducing my first ‘Twiglet Top Tip’ 😁😁 This week I’m featuring a lovely company based in Scotland called ‘More2Explore’ and their awesome product, the Adventure Belt.
I’ve never been particularly hot on New Years Resolutions. Mainly because I find that the more set on achieving something I am, the more likely I am to rebel against myself so that I don’t achieve it – queen of self-sabotage, me 🙈 For example, I’m not the type of person who can really go ‘cold turkey ‘ with things – it just doesn’t generally work for me. So cutting things out completely will just make me really desperately want those things and I won’t be able to stick to it – it’s usually much better for me to make more gradual changes.
I had a traumatic birth. To many others, it probably won’t sound that bad and in truth I know it could have been a lot lot worse, but for me it was traumatic. I think afterwards, you’re so focused on the baby/babies (or in my case completely overwhelmed by them 🙈) that you just push the birth to the back of your mind and don’t really talk about it all that much. Also, when the outcome is basically amazing and you’ve been lucky enough to end up with healthy babies (especially for us, having twins who didn’t need time in the NICU or anything) you feel guilty and almost ashamed to admit just how much the birth affected you. I really do think that mine had a detrimental impact on how I bonded with the twiglets initially. I’m sharing this partly for my benefit as I want to write about it and think it will be helpful, but also to encourage anyone else to try not to feel guilty for admitting that their birth was traumatic and to also try to talk to someone properly about it if you can.
So the other day I was reading a post on one of those Facebook parenting forums (jeez people don’t bite their tongues on those things do they?!) This particular one was written by a nursery worker who was bemoaning those ‘awful’ mums who choose to leave their children in a hellhole of snotty toddlers (aka nursery) even if they’re not working. It described how terrible it was that these mums would drop their poor kids off screaming and crying just so they could go off to Zumba or drink coffee or do the housework. I suddenly realised that I am one of those horrendous mothers they were talking about. I send my little twiglets off to nursery for two days a week and no I’m not working, yes I do go to a Zumba class and do the housework while they’re there and yes Cora does often cry when I drop her off in the mornings 💔 There were countless comments on the post from mothers who agreed, stating how much they love their children, or how wanted and longed for they were, maybe after a difficult journey to parenthood, infertility etc – so why on earth would they choose to be apart from them if they didn’t need to be? On the face of it, this made sense and I wondered if I must indeed be an awful mother for not choosing to spend every single possible minute with my, also much loved and long-awaited, babies?
