10. "Twins! I've always wanted twins!"

This commonly received comment was emailed in by Kim, who said;

"It always makes my blood boil when someone says, 'Twins, I've always wanted twins!'. The commenter is usually a young girl who is most likely fantasizing about picking out matchy names and dressing them in the same adorable outfits.

I usually just smile and nod.  However, if you catch me on a particularly rough day, I've been known to reply 'no you don't. It is really hard.'

It is so much easier now that my boys are ten months old.  I haven't heard that comment in a while, but if I did now, I probably would reply;

'Maybe you will be as blessed as I am.'

I think Kim is quite right, I've had a fair few people say this one, and just earlier today I was chatting with another twin mum who said that her standard reply to this was "be careful what you wish for".

Funnily enough, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I did wonder at the 12 week scan if it might be twins, not in a serious way, but I suppose I was aware that it was a possibility.  However, having had a single baby, when it came to my second pregnancy it didn't once occur to me that that might be the case (despite all the some what obvious signs!).

I also think Kim hits the nail on the head, how we feel about these comments changes through time. What once was a sore subject, now becomes our favourite subject.

9. "When I am having a bad day, I just walk past your house, and I suddenly feel a lot better".


Advanced warning for 'anonymous commenter': this is one my friends have said to me. Dear friends, you know who you are!


I think what these friends who have said this to me actually mean to say is, 'when I am having a bad day, I think of you and realise how much harder this could be for me, as it is for you, and that puts things back in perspective a little'. Truth is, I'm not sure if in the early days either way of saying it wouldn't have landed on hostile ears, but at least the latter sounds slightly less... slightly less... hmmm... I'm not sure of the word, but perhaps would have wound me up slightly less.

Time for a confession - when my boys were first born, I had a really bad case of singleton envy. Yup, I used to watch mothers walking around, with their lovely single buggies (usually a bugaboo) with their lovely single baby, and I would resent them. There we go. It doesn't make me a terribly nice person.

But the fact of the matter is that I was jealous of them. I felt jealous of how easy they had it (even though the rational me knows that having just one baby doesn't necessarily make it easy). I wanted what they had. I wanted to be able to 'pop to the village for coffee' with my other mummy friends, and pop the baby on the breast when they started fussing, or jiggle them on my knee. I didn't want to be petrified of stopping by the local cafe in case (a) I blocked up the entire place with my massive double buggy nor (b) ruin all the other mummy's coffees when my two adorable children inevitably had a double melt down and proved the case that yes indeed I have my hands full.

I have since spoken to some other parents of multiples, who have assured me that they too went through a phase of this.

You'll be glad to know, that for the most part, this has now passed.

Instead I most definitely block up the local cafe with my double buggy by inviting my other friend with a double buggy containing two babies, and a toddler, and my children aren't quite as prone to a double melt down (although this is still considered a work in progress) and when things get really bad I pass them a croissant and it buys me enough time to finish my well needed late.

I'd even go as far as saying, that at times, very occaisonally, once in a blue moon, I catch myself feeling sorry for people who don't have twins.

A guest entry by my comrade and friend, Sharon, who is in a not too dissimilar position to myself.  An older daughter, followed by two boys, who aren't identical, but just as lovely as each other. 

The following list was compiled following a rather amusing exchange on that good old social networking site we all love to hate; facebook.  Her list did make me laugh, so I wanted to share it (with Sharon's permission) here. 

"I know people don't mean to be rude but this is my top ten annoying things that people say.. And in the early first sleep deprived weeks of twin motherhood you gets these A LOT!

1. "Are they twins?" To me it is stating the bleeding obvious.. And it is usually followed by some long protracted story about their second cousin's neighbour's aunt who might have had twins, but they can't remember...

2. "Are they natural?" No.. they are those little reborn dolls... And yes the screaming noise is very realistic.

3. "Are they IVF?" Yes, I'm infertile, thank you for that! And then the story about the friend who it didn't work for.

4. "Are they in a routine?" Yes, perfect routine, when one is asleep the other is screaming his head off and vice versa.

5. " You must have had a c-section?" No actually, I have a fanny like the Channel Tunnel, but let's discuss your bits and pieces shall we??

6. "It's a shame you can't breast feed". I did actually, not as long as I had hoped, but I did.

7. "I bet you're tired". No sh*t, Sherlock.

8. "Is one the evil twin?" Yes. The one you just touched, and he's put a curse on you.

9. "Oooh double trouble". Twice the joy

10. "Ooooh twinnies!" FECK. OFF.

But the nicest thing I ever heard was when a man came up to my husband and I and said he had 7 year old twins. One day he came home and found his wife sobbing in the dog basket. And that the day I felt like that, I wouldn't be the first, or the last mum to feel that way. And that the journey was ALL worth it!

And all twin mums really want to know is, "What buggy have you got??"... along with "You do survive, don't you?"!!"


Thank you Sharon for sharing this with me... and allowing me to share it with everyone else.

8. "Do they have different personalities?"


Nope. They behave exactly the same. All of the time. Sorry, I couldn't help being sarcastic.

This area actually really fascinates me, because of course they have different personalities - one of my boys is a stubborn old fool who insists, absolutely insists, on climbing on the dining table and helping himself to the apples... whilst the other one has attached to his toy rabbit and carries him around by the ear. One loves strawberries, the other one won't touch them. I could carry on here for a while. 

I haven't exactly carried out any scientific research on the matter, but from my limited 'unofficial-would-never-be-passed-off-as-research' research, I think it is suffice to say that twins, irrespective of whether they are identical or not, do definitely develop different personalities. But also, as much as any siblings do, due to them sharing their environment, their experiences of being 'parented', some of how they develop is similar.

Identical means genetically identical - it does not mean carbon copy - or at least last time I checked.


7. "you have my respect, they are beautiful"


So whilst this is largely a blog about what not to say, I figured we might as capture the good stuff that we hear - after all, it isn't all bad.

Yesterday, after my husband working till 4am, I was entering my 24th hour of parenting sans any help - and as such was taking my daughter to nursery without having showered and hardly having had my breakfast, and of course the boys came too.  I was just arriving at the nursery looking somewhat flustered and exhausted when a woman coming the other way gave me a look, and I thought "oh, no, here we go, and I'm just not in the mood for this" (you know, one of 'those' mornings) when to my surprise she said "nuff respect, they are beautiful".

It made me grin from ear to ear, and made the morning feel that little bit more manageable all of a sudden.  She didn't point out that they were twins. She didn't ask if they were identical, and amazingly she didn't even say I had my hands full.  She merely demonstrated that she thought what I did was hard, and paid my beautiful children a compliment they deserve, and yet so often lack due to the focus largely being on them being 'twins'.

Don't lose site of the fact that, beyond being twins (or indeed triplets or quadruplets), that multiples are still beautiful children, gorgeous and cute little munchkins, and much as a mother of a 'singleton' likes to hear others gush over their offspring, so do us mothers of multiples.

So thank you to that random lady for making my morning, it was and is appreciated. And yes, they are beautiful, even if I am a little biased.

6? "How do you tell them apart?"


So, in fact, whilst this question can get a little repetitive, and there is the temptation to come up with some rather daft responses ("oh, we just call their name and see which one responds") the truth of the matter is that this did cause my husband and I some concern prior to them being born.  

We decided not to cut their tags off when we first left the hospital, as to begin with the boys were co-sleeping - which meant the likelihood was that in the very small hours of the night when we were waking for yet another two hourly feed we would be so tired as to forget which one we were holding and thence start swapping them about and mixing them up.  I was dreading not being able to tell one from the other.

Then began the 'clothing code' where we decided stripes for one, and patterns for the other.  17 months on and we still, all be it subconsciously, stick to that code in one way or another.  I suppose in part it is because we don't like family to feel uncomfortable when they don't feel they can tell them apart... in part it might be so that in years to come when we look at pictures of the two of them we will remember which one we are looking at so nostalgically. In part it is now just engrained in us.

But I can tell them apart, even when they are toddling about with their nappies off and having a grand old time in the 'nudie rudie' (as our daughter calls it). For this, I am very grateful.  To me my boys do look different. I can't explain it, so answering that question proves a little tough for me... but I can, and do, know which one is which, for now any way!

5. "Oh, twins? Poor you!"

Where do I start with this one? I guess largely my response depends on what kind of day I am having.  Sometimes I have felt like bursting into tears and saying "you have no idea how 'poor me' this is, please can I have a hug oh random stranger?".  Other times it really gets my back up.  I know what I do is tough, the bags under my eyes and the sugar content of my cupboards vouch for that. However, despite the tough days, despite the endless noise and the constant feeling of needing to be in 3 places at once, and have eyes in at least two different directions at one time... despite all of that, I do feel blessed.

It has taken me a while to arrive in that position. But there I am. I feel blessed. I wouldn't give back the endless nappies, the endless cuddles, the endless snotty noses, the endless dinners thrown on the floor, the endless scraps over the same toys, nor the endless sleepless nights, if it meant giving back my children. (Well, most days anyway).

4. "You've got twins!"


No? Really? Where? I must have missed that one... but thanks for pointing out the obvious to me, otherwise I'd never have realised.  I'd have carried on in my misguided view that in fact I have two children, who just happen to be born on the same day.

I'm not naive enough to think that being a 'twin' doesn't attract a certain amount of attention - and to some degree I hope my boys learn to enjoy and appreciate the special thing that being a twin is.  However, early on in the pregnancy my husband and I made a decision not to refer to the boys as 'the twins'.

Why? When that is so plainly what they are? Because they are going to already have a very complicated relationship with their identity. Society won't often let them forget that they do indeed have an identical 'other' - especially as they grow up together.  So why add to this? Why not see them as two very beautiful (if somewhat cheeky) individual young boys, who just happened to be born on the same day (and turned our lives upside down)?

And... if I am honest... "you've got twins" said in exclamation whilst walking past me is about the most pointless of social exchanges... "You've got a head!" I feel like replying.