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.