Following on from Going Out with the Boys

'Why didn't you ask them to move?' The Boy kept asking. I didn't have an answer. I never do unless I talk it out. It's really irritating. Unless I talk through something out loud, I sometimes don't understand why I feel the way I feel.

The comments to my post about being annoyed by the people on the bus made me want to blog. I didn't know why. When I blog, I just write, stream of consciousness style until the end, at which point I find out what I'm driving at. This time, I didn't feel like I'd gotten to the end.

Then the Boy's interrogation started. 'Why?' He kept asking. 'Why didn't you just ask someone to move?'

I am strong, confident, happy.

But children wear you down. That sounds negative without being intentional. Being a parent, particularly to identical twin boys, makes you conspicuous. And it is hard. People


watch. They want to see what will happen. Will the boys flip out? How will the mother deal with it? At least that's how it feels to me.

And when you're sub five foot with 27lbs identical twins in a stroller and in a carrier, you draw attention enough. So you just want to get from A to B. Because you've already run for the bus with a kid on your back. And because they're knackered and you'll have to feed them their lunch in the stroller and with one still strapped to your back.

That's why I didn't ask one of the able bodied women to move. I have enough on my plate without dealing without confrontation.

Getting Out with Non-Walking Twins

every day, the boys wake from their first nap, we go out locally for about ninety minutes, come home, they play for another hour or so, after which they go down for a nap, and then we rinse and repeat for the afternoon slot until bedtime. If I'm feeling adventurous, I might feed them out so then we get about three hours in the big wide world. The monotony is a killer.

So when the boys are going through a good patch, I'll say to myself, 'I'm going to risk it and go meet a friend somewhere' or 'I've wanted to take the boys to X for ages' and I'll give it again. Invariably the outcome is that I'm grateful to have survived, impressed that I achieved it, and amazed we're all alive.

Today I went to hither green and took the boys to a Cantonese sing along session. Not too far but difficult enough on the bus. It's probably taken me fifty minutes in both directions.

With two there are two personalities to juggle. For example, one refused to nap and kept the other up so we had two tired monkeys. And then there are problems specific to having twins, particularly two big lads who still don't walk.

Today I:
- ran to catch the first bus with a kid on my back. Why don't I push a double? Because the bus has refused to let me on before with a double.
- fed both kids on the bus (classy family); aforementioned kid was still on my back at the time.
- had a guy take pity on me in the sing along and he picked up Baby A during one of the songs where we were supposed to dance with the sprogs.
- arrived at the library to be faced with steps. I've never hated steps as much as I do these days. So I picked up my single stroller and carried it up (with aforementioned baby still strapped to my back).
- stood on the bus with aforementioned baby strapped to me whilst four people sat in the priority seats ignoring / staring at me for the 20-minute bus ride.

All three of us are exhausted.