Flawed

My husband reckons there’s nothing quite like parenthood to bring out more of your character faults than you really want to, or should, know about. I pleaded guilty long ago to being lazy and selfish, so you can imagine how interesting it makes parenting baby twins when they both come into focus. Funnily enough though, what I had previously thought of as my greatest strength has actually turned out to be my biggest downfall! No, I’m not Superwoman or even Nigella, but I am Mrs Super-Organised. My husband might argue the point and say that in actual fact I’m a control freak, but whatever, it’s always worked for us before. I’ve written endless lists, planned our social lives, time-tabled the household, project-managed our house renovation, and had our lives running like clockwork...and that’s all before getting our 4 year old son up for breakfast. And as I say, it worked for us. Well, at any rate it did...before babies, that is.

They are tricky little critters, aren’t they? Because quite clearly they haven’t read the baby manuals which tell them how to behave (whereas we’ve spent many an evening devouring those same manuals trying to work out why they’re not following the instructions). I’m not sure when it all started to fall apart in our house – but probably the night I’d decided to stick to feeding the girls simultaneously. Lily had her milk, but darling little Poppy clamped her tiny mouth tightly shut and fixed me in her steely gaze, with an expression of ‘No way Mum, I’m a feisty little strong-willed female, too’. It turned into the night from hell, each baby taking two-hourly feeds completely out of step with the other, meaning I was up just about all night. By 5am I was delirious - if someone had offered to swap me a mug of hot chocolate for my babies, I would have taken it and snuggled myself right back into bed (you know I’m only joking, right?).

Clearly, the organizational skills which had served me so well weren’t cutting the mustard here. No matter how hard I tried to establish any kind of routine the girls had their own agenda, and all order in the house lay with those two small, pink bundles. Many a day ended with my knickers tightly in a twist, but slowly I came to accept I had to let go the need for control (it’s hard to even write that, let alone actually do it) and just go with the flow (breathe Amy, breathe). All this from the woman who had the girls entire wardrobe colour-coordinated and age-ranged before they were even born. Yes, that same woman who uttered those immortal words, “These babies are going to fit in with my life, not the other way round”!

So, here I am trying to take the more relaxed approach and, whilst it doesn’t come naturally and Mother Earth I’m definitely not, things are slightly more chilled round these parts recently. Anyway, I console myself that all is not lost. I still get to organize my husband (lucky him). Speaking of whom, shall we agree to call him DH from now on? That’s short for ‘Dear Husband’ if you didn’t know. On a good day that is, you can work out for yourself what it means on a bad day.