It’s 4:30am and I am sitting between two identical cots stroking two non-identical backs making two non-identical noises. I am tired. Tired to the core. We are on the tail end of a tandem tantrum and my nerves are long since gone. The fact that I’m still here at all is only because I am so numb with fatigue that I can’t even be bothered to stand up and relocate back to bed. And besides the (god sent) lullaby star night light is actually quite soothing…
The love of my life.
Nothing can prepare you for the pain of having two year old twins. I literally feel like someone has come round and injected fatigue into every joint…with an extra shot into each of my temples. When they are born you have this lovely image of ‘being totally sorted’ by this stage. “In a year or two they’ll
be playing with each other and you can put your feet up,” people said to me. At that point, phrases like that were the light at the end of the tunnel. Well that light has long since gone out. In fact it turns out it wasn’t a light at all but a firefly flying ever closer until it finally exploded like a fire cracker in my face. But will there be a light at the end of this tunnel or more exploding fire flies/crackers? Ah well, “things get much better when they turn 3,” someone sagely tells me. Well d’you know what? I know people with 3 year old twins and I’m yet to feel much hope when I visit them, I can tell you. So when is it then? 4? 5? 5000?? All I know is that if I concentrate on thinking “oh good god when will it get better??” then right now feels worse. So I’ll concentrate on the here and now. And the here and now is drifting off to sleep. And so am I. That night light is magic. In fact, fuck these two. Tonight that light is mine.
Hovering Close to Insanity 
ha. Sorry to say this but that could just as easily have been written about my three year old twin sons. It’s exhausting. Really horrible at times. But. There are starting to be the odd hopeful moment when they play nicely together. When they leave me alone for a moment or two. When they actually act like friends. 4. That’s going to be the magic age. Isn’t it?
Haha, yes. As I said, I see no great sign of hope from my friends with 3 year old twins. That said they are beginning to say that it’s getting easier. I have boy/girl twins and I think that is easier than boy/boy twins (I’m told). But everyone’s kids are different. Needless to say having children is just plain exhausting, relentless and never-endingly challenging. Eventually we hit that penny-dropping moment where we realise that it’s never going to get easy and we’re just going to go through challenge after challenge for the rest of our lives. But the challenges do change. And I’m ready for that change. I’m ready for a different type of stress. Bring an end to the tantrums please. Bring an end to the need for perfectly shaped triangle pieces of toast.