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…

It has been a long day. One that I cannot believe I will have to repeat tomorrow. The current regular tantrum inducers are: trying to get them dressed, trying to get them undressed, putting them in the buggy, taking them out of the buggy, leaving the house, re-entering the house, putting them in their chairs for dinner time, not allowing them to make their own dinner, not allowing them to sit on a perilously high surface for dinner, bathtime, bedtime, and so it goes on… I find myself going through varying degrees of calm and collectedness (mixed with a lot of uncalm and disconnectedness), but I know that if I want to get through each fit of insanity quickly then the only thing that works is acknowledging their grief in a grown up, sensible, serious manner and then distracting them from it jovially. But who has the time and patience to do that 24 (x2) times a day? And so they cry on. And boy do they.

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.