Sometimes I forget that I don’t have the twins with me when I nip out alone. I smile dementedly at strangers. This makes no sense without babies to create a bond.
I enter a friendly world as the mother of twins. Most days when I am out in public with them, the person who notices them tells me that they are a twin, or their husband is, or their children. People might start off with a negative comment about twins, but they open up and talk to you. They are so much more friendly than when I take my invisibility cloak and go out alone.
When I was a child, I can remember thinking that the expression ‘being brought up by’ your parents was a strange one. Shouldn’t kids get some credit for their growing, and (as in the expression ‘well brought up’) for how you turned out? Hence when someone says to me that my twins are beautiful, I’m not sure what the correct response is. Should I take the credit for them being good looking by saying ‘thankyou’? Should I agree?
This is one of the nicest little conundrums about having twins. It’s one that I am often faced with. And the friendly comments and compliments can give me a warm glow.
– ‘They’re so cute/ lovely/ beautiful/ gorgeous/ magnificant!’
– ‘Oh – look at the little dollies!’
– ‘Twins – fantastic!’
– ‘How lucky are you!’
– ‘Twins! First batch?’
– ‘Are they a lot of fun?’
And from people in art galleries:
– ‘I’d prefer to look at them than the art.’
– ‘Now that’s God’s artwork!’
– ‘Ooh – can we see? [a small group clusters around.]
It’s true, they are special, not least statistically. Only around about one in every eighty births in Australia is a twin. Of these, only about thirty per cent are identical.
Their rarity has brought out the generosity of friends and strangers: many people have taken pity on us and have given us bags full of baby clothes. Steve’s sister has passed clothes on from the girls’ cousin, and so has a friend whose daughter is now nearly four. Then I had a call from a friend of my sister’s who brought over ten plastic bags full of clothes, sorted by size, that her daughter had outgrown, already second-hand but also immaculate and very fine.
After that another friend of my sister’s sent me clothes, with contributions from another little girl, bringing the total to five sources. So when I received a package from a friend of that friend who has triplets, asking if I wanted to be part of their second-hand clothes network, I said. . . yes.
Before the girls’ birth I didn’t care what they wore. Now that I am spoilt for choice, at no cost, I can see how people get addicted to decking out their children in gorgeous gear.
Sure, when they cry at the same time it can be hard, but that rarely happens, and when it does, I feed them together using my double breastfeeding pillow. Hunger is usually the problem. They have had a good feeding routine since birth, and in feeding them together I can also ensure that their appetite is more or less in synch, so my sleeps are not twice as interrupted. My babies feed well.
I am also fortunate in having Steve at home sharing the work involved in caring for babies for their first seven months, and I have a lot of support from mum, so altogether I have more help than many mothers of single babies. Steve is home because he is unemployed, and that has its stresses, but it makes caring for two babies relatively easy.
I think that, like beauty fading over time, the twins will become less visible to others as they grow older. They will lose their baby cuteness and will look even more different as children and adults as they continue to wear different clothes.
At this point though, I don’t mind being noticed when I’m with them. It’s my taste of the spotlight. My double life, for now.
