The ultimate dilemma

I was just enjoying the peace and quiet in my house on Tuesday evening.  A and E were fast asleep. Eldest daughter and boy in the middle were in bed early, following their fabulous two week vacation at Grandma N's in London.  I was checking the news when suddenly I heard a noise outside, which I thought was an ambulance siren or a motorbike.  Over the noise of my air conditioning, I opened the patio doors but sure enough it was an air raid siren which although we have unfortunately become accustomed to over the past couple of weeks I just wasn't expecting it.

I was home alone. Our safe room is on the ground floor which is actually boy in the middle's bedroom. Eldest daughter was sleeping in there too since Uncle J was with us on a flying visit for work to Israel. I dashed upstairs to A and E's room. I looked at them both sleeping in their beds.  The slight sweaty mop of curls from the summer heat in their room, the covers kicked off and the realisation that at age 4.5 they are actually very tall and long in their beds. As I ran up the stairs I planned to pick up one and take her down and come back for the second. However when I entered the room my motherly instincts kicked in and I couldn't do it. Deep down I knew the chance of any danger occurring to any of us from a rocket attack was minimal, and possibly the most danger could have come from falling down the stairs in a panic.  However looking down at my sleeping beauties I couldn't bring myself to choose who to take first, so with adrenelin coursing through my body I did what I think any twin Mummy would do - I picked up one in my left arm and then the other in my right arm and with them both still fast asleep I somehow managed to carry them both downstairs.

We arrived in somewhat of a heap into boy in the middle's room where I lay A down on his bed and E lucked out and carried on sleeping on top of me as I collapsed onto his bed.

They carried on sleeping, I checked facebook and whatsapp on my phone, we listened out for the distant booms of the iron dome, and then a few minutes later boy in the middle asked if we could all just get off his bed now and leave.  We only have to remain in the safe room for 10 minutes so I managed to get to a vertical position whilst still holding E and carried her upstairs. The difference with the return journey back to their room was, with no sign of danger, I gladly carried them back up one at a time.

It was a small moment of my evening but left my heart pounding, and an incident that I hope I won't have to repeat in the future. 

Twirly Girlies

I remember one day as a young girl of around 9 or 10 over-hearing a conversation between my Mum and my Sister who is 5 years older than me.  I can't remember the exact details of the conversation but I do know it was to do with clothes and it was certainly to do with the fact that my Mum didn't like or approve of whatever my sister was wearing. I remember being the annoying younger sister and claiming that I always wore what Mum picked out or suggested and I would never be bothered about my clothes.  Of course that didn't last long as I also turned into a teenager with an unusual dress sense.

Now I look at my own children and I thought all was going extremely well. Eldest daughter is extremely compliant - has a good dress sense and happily wears all manner of clothes according to occasion. Boy in the middle generally couldn't care less what he wears although he has a preference for red tops or sweatshirts. I think he is realising that boys clothes are just not as colourful as girls.

And then we get to the youngest members of our family. And that is where the ease of dressing ends.  The days of dressing A in pink and E in purple have long since gone and I now have to contend on a daily basis with dressing two of the girliest girls I have ever met.  The piles of jeans and trousers and leggings that were all worn by eldest daughter sit unloved and unworn in the wardrobe. In their place we have twirly skirts and dresses.  A is the most particular about her choice of clothes and whereas she used to wear either a skirt or a dress,  in the past few days she has declared that skirts too are no longer acceptable and it is only dresses for her.  E is a little less particular and can on occasion be persuaded into a pair of leggings under a dress or skirt.  

I think the last time I recall either of them wearing leggings with no frills or twirly skirts in sight was on a hike up Masada at the end of December.

And it makes one wonder where they get this from? It's certainly not from me as I tend to wear jeans or trousers every day for work. 

I know or I hope at some point it will pass and the large variety of clothes that we have for them will get worn.  I am a little concerned about the approaching summer and the gorgeous stacks of shorts I have for them in the cupboard but at least on my last trip to Primark I bought a variety of sundresses which thankfully have all been approved and some of them have been given a twirling rating.

Things that go bump in the night!

Some things just become a habit, like complaining when it's time to have their hair washed, or their daily fix of watching Peppa Pig, or their almost total refusal to allow Daddy to get them dressed. Some of these habits we can put up with, get over or ignore but then there are others that we really do not want to become habits yet we are increasingly unable to put a stop to.

And so it has become something of a routine that almost every morning when I wake up I find either A or E snuggled up in my bed next to me. On occasion there is a little girl on either side of me, leaving DH little room on his side of the bed! And each morning when I wake up and see a cute little face next to me, part of me is so happy to see her and part of me is increasingly annoyed that I had not noticed when she had arrived in the night and that I had not had the strength or ability to take her back to her bed.

It has become so much of an occurrence that if I do wake up without a small child in the bed, my first thought is usually to realise how well I slept with so much space. My thought process then hopes that they are both ok followed by a dash out of bed to check on them!

So in order to nip this habit in the bud we are consciously (or semi-consciously I should say for the middle of the night) trying to navigate the girls back to their room when they get up for a wander around usually at 2am. The only problem is that our own sleeping hours are very limited and once I am asleep I don't really hear very much. Which means that DH if he wakes up at all has also been trying to get up and take A or E back to bed.

We thought it was starting to work but then when I woke up this morning with one of them asleep next to me. DH was amazed. He commented
"But I took her back to bed at 4am - I wonder when she came back".
"Well I presume she is still in her bed; this is the other one"I pointed out to him!

It's a privilege and a pleasure to be the parents of twins and in the case of these frequent nocturnal visits we will continue in our quest to break the cycle and perhaps one time in the not too distant future we will all manage to sleep through the night!

And they're both 4 now

It's been a long two weeks with a lot of anticipation for today, filled with discussions as to the fact that E is already 4 and therefore bigger and older than A. And so A was so excited that she finally got her own birthday party in nursery today. 

The good thing for me was all the errors I made two weeks ago I made sure not to repeat. For example I bought the correct packaged cake complete with edible party stickers to go on top of the chocolate goo - E just got a plain marble cake two weeks ago. A got Dora balloons for her bundle of birthday balloons today where as E just got plain coloured ones. But most importantly they had the same games and same parachute spinning activity and fun snack time filled with chocolate cereal and chocolate sandwiches! 

The nicest part of having split their parties in nursery, apart from the ongoing celebration, has been to see how genuinely excited the other one has been for her sister. Apart from A's meltdown just before E's party they have been very excited for their sister at both parties. Sibling rivalry between them is so different to how it is between eldest daughter and boy in the middle - they don't really get jealous of each other (unless they are both tired and both only want to be held by me but that's for another blog entirely).

So now we have two 4 year olds and it's not even their actual birthday until next Thursday.  I know I could have got away with just these two parties in nursery, but next Wednesday we are throwing them a small party at home, which lets face it, is as much for me as for them. I can't let a birthday go by without some arts and crafts with a few of their friends, and the challenge of making two identical but completely individual princess cakes.

The celebrations' continue....

They are no longer the same age!

Thankfully E's party was a huge success whichever way we look at it

E had fun
A had fun
The two other birthday boys had fun
The food was great
The cake was great
The going home present was great
All the kids had fun
The nursery teacher took 60 photos of the party for us to see

The only difference now is that...

E firmly believes she is 4 and A is still 3 - how to explain that one to small kids and indeed to twins? Even though they know they are born on the same day, we have told them it's not actually their birthday yet but the fact remains that at this age once your friends have sung Happy Birthday and you have blown out your 4 candles (or 5 I should say as 1 more is added as luck for the coming year) then you are 4.

So I am in the bizarre position of having twins who aren't the same age any more.

E had a great time and the best thing is that now A is really excited for her party in 2 weeks time. She is busy deciding that she wants a different/better cake than the one I took in for A (it has to be a bought cake in a packet - how different can they be?) and different going home presents.

Here are some photos from yesterday's celebrations.

The party season continues....

It's time to party

As A and E approach their 4th birthday the conversation turns to parties, cakes, presents and more parties and it seems like we are going to be celebrating this year for a very long time.  The first party of the season will actually be taking place this Wednesday, a full 3 weeks and a day prior to their birthday.

A and E are in a nursery with two school years in the same class of 30 something kids and according to the nursery teacher 20 of the kids have birthdays in December and January. Not wanting to have a party every day, the teacher has wisely divided the parties up so that there is one party every two weeks celebrating 4 children's birthdays each time. 

A couple of weeks ago the teacher asked me if A and E would like to share a party together or celebrate separately with other kids. What to answer? I wasn't sure, so I decided to ask the girls themselves what they would like to do. I explained the situation and made it very clear and they both declared that they would like to have their party separately from each other with different children. DH was initially rather saddened that they didn't want to celebrate together but I was rather pleased that they were beginning to show signs of a tiny bit of independence from each other.

So far so good and the conversation continued with parties, presents and cakes until last Friday when the teacher informed me that the first party would be this coming Wednesday and which of the girls wanted their party first? I looked at the girls and asked them who wanted their party on Wednesday. Without so much as a thought, E jumped up and down and declared that she wanted her party this week. A seemed to be in agreement that this would be ok and so it was decided.

The excitement continued and chatter turned to the first nursery party and E has spent the whole weekend telling everyone that her party is going to be on Wednesday to which A replies that her party is going to be on Tuesday - no in 2 weeks time I keep reminding her. 

All was going well until last night as I was putting the girls to bed and one of the other mums called to discuss who was going to bring the pizza, the cut up vegetables and the going home presents for the party. A and E were within ear-shot of the conversation. When I got off the phone I told the girls the names of the other children who are also celebrating this week. E was very happy and jumped up and down on her bed and that is when A's world fell apart. She sobbed, she screamed, she declared how unjust it all was that "it will be too long until my party." I explained how fun it will be to be the birthday sister but I'm not sure she heard me through the sobs as she eventually fell asleep.  This morning, tears forgotten, there was one mention of the party which everyone seemed happy about so I am hoping all will go according to plan.

We have made our decision for this year to have seperate parties in nursery and we will wait and see how it works. And once the nursery parties are over conversation will then turn to whether or not we will throw a small party for them at home.  No doubt there will be more conversation about cakes and presents but one thing is for sure - any party at home will be for both of them at the same time with the same food and the same friends!
 

 

Updates to follow.....

They’re older now so surely the travelling is easier…

We flew to the UK in September for a two week family holiday.  Flying as a family of six doesn’t come cheap so we opted to go no frills and flew Jet2 to Manchester and back home on Easyjet.  It’s always a little daunting flying with 4 young kids but we packed our bags, left plenty of room for shopping in England and somehow made it to the airport almost on time.

Apart from a minor blip a couple of weeks earlier when we discovered that eldest daughter’s passport had expired and we had to get her a temporary document, there were no hold ups in the airport and we almost sat in our allocation of chosen seats.  All was going rather smoothly until 30 minutes before landing when that awful thought crossed my mind – how would we get off the plane at midnight our time, with 2 sleeping 3 year olds and 5 pieces of hand-luggage and a selection of sweaters and coats.

For me this is the absolute worst part of travelling and my blood begins to boil just at the total inconvenience of navigating airports with toddlers.  And true to form Manchester airport didn’t disappoint.  The Jet2 hostesses could help us manoeuvre ourselves only to the steps leading down to the tarmac and into the rain.  Through the door of the terminal building there was no one further to assist, just a security guard who was in charge of closing and locking the door.

Picture us – 2 adults holding one large sleeping toddler each plus a bag, eldest daughter pulling 2 wheelie suitcases and boy in the middle determined to help like a ‘man’ pulling the remaining 2 wheelie bags down the corridor. We could have managed this arrangement until we turned a corner and were greeted by a flight of steps.  My evening was getting better by the second!

We climbed the stairs, by this point we no longer had two sleeping toddlers but two crying toddlers, and at the top of the flight we headed down another narrow corridor. At the end of the corridor I saw a way out of this misery as I spotted 2 airport wheelchairs at the side.

I did hesitate for a small moment but as I couldn’t really walk any further I casually strolled over towards the chairs, checked no-one else around seemed to be coming to use them and I put A and E side by side rather unhappily in the chair. Finally DH could assist eldest daughter and boy in the middle with all the suitcases and I could push the girls through the airport.

We navigated two more escalators and each time retrieved the wheelchair and after a few minutes A and E stopped crying and began to enjoy their journey down the endless corridors. As we felt we must be nearing passport control we turned into a large hall and it was as if people were queuing for a ride in Disneyworld.  Up and down through the narrow weaving filing system bleary eyed tired passengers were shuffling with their luggage.  My heart sank at the thought of the 30 minute queue in front of us, until a jolly security guard in charge of the queue took one glance at us and shouted “Wheelchairs – that way”.  I immediately went ‘that way’ whilst DH started stumbling and questioning the idea and muttering nonsensical questions I quickly dragged him with us.  Straight to the front of the passport control queue within 5 minutes we were through to the other side and as we got to the luggage carousel we were reunited immediately with our stroller. We casually replaced the wheelchair with the stroller and pushed the wheelchair nonchalantly to the side.

As I explained to friends during our trip, it wasn’t so much that I stole a wheelchair, as relocated it through the airport.

Two weeks later as we flew home and we were waiting in a holding bay in Luton to board the Easyjet flight I was chatting to a sympathetic Easyjet crew member and relaying my story from Manchester airport. She proceeded to tell me how a tragedy had just occurred in Alicante when a baby had fallen onto the luggage carousel as the Mummy was trying to retrieve the stroller and died.  I have never understood why the airlines/baggage handlers/airports cannot provide the strollers on leaving the aircraft.  Why do they make you struggle with babies/toddlers through vast distances in airports when they could just make it much safer and more pleasant for everyone?

There is only one place that I have ever flown to where this happens and I was so happy to see my double stroller waiting for me at the exit of the plane as we landed back home in Israel. Well done Ben Gurion airport – finally an airport with a heart.