The Highs & Lows

The six worst things about being a lone wolf mama to twins (& the one best thing):

1.  Having to make decisions by yourself. I'm shit at making decisions at the best of times, but being on your own means there's no-one to bounce stuff off. No-one to tell you you're being mental and your child isn't going to die because they fell over earlier and bumped their head. No-one to help you decide which is the best childminder to send them to and to worry about which primary school you'll send them to, and which secondary school, even though they're only two and actually it's a bit silly to worry about secondary schools now. No-one to decide what you'll do today, and the next day, and the next, and the one after that.

2. Which leads me on to the second thing: what to do today? Go swimming? Nope, can't take them swimming by myself (as in, the swimming pool won't let me. Because they might drown. Fair play.) Go to a new and undiscovered location, solo? Hahahaha! No. It's too terrifying going to new places solo - who knows if there actually is a fence to keep them penned in, if the staff are helpful, if the double motherfucking bastard shitting buggy will fit through the door? I only go to tried and tested places solo, and even then it takes grit and determination to do it because managing two wayward two year olds solo is hard fucking work.

3. Work. So many issues with work. The obvious one being that two small children plus one really tired adult = lots of illness and time off. I'm lucky, my work is very supportive and very understanding, but that doesn't stop me feeling like I'm dead weight when I call in for what feels like the millionth time because one/two/all of us is/are ill. Then there's the getting in 'late' (I don't start until an hour after school starts). It doesn't matter that that's when I start. Every morning, I feel like I'm late to work. Even though I'm not. And the same applies to going home as soon as the bell goes. If I don't leave then, I'm late for the childminder. Still makes me feel like a slacker though. 

4. The tiredness. Oh the tiredness. Back when I first started teaching, I used to work a lot of hours. A lot. Some weeks, at the peak of my professional insanity, I used to work 70 - 80 hours a week. And I thought I was tired. I wasn't tired. I didn't even know tired. Do you know what tired is? Tired is doing three days work on a grand total of six hours sleep. Tired is going in when you've been up all night because your bastard children will not sleep and no-one else is there to help you. Tired is not having had more than two good nights' sleep in a row for two motherfucking years and still having to take them to the seventh circle of hell that is soft play. That, my friend, is tired. 

5. Money. We never have enough. We will probably never have enough. I will likely always lie awake worrying about the not having enough. I will always be in my overdraft, even when I've been paid, because kids are freaking expensive.

6. The not having anyone to share it with. I'm not lonely. I'm very good with my own company (some might say anti-social, I prefer self-sufficient) and I have lots of lovely friends and family who keep me socialised, but when my babes do something mind-blowingly cute (like insist on kissing each other good night), or super-clever (like peeing on the potty or putting words into a whole sentence so they can berate me with 'mummy, dry your hair please), or totally irritating (like throwing the bowl of pasta I've cooked them on the floor) then it'd be nice to have someone to share that with, then and there, who feels the same way I do about them: look at that, we made that crazy, clever, affectionate, defiant little toe-rag. In fact, we made two of them. 

7. But there's not. There's me and there's them. And I'm so lucky to have them, which leads me onto my last point: the best thing about being a lone wolf mama to twins. The love. The unconditional, non-judgemental love of two joyous little people. Sure, they keep me up all night, they shit in the bath (Daisy. On Tuesday night. Stop shitting in the bath, love. Please.), they drive me right to the very edge sometimes with their continual repetition of what they want even when I've already bloody given them the thing they want. But they are so bloody lovely. So lovely. And everyday when I get home, I have my own little fan club waiting for me. I get cuddles and kisses and 'Mama, uv oos' aplenty. And really, who could ask for more than that?