The truth and realities of being a parent

Sitting on the toilet with an audience that consists of three year twins I think to myself about how this lack of privacy has changed my life.

I often have an audience nowadays when doing, well, pretty much everything!

The other day I was getting dressed when I turned around and found that R and M had opened the curtains much to the delight of two elderly women and a teenage girl sat at the bus stop over the road from our house.

Luckily I’d managed to pull my jeans up and had a bra on so I didn’t show too much off to the outside world!

Truth is, as well as having an audience when doing simple, everyday tasks, I also always have two little people following me around, almost biting at my heels as I move from one room to another trying to clean and tidy up the tornado of toys that appears to have fallen from the sky into my living room, kitchen, bathroom and almost every other room in our home.

Some days I feel as though life gets in the way of life.

By that I mean I seem to be spending most of my time cleaning up, tidying up, washing up or wiping up something instead of playing with or reading to my girls.

Do you ever get that feeling?

It’s hard enough as it is trying to divide my time equally between our twins, but when I have to wash up and clean as well it leaves me feeling guilty about maybe not spending as much time as I could with our girls during the day.

Maybe I should just leave the dishes and the tidying and cleaning until they’re bed and spend all day just playing with them, but what kind of example would I be setting my children then?

That it’s ok to leave dirty dishes out all day and not tidy up after ourselves. Maybe that’s not a good idea after all!

All jokes aside though I do feel guilty about not spending as much time with the girls one-on-one as I should.

Some days I feel like I’ve spent most of my time with M, others most of my time with R.

I’ve been through all of the emotions and stresses that every other parent has been through and finally after just over three years of being a mum, I feel as though I’ve cracked this parenting malarkey!

I’ve tried all sorts of different ways to deal with the fighting, the tantrums, the tears. The fussy eating moments, the not wanting to sleep moments and the not wanting to get dressed moments!

I’ve shouted, ignored and even cried at times too, but I have finally figured out what works with our girls!

I feel as though I’m quite a perceptive person. I have always felt that way, it’s nothing new to me.

With R you have to almost tread on egg shells.

I remember reading somewhere a short while ago that if a child hurts themselves the best thing to do is forget about it. Don’t make a fuss or talk about what happened because apparently this can make a child feel more pain as oppose to almost ignoring what just happened.

This rings true with R!

I used to make a fuss every time she fell or hurt herself. I’d ask her where it hurt, if I could have a look, if she was ok etc. I found that the tears lasted longer when I did this.

I changed tactics and use distraction instead. If she falls, of course I’l go to her, pick her up and give her a cuddle, but I won’t say anything about what just happened. One thing that helps is when I use her toy dog, who she affectionately calls ‘Daddy Dog’, to wipe away her tears.

Distraction, patience and staying calm is definitely the key to success with R!

With M, it’s a pretty similar story except I feel M needs a more reassurance and comforting.

She likes to go inside my top, skin on skin, and have a cuddle! I love it when she does this!

She likes to pretend that she’s a baby and have me pretend to feed her and hold her like a baby.

M likes to be looked after. She likes to be fed, she likes to be carried whereas R is a bit more independent.

If I ask M to do something, she’s definitely more defiant compared to R, but she’ll get upset more than R when told off.

She really, really doesn’t like it. So much so that if I ask her not to do something she’ll ask me not to talk to her.

I don’t really shout at our girls and I think that’s the way it should be.

To me shouting doesn’t get us anywhere, it just leads to more tears and upset.

I’d rather sit down and talk calmly to them than shout at them.

The thing is with being a parent that although I feel this way today, it could all change tomorrow!