I had a chat with the receptionist, who was fascinated by the girls and asked if I was their mum. My face must have given away the 'Whaaaaat' I was thinking inside (and struggling not to express) because she qualified her question by saying that she thought I might be their Nanny. No, not the grandparent kind (that really would be new face cream and botox time), the Mary Poppins kind.

Now, I've had this before from a few people. They look at the girls, look at me and ask if I'm really the Mum or the Nanny. Do they ask because the girls look so different to me? I'm genuinely curious.

A few kind-hearted friends (and dh and my Mum) reckon it's because I either look too young, too well-dressed (which I certainly wasn't yesterday, rocking the hoodie, jeans, Converse and Croydon facelift look ) or too sane (the irony!) and self-assured to be a mum of twins.

What is it about me that gives off the Nanny vibe?

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I’ll qualify this a bit. A single baby or toddler is easier than baby or toddler twins. However, I reckon that a toddler AND a baby is harder than looking after twins. At least twins are at roughly the same developmental stages as each other. I had lunch on my own the other day and sat near a lady who was with a four year old and a (roughly) six month old baby. The boy was happily plucking his food off the conveyor belt (Yo Sushi, in case you were wondering) and chatting away to his mum but the baby was screaming the place down. The mum looked over at me and apologised. I told her not to worry, explained that I had two children of my own and offered my help, which she politely refused.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to look after children who have such wildly different needs. They probably look at me and wonder how I cope with twins! I guess the grass is always greener.

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I stayed at home on Tuesday to look after R and dh looked after her today. The first thing I noticed was that she is much quieter than G. In fact, she has periods of time where she doesn’t speak AT ALL. I think we live in a noisy house so it’s clearly G that’s the cause of 95% of it – I’m responsible for the other 5%! Also, R is much better at entertaining herself than her sister. She quite happily sat and did puzzles on her own for a while and only called me over when she wanted me to join in with an activity or read her a book. G tends to need more attention – if I had a pound for every time she trotted over to me, raised her arms in the air and said ‘Up please!’ in a week (actually, in a day) I wouldn’t need to work any more.

I was really concerned that G would feel quite lost at nursery without R and instructed her carers to make lots of fuss of her. I’m pleased to report that she was absolutely fine and didn’t even ask for her sister or get upset. Apparently, when the girls started back in June, they would look out for each other but now they play pretty much independently of each other for the majority of the time and therefore G didn’t feel the loss as keenly as she might have done a few months ago.

R absolutely LOVED the one to one time that dh and I had with her. I copped the slightly duller day as I took R to the doctors and sorted out her antibiotics, etc., but it was lovely to spend time doing R things, like playing with duplo and reading. Dh took her to Bluewater this afternoon for a walk round the shops and a spot of tea and she absolutely loved it. He took the buggy with him but she didn’t need to use it. He even moved her car seat onto the front passenger seat of the car so that she could ride shotgun. R was absolutely enthralled by the panoramic view that the front seat provided her with.

Anyway, R and G coped perfectly well without each other for two days, although they squealed with excitement when they were reunited. I think this bodes well. Although I like the ‘twin thing’ I’m keen for them to become individuals. My biggest fear (apart from involvement in drugs) is that they will be the old lady twins you see on TV programmes – never married, living together, dressing the same, finishing each others’ sentences – and that genuinely freaks me out. I think R and G are going to be ok, with and without each other.

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We did this: http://www.discoverdogs.org.uk/

It was the eqivalent of the chocolate factory for the girls...but with dogs. Hundreds of them. Dogs willing to be patted, stroked, petted and squealed and shouted at. Dog owners dying to show off their beloved pets. At one point I ended up holding a rat on a lead dog with a hairless body but a hairy face. Interesting. Velvety. Warm.

The girls were completely unfazed by the dogs on display, from Miniature Schnauzers to Irish Wolfhounds. Some of the dogs were three or four times their size and they could have ridden them round Earl's Court (in fact I probably could have ridden one or two of the breeds) but every single one was greeted with total and utter joy.

We tried to take lots of pictures but the girls were so excited that they couldn't stay still for a second and consequently we have lots of blurry shots and only a few decent ones. Here's one of the best:

We played a game of 'Fantasy dog owner' and dh decided that he would like a beagle. I'm sticking with my long held favourite, the black labrador. In fact, I was so so taken with one of the labs that I almost tried to smuggle him out of the exhibition. It was only when I realised that we were standing at the Guide Dogs for the Blind area and that the labs' owner clearly needed him a million more times than I did, that I reconsidered...

Dh bought the girls a little toy black labrador each, to add to their collection of Marleys, Gromits and other assorted doggy toys. I was quite jealous.

I'm fairly sure that I patted Richard Hammond at the Miniature Daschund stand. Small, dark, overeager and hairy? Can't be two of them, surely?

We also went to Pizza Express for lunch and the girls devoured a margherita pizza, dough balls, salad and a chocolate sundae each. They pushed away the Bambichinno (cup of frothy milk) when it arrived, clearly stuffed.

Factor in two tube rides and two train journeys and it was a very full day. The girls were so tired when we got home that we put them to bed half and hour earlier than normal.

Next week we're going to see the lights on Oxford Street and Regent's Street. Can't wait!

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About halfway through the usual 'splashing and hairwashing' procedure, I noticed that there wasn't a single towel in the bathroom. Not one. Dh had been on one of his 'wash everything that moves in the house' trips and most of out towels were draped over radiators drying out. I remembered that there was a spare clean and dry towel in our bedroom. I weighed up the odds and went for the 20 second dash option.

As I ran along the landing, I head R and G squal with laughter. Then I heard splashing. Lots and lots of spashing accompanied by squeals of mischevious laughter. Then I head the thud of water hitting the bathmat.

I ran back in to the bathroom and nearly slipped on the standing water that had been mysteriously decanted from the bath. In 20 seconds, with the cunning use of a number of plastic cups, the girls had decided that it would be a wizard wheeze to indulge in a very scientific 'let's see how much water we can throw on to the bathroom floor before Mummy comes back' experiment.

To say I exploded was an understatement. There was water everywhere. The floor was slippery. The bathmat was sopping wet. The pack of opened nappies on the floor was soggy. The changing mat was now a water slide.

When I stopped ranting, I realised that R and G were both completely silent. I lifted G out of the bath and dried her off. I told G to stand next to me while I repeated the exercise with R. As I was drying R, G caught her eye, they both looked at me and cackled quietly to each other with little grins on their faces.

It was hard to be angry any more. In fact, I wanted to laugh. After all, it was only water and was easy to clean up. Plus they had clearly had such a brilliant time that I felt bad for getting so annoyed with them. I gathered my thoughts, popped my metaphorical Mummy hat on (it's a fez in case you were wondering) and told them to apologise to me. They duly leaned over and give me big kisses. Monkeys! They can be so lovely one minute and absolute s**s the next.

20 seconds! What would they have achieved in a minute? A re-enactment of The Poseidon Adventure?

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I get terribly cabin-feverish if I'm in the house for more than a day at a time. I planned for today to be a lazy pyjama day as I was working at home and dh was around for most of the day but I got struck with an attack of the guilts at around 2pm, went for a shower and got dressed. I decided that the girls and I had to get out of the house for a little while.

We didn't have anything very exciting in for tea so we popped to the local M&S Simply Food (I say popped, it took about 20 minutes to persuade the girls to put their tights, boots, jumpers and coats on. As for strapping them into the buggy...) to get some treats. I picked up all the usual stuff: bread, milk, salad bits and in a moment of madness, decided that the girls should have cake for afters.

Not just cake. Oh no. Chocolate cake. With chocolate frosting and chocolate buttons. Yummmmmmmy.

The girls don't have things like cake and chocolate very often because I am a deeply cruel mother who only allows them to eat food that has been cooked by angels with gold-star hygiene certificates and water that has been purified in bubbling springs and drunk by gods but I thought they should have a treat.

They ate two (small) slices each and I may have had a bit myself and demanded MORE! MORE! I allowed them a piece more each and told them there was no more. G pointed to the kitchen worktop where approximately two-thirds of the cake was sitting, taunting us and wailed MOOOOOORE CAAAAKE PLEEEEEEEEASE. I hastily rushed over, stuffed some frosting in my mouth, put the cake back in its box and hid it in a cupboard. R knew I was pulling a fast one and joined in the yelling. I had to distract them with Teletubbies.

Considering they eat cake roughly every six months, I was impressed at how quickly they a. learnt what it was called and b. developed a taste for it. I think it's a girl thing. Eating healthily is all well and good but on rainy cold winter days, nothing beats chocolate cake.

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R and G's 'normal' speech has come on leaps and bounds in the last few months and we have got to the point where we can have short conversations with them. However, there are times when they babble at each other in a language that we can't understand.

If we had one child and they were only hearing our (mostly adult) conversations, their speech would be more advanced. As they spend all their time together and are at the same stage in their development, they tend to learn from, and copy each other. Therefore, if one of them decides to adopt a particular way of saying a word e.g. 'Dee-da' instead of 'water', the other one will copy it and they start to believe that they are saying it correctly. Undoing this is actually more difficult than one might think. 'Water' is an everyday, many times a day word and we say it to them repeatedly. Yet they insist on referring it to as 'dee-da'.

The situation is probably compounded by the fact that they attend nursery three days a week, where they are surrounded by young children at a range of speech levels, from babies cooing and babbling to pre-schoolers having full-blown conversations. The cacophony of noise must be terribly confusing.

We've always made a point of taking to the girls in 'adult' voices. I'm not one for baby talk. Dh is much quieter than I am and speaks quite softly. I'm generally much louder and have a harsher tone to my voice. My point is, we speak to the girls pretty much constantly - sometimes I feel like I'm providing the girls with a running commentary on their lives - so I don't think there's much more we can do to promote their speech.

G is much better with her speech than R and picks up new words and phrases very quickly. R seems to internalise a lot of information, but will suddenly come out with a new, perfectly formed sentence when the mood takes her.

The key thing seems to be that idioglossia is a phase (isn't everything a phase with children?!) and they will grow out of it.

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We thought it might be nice to invite some of the girls’ friends from nursery along, perhaps a couple of close friends each. Dh asked their room leader for a shortlist and after careful deliberation, she came up with 14 names. 14! 8 boys and 6 girls. Apparently R and G are extremely popular (I bet she says that to all the parents) and play with almost everyone at nursery (including the preschoolers and the babies) but the named 14 are their ‘closest’ friends.

Dh and I are deeply smug that the girls are apparently quite popular but equally quite baffled as to where they have acquired their outgoing natures from. I’m pretty vocal now, as an adult, and have a fair few friends but as a child I was pretty quiet and shy. Dh very much keeps to himself and has a small but close circle of friends. We aren’t the sort of people that light up a room. Maybe I do by leaving it...

The girls’ birthday is just the start of nearly a month of celebrations at the HoT. We’re hosting the family Christmas this year and both sets of parents (and extremely chuffed grandparents) and dh’s sister are coming along for the festivities. The notable absentees will be P, our niece (who is sadly visiting her dad) and my sister, who is in South Africa following the England cricket team as part of the Barmy Army.

On the 27th I turn 30 but I’m in denial about that...

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Sometimes though, your body fights back. Over the last couple of months I’ve been feeling quite tired (with twins, a full-time job and a – limited but important – social life to keep track of, this isn’t a massive surprise) and I have also fainted a couple of times. My concerned GP sent me for some blood tests and surprise surprise: I’m anaemic.

I went back to see my GP on Thursday to talk through the results. My iron stores are extremely low (one grade lower and I’d have to have a blood transfusion) and so I’ve been put on iron tablets and told to eat lots of iron-rich foods – cereals, green leafy veg, fruit juices, etc. Oh and dark chocolate – hurrah! Generally my diet is pretty good. The only things I’ve not really been having are the fruit juices, so I need to remedy that.

I was mildly anaemic when I was pregnant (hardly surprising with two little babies sucking the life out of me) and don’t exactly have fond memories of the effects that the iron tablets had, but you do what the medical professionals tell you do, don’t you? Plus the thought of a transfusion doesn’t exactly fill me with joy. I’m being chased by the blood donor service for a pint of my finest at the moment – I need all the red stuff I can get!

I also got the usual lecture from my lovely (really actually lovely) GP about looking after myself and resting when I can. Bless her, I know she means well but when? How? I have a busy life but wouldn’t have it any other way. I need to keep ‘doing’ things. I’m probably the most uptight and least relaxed person on the planet. Aside from being felled by a stun-gun, I don’t see how I can slow down.

Answers on a postcard.

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R really likes her gadgets and toys and is a deep thinker with a real mischievous streak and an evil cackle. She styles herself as the ringleader and consequently can be a bit of a bully at times. She’s also extremely bossy (can't think where she gets that from!) and dh is normally the target of her pointing and directing. R is quieter than her sister, unless really annoyed but is very determined and knows her own mind. Woe betide anyone that pushes her to her (very set) limits! She's very poised and graceful (the normal accidents that befall the average toddler seem to bypass her) and always seems to think about ten steps ahead.

G is very kind - more of a people-person than R. She's very sensitive to the feelings of others and is extremely affectionate, with lots of cuddles and kisses for everyone. She can be quite clingy and whingy at times and is prone to exaggeration (one day we will invest in a fainting couch for her swooning moments) and loud tantrums. She loves singing, dancing and chatting and is generally the louder of the two. She's very accident-prone (another trait she shares with me) and always has bruises and cuts. She tends to launch herself at things and hopes for the best - not always with good results!

They have things in common as well though: they adore all animals; they love doing puzzles and reading. They seem to bounce off each other - e.g. G will sing and R will act as her very appreciative audience, clapping and shouting ‘MORE MORE!’ at the end of every song. When one of them is scared of something the other one will lead them by the hand and help them out. G knows when R is in a really bad mood and stays out of her way, or tries to cheer her up with a favourite toy. When G has one of her wobblers, R acts like the older sister with a mildly indulgent ‘Oh dear, look at the toddler being silly’ expression on her face.

It blows my tiny mind that two beings that look so ridiculously similar can approach life in such different ways. How can that possibly work? To try and understand it, I read back over some early blog entries to try and work out whether R and G were born with the personalities they have, or whether we have, to a greater or lesser degree, ‘imposed’ some elements of their personalities on them – nurture rather than nature.

The following extracts are quite enlightening:
27th February 2008 (10 weeks old)
“They are also developing different personalities. G is shaping up to be a little diva, as she kicks off about anything and everything and is a total daddies girl who wants to be cuddled all the time. She loves nothing more than lying on someone’s chest, preferably that of a large male. R is more laid-back and considered and only gets angry if she thinks she is being denied milk. She hates being a baby and wants to be with adults all the time. It will be fascinating to see how they grow and change over time.”

15th March 2008 (3 months old)
“(G) has just come out of a ‘crusty’ phase... made worse by the fact that R looks completely immaculate and G looked like the poor relation in comparison... Someone told me that there are ‘Toy babies’ and ‘People babies’. G is definitely a people baby.... She is much chattier than R. The girls are noticing each other more and more now and G will beam at R and chat away for ages. R looks confused, smiles rather uncertainly occasionally and just stares at this noisy little creature.... I have a theory that while R is more like a singleton baby, G is more like one half of a twin pairing. When they are playing, G looks over at R to see what she is doing. R does her own thing”.

“(R) also has what is known by our friends and family as ‘The Ruthie stare’, where she is so completely and utterly irritated that she fixes us with a cold stare for a few seconds, then looks away and refuses to look back. If she could say ‘WhatEVER’ or ‘Bovvered?’, she would. When she eventually gets what she wants (i.e. milk) we get a smug grin accompanied with a ‘If you listened to me I wouldn’t have to resort to such extreme measures’ look.... R will play with a toy for longer than G... I suspect that R is frustrated with being able to do so little physically... If she’s like this at 3 months, I dread to think what the 13 year old R will be like!”

Scary. We didn’t ‘decide’ to make them how they are. I don’t think we have imposed personality traits on them. They were already there when the girls were born. Nature or nurture? I say nature.

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Anyway, last night he was NOT a happy chappy. Usually he whimpers for a few minutes and settles pretty quickly but this time he wasn’t having a bar of it. Dh and I lay in bed (after double-checking that it wasn’t one of ours making the noises – they are generally much louder) and unlike our old next door neighbour, resisted the urge to knock on the wall, wail like a child or start banging doors and shouting in a right old huff. By the by, since we moved G’s sleeping has improved considerably – coincidence??

Instead we lay there and sent vibes of sympathy to our poor neighbours. In fact, I wanted to knock on their door, give them a big hug and tell them that it would be ok. If I could make the last sentence any less patronising than it sounded, I would. We’ve been there.

When the girls were seven months old I wrote a number of despairing posts about their inability to settle at night. Dh and I reminisced (not exactly fondly) about going between the cots, attempting (and largely failing) to console and settle two incredibly overstimulated little girls. I remembered sitting on the (downstairs) toilet and sobbing uncontrollably after failing to settle them after an hour and a half one evening, during a long succession of bad nights and severely broken sleep. They were screaming upstairs. I was sobbing downstairs and dh was on the late shift. It felt like the end of the world.

Dh and I tried to remember when the girls started sleeping through the night. I remembered the first night that R and G slept from midnight to 6am. I woke up and felt like I had new eyes. Dh remembered when the girls first started sleeping from 8am to 6pm – we used to feed them at 10.30pm and one night he suggested we experiment with not feeding them. I was terrified that we would be punished with a 2am wake-up call but to my complete surprise, they slept through. That was the beginning of the routine that has served us so well.
Nearly two years on - older, wiser, with many more hours of sleep deprivation under our belts and infinitely more smug – dh and I can look back on those days and (mostly) smile on them as distant memories, not to be repeated. Dh joked that it was like having ‘Nam flashbacks: “I LOVE the smell of Sudocrem in the morning”.

We just send lots of empathy and hugs to our next door neighbours. They seem lovely and we’ll offer them help if they need it. Again, I sound desperately patronising but the sentiments are heartfelt.

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I had forgotten all about the CD until the Bob the Builder (sorry, Bah-Diddy) single incident at the weekend and decided to pop it on the stereo to see what the girls made of it.

As helium Julie burst into life singing (with lots of over-enthusiastic enunciation) “JACK and JILL went UP the HILL to FETCH a PAIL OF WAAAAAAAAATEEEEERRRRR”, G looked up at the stereo with a confused look on her face, shrugged and sat down to do a puzzle. R, in dh’s arms looked EXTREMELY unimpressed in that way that 15 year old girls do at family weddings when their dad throws himself around the dance floor to Status Quo. R then emitted a loud and extremely fed-up sounding sigh and rolled her eyes so far round that I seriously thought for a moment that she might actually be able to view her own brain.

I persevered for a few more songs in the hope that the girls would get used to it, but no chance. The CD has now been put back in its case and I may use it to torture/embarrass them as they need arises...

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Sorry if you’re disappointed by that!!

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I have found the personal attacks extremely hurtful. Yes, I put myself 'out there' by writing a blog and therefore open myself up to criticism but I'm always amazed that random people feel that it is their divine right to question and openly attack my parenting abilities and personality. It's not in my nature to go on to other people's blogs and be openly provocative. The post was meant to be both humorous and satirical. Some people 'got it' and others didn't. That's fine. If we all laughed at, or agreed with the same things, life would be very dull. In any case, I can make myself feel bad enough, thanks. I don't need random strangers doing it for me.

I'd just like to remind anyone still reading that I don't get paid to write this. I write in my extremely limited spare time (i.e. when the girls are napping or in bed or when I'm travelling around for my job) and it is a 'release' from being a full-time working mum of twins. My blog is funny. It is sometimes sad and angry. It won't appeal to everyone and I wouldn't expect it to - it's a very niche thing. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.

This morning I wondered whether I should just delete the whole bloody blog and go and do something less boring instead. I'm not going to do that. Instead, I want to draw a line under this and move on. I'm going to get back to writing about R and G.

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Here’s my response.

The whole entry was meant to be humorous. Yes, it was dripping with sarcasm but if you’ve ever read anything else I’ve written, you’ll know that’s my style. I loathe self-congratulating parents and have enough self-awareness to know that sometimes I overstep the smugness line. I try to self-edit, but sometimes it spills over. I shall try to wear my hair-shirt with pride more often in future.

For the record, I don’t think that parents with single babies are any better or worse than parents of twins, triplets, quads or anything else. I was aiming my post at a VERY specific type of mum – the designer bag toting yummy mummy with perfectly blow-dried hair, and a very expensive lifestyle and attitude to match. They are the ones that do post-partum yoga in the park. The average, normal mum in the street with a buggy should not be offended by my post. If you were, I apologise.

My self-reference to being ‘cleverer (yes, it is in the dictionary. Here’s a link: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cleverer) and more considerate’ was with tongue firmly in cheek. If you had ever read any of my blog entries about my struggles with anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and my constant doubting that I can be a good mother, you would know that I’m probably one of the last people on earth to judge my own parenting abilities against those of others.

I am thankful every single day that I was lucky to have a relatively straightforward pregnancy (extreme exhaustion and sickness for the first 20 weeks and a severe kidney infection that put me in hospital when I was 27 weeks pregnant aside) and I am also grateful that I have my health, my dh is healthy and so are my children. Actually, as I have PCOS and was told a couple of years before I became pregnant that I might not be able to have children at all, do try to forgive me for being a bit pleased about having twins. I would have also been pleased with one baby. Or three. Or more.

I suggest you go back and read the other 293 blog entries to get a much clearer picture of who I am, the perspective I’m writing from and what this blog is actually about. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.

I could carry on but the chip on my shoulder is starting to weigh my arm down, making it difficult to type. (see? That was an attempt at humour!)

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Due to a number of factors, I’m finding it increasingly hard to find the time to write blog entries. I read somewhere that a blog needs two new entries a week or it starts to feel unloved and I’m finding it hard to live up to that at the moment. I can only write when time and inspiration allows, which is why there may be a gap of two or three weeks between entries and suddenly two or three will appear in rapid succession.

I could write about every cute little thing that the girls do but I’m not terribly comfortable with the ‘my x did the most adorable and funny thing the other day’ style of writing, especially when the anecdote turns out to the nauseating rather than amusing and would in fact only be funny to the parents and perhaps a doting grandparent. I’ve just read the Bah Diddy entry back and think it sails dangerously close to this particular wind but hopefully the stuff about dh will be amusing enough to allow it to stay.

If you look to your left, you’ll see the House of Twins Twitter feed, which I set up to note down the little things that happen that I can’t conjure a blog entry out of. I’ll aim to update that regularly and anyone that reads this can follow that.

There are some big things coming up – the girls’ birthday, Christmas, potty training and all the new things that the terrible twos will bring and the challenges that bringing up identical twins present and I’ll aim to record them all. I just can’t commit to writing thousands of words that about three people (and my Mum) read every month.

Until the next crisis, anyway…

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Dear mothers of tiny singletons,

Well done on your ability to create life. You are only one of billions of woman that has managed this feat in history. Do have a little smile to yourself at how brilliant you are. When you were pregnant, I bet you really enjoyed wearing your burgeoning bump as a medal of your ability to have sex. Did you rub it tenderly every thirty seconds throughout the day? Did you thrust it out at every available opportunity to let the whole world know how clever you are? Did you play classical music to it and read to it?

I bet you had great fun choosing your buggy. Did your partner treat it like buying a new car? Did you go to one of the big baby shows and try out hundreds of different models before selecting the one that best fitted your expensive lifestyle? Cream covers to match your carpets? Adult cup holder for your morning latte? Extra wide wheels for added comfort and manoevreability? Rear facing seat so that you can smile tenderly down at your cherished, protected and never allowed to get grubby or muddy, perfect, angelic baby as you mooch around town waiting for your new chums from the NCT group to join you at the local café?

Well done you. Through the NCT group, you’ve made friends with people like you. You all have the same make of buggy (in different, yet complimentary colours, obviously), you all have the same parenting ideals and you hope you get little Amelie, Olivia, Freddie and Jay into the same school so that you can share school runs.

Isn’t it annoying when, as you are trotting through town discussing the next coffee morning, two abreast, taking up 95% (47.5% each) of the pavement when someone (without a buggy, poor childless woman!) walks towards you in the opposite direction and looks to manoeuvre into the 5% of pavement you have generously donated to the rest of the world? Isn’t it annoying when the poor sad individual without a baby has to leap onto a small wall out of your way so that you don’t run over her foot with your lovely wide buggy? I bet that little tut and sigh you did felt really cathartic.

Well, it may surprise you to learn that the woman that so kindly leapt onto the wall out of your way (because travelling in single file with your buggies would just be silly, wouldn’t it?) has children of her own. Twins, in fact. Her body very cleverly got one egg and divided it into two. Isn’t that amazing? She and her partner chose their buggy to be as practical as possible and chose the narrowest side-by-side on the market. That means that other people (even those with single buggies) can still use the pavement without difficulty.

She may not have her children with her today because they are at nursery while she works but she carries them with her wherever she goes. On the outside, with her winter coat, her laptop bag, handbag and nice shoes she may look like a typical office worker (perhaps like you were once) but she is also a mother. Don’t look at her like she’s something you just scraped off your boots. Sometimes she’s like you – only a bit cleverer and slightly more considerate, of course…

Those elderly ladies with those pesky shopping trollies that aren’t so good at steering? I bet they had babies too, once. The young girls who walk slowly along the pavement, texting and chatting to their gang of friends on their way home from school? They’ll be mums one day. That man in the suit probably wears a baby bjorn at weekends.

Next time you’re having a mummy meet, have a great time and travel to your destination in single file. The rest of the world will thank you for it.

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However, Bah Diddy baffled us both. It didn’t seem to refer to an object as such, wasn’t a name for someone and wasn’t a ‘doing’ word.

A trip to the supermarket yesterday solved the mystery. As dh and the girls were leaving the shop, they started pointing and shouting BAH DIDDY! BAH DIDDY…

…at a Bob the Builder ride-on machine.

To test the theory, I dug out dh’s CD single of ‘Can we fix it?’ (which, to the uninitiated, is the dance version of the Bob the Builder theme tune) You may be wondering why a grown man, far to old to have enjoyed Bob and his adventures as a child owns the song. HE would tell you that he bought it to keep Westlife off the Christmas no. 1 slot. If I tell you that his Mum bought him a Bob the Builder soft toy for his 22nd (yes, not 2nd – 22nd) birthday, I think you’ll see that there is a slightly different slant on this story.

Anyway, I popped the CD into the stereo (once I’d dusted it off) and pressed play. Cue two VERY excited little girls (and one man old enough to know better), leaping up and down and shouting BAH DIDDY!

Now, the girls are very particular about the television programmes they watch. Teletubbies is a favourite. They will occasionally watch In the Night Garden (erk) and have been known to sit through an episode of Pingu. To my knowledge, they haven’t ever watched Bob the Builder, so how to they know a. What it’s called (sort of) and b. The theme tune?

Dh remembered that when he dropped the girls of at nursery recently, they were dancing to CDs, so I’m guessing that they also have the single – that, or they wheel out the television when the parents aren’t looking (which, bad mummy that I am, wouldn’t blame them for doing for half an hour a day) and allow the children a bit of cbeebies time (I’m not actually suggesting for a second that they do this). Also, their bff at nursery had a Bob the Builder themed birthday party so if he talks about it, the girls will probably pick it up from him.

The next step is to find some episodes on the BBC iplayer or Youtube and see if they’ll actually watch them.

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They are both completely and utterly obsessed with 'My first animal book' and insist that we flick through it at bedtime. Every night. For the last month. We have a whole bookcase full of books to read to them and they always choose the 'AMAL' book.

Although we're heartily sick of the book, their recognition of, and ability to name different animals is now excellent. They also love making the different noises. G is more 'into' this game than R and will happily launch into a session of ribbiting, baa-ing, moo-ing, hissing, roaring, squeaking, honking and buzzing. R amazes us by suddenly and without prompting pointing at and naming an animal we haven't even noticed before - goat is a recent example of this.

They also like sounding out the names of the animals and placing emphasis on certain sections of the word: monKEY, tor-TOISE, etc. Most of the time their little voices sound very sweet and a little lispy. However, G insists on calling a horse an 'ORSE, in true South-East London, knees up mother brown, estuary fashion, no matter how many times I shout HORSE! HORSE!, with special emphasis on the 'aitch' of the H.

It could be worse. At least they haven't started saying 'Innit' at the end of sentences. Yet...

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Who stare in horror at their partners as they tell them that they are several days 'late'. Who breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of a negative pregnancy test. Who shudder at the thought of changing a pooey nappy or consoling a crying baby. Who walk out during their partners' pregnancy because it's 'too hard' and then go and get someone else pregnant. Who leave when their child is small because 'they want their life back'. Who cross their legs at the mere mention of the word 'vasectomy'.

Grow up and take responsibility, you spineless bastards.

Having a vasectomy does not make you less of a man. You can still perform just as well as you did before your ability to fertilise an egg was removed. You allow your partner to endure periods, pregnancy and birth. It's only fair that you do your share of the birth control once you decide you're over the baby-making. The pain of a vasectomy is temporary. The respect you'll get from your parter for doing it will be life-long.

Think about it.

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He's recovering really well. Obviously he has experienced some discomfort over the last couple of days, he hasn't really fancied walking very far and he has to prevent the girls from leaping into his lap but otherwise he's fine. He stopped taking pain relief last night and is now using wine to numb the residual aches...

He has been signed off work for a week (driving jolting trains isn't exactly the best type of recovery plan for sore bits and pieces) but has already got back into the swing of changing nappies and chasing the girls around.

Neither of us experienced a last-minute panic attack. Personally, I feel extremely relieved that we've finished the baby-making part of our lives. We adore R and G and want to focus on them now. The deserve our full attention.

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I don't know of anyone that watched the programme and didn't get choked up watching the two little Chinese girls, adopted by Western families and brought up in two completely different countries (America and Norway), briefly reunited at the age of six. Despite spending most of the lives apart, they had an instant bond, shared a number of mannerisms and even started dressing the same after a couple of days together. They didn't speak the same language, yet they soon understood each other. The Chinese authorities did a terrible thing, separating them when they were babies, but the adoptive parents and the girls themselves will clearly make sure that they stay in touch.

I'm a Mum of identical twins and I'm only just getting my head around what it means. R and G are totally normal to us. It's only when I watch programmes such as this that I realise how special they actually are. Apparently, a half of one percent of the world's population is made up of identical twins. That blows my tiny mind.

Other aspects of the programme irritated me though. Once again, the different types of identical twins were not explained. The differences between fraternal and identical twins were touched on briefly but hardly anyone knows or understands the categories of twins. I won't explain them here, but read this if you want to know more: http://community.babycentre.co.uk/journal/georgi22/308855/the_start_of_a_momo_twin_journey

Also, the programme focused far too much on a set of male identical twins who were just the sort of blokes that I can't stand. If they had attended my school, they would have received the beatings they so richly deserved! Yes, aspects of their story were interesting: they were both doctors, both well-travelled and high-achievers. Yet the programme homed in on their ability to argue, mostly over their fitness and weight. They annoyed me almost as much as those dreadful twins on the X-Factor, urgh.

I was pleased that the programme was given a prestigious slot on BB1 at prime time (9pm) and if you didn't see it, I would urge you to seek both parts out on the iplayer. At least the programme makers tried to base the programme on scientific facts - unlike the ITV programme on identical triplets last year ("Oh look! Identical triplets! Don't they look funny?!" ) and the sections on epigenetics were fascinating.

Of course, R and G are fascinating to us because they are ours, and if we didn't find them amazing there would be something wrong with our relationship with them. Just occasionally though it's good to have a reminder of how interesting they must be to everyone else.

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We've shortened the girls' daytime nap to just under 1.5 hours and it seems (touch wood) to have helped a bit (only a bit) with G's night waking. R could probably still do with a decent 2 hour nap in the day and tends to get more grumpy, but I don't want their routines to be out of sync with each other.

(just popped up to see the girls - G had lost her beloved doggy and managed to wake a slightly confused R up. Doggy found and now safely in G's arms. They both seem fine..for now...)

Weirdly, the new environment seems to be wearing them out. They have so much more space to run around in now and although we're still taking the girls out and about every day they aren't at nursery, they seem to really want to nap and sleep. I wonder if G was disturbed by our old next door neighbour - she's such a light sleeper that I wouldn't be surprised. Their new room isn't joined on to another house so hopefully that will help as well.

R is pretty much the perfect sleeper anyway and always has been. G is more of a challenge (to put it mildly), but we'll get there with her.

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Under the old regime, they went downstairs for their first nappy change of the day and were put in their highchairs for their morning milk. Now, they are changed in the upstairs bathroom before going downstairs for their milk.

In the evening, they used to have a bath, then milk, then upstairs for pyjamas and story time. For the first few nights in the new house, we experimented with giving the girls their milk in the bedroom after their bath and before story time but found they couldn't focus on it and took ages to drink half the bottle.

This evening G decided to implement a little alteration of her own and it seems to have worked. They now have their milk downstairs at 6pm, have a little play afterwards and go up for their bath and story at 6.30pm, so that they are in bed by 7pm. It's just the first night, but I think it might just work.

On non-nursery days the girls sit at the dining table to have breakfast with dh and/or I - something that was difficult to do in the old house due to the space constraints. I'm also planning to do the same at lunch time so that's it's more of a fun, sociable occasion rather than a routine drag.

As dh and I unpacked last week, we commented that there are going to be many more changes to the girls' routine over the next year. At some point after their 2nd birthday we'll have to look at dropping the morning milk entirely. This time next year they might be potty trained, although I'm in deep denial about the whole process. Their high chairs will (hopefully) be a distant memory. They may have given up the buggy. We might even be feeling brave enough to take down some of the stairgates and room divides.

Although I'm still terrified about potty training, the other changes seem less radical somehow now. As G demonstrated tonight, the girls will let us know when they are ready to make changes.

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The living room is so large (and long) that we've been able to divide it in two (dh has cunningly converted the girls' old playpen into a zig-zag room divide) so that the front half is our grown-up living room and the back half is a large playroom for the girls. Along the hallway, there is a downstairs toilet. At the end of the hallway, there are a couple of steps into the dining room, which opens out into a large kitchen at the back of the house. The plan is that we will put another room divide between the kitchen and dining room so that the girls will have a free run between the playroom and the dining room.

Upstairs there are three bedrooms, all doubles. Dh and I have the largest room at the front of the house which has a plethora of built-in wardrobes and storage space. Our clothes and shoes have got completely lost in the many wardrobes! The girls share the second largest room. The third bedroom will be a guest room and study for me on my two working at home days each week. The bathroom is a little on the small size and lacks a bit for storage, but it's not really a problem.

The l-shaped garden is completly paved, but is safe enough for the girls and is a little sun trap during the day. It's great to be able to put washing outside on bright days. I'm planning to buy a number of garden toys (and a little storage shed) for the girls when we've settled in.

I also love all the little details in the house - the pulleys to open and close the curtains; the pretty wall and ceiling lights; the ice-cube maker in the massive fridge; the brekfast bar in the kitchen; the high ceilings; the light, bright and airy rooms; the patterned coving on the walls; the fancy oven with ceramic hob; and the wooden floors.

I couldn't wait to get home from work this evening and pick the girls up from nursery so that we could play together before their bedtime. R and G have settled in really well. I think that all four of us will be extremely happy here.

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On Wednesday afternoon we got the keys to our new house. We had been warned that the previous occupants (our landlords) hadn't exactly left the place in a 'ready to move in straight away' state. They weren't wrong. There was washing-up on the draining board, food in the kitchen cupboards, coat hangers in the built-in wardrobes and a collection of 'stuff' scattered around the house. The kitchen and bathroom were decidedly unclean. One look at my face as we went into the house to have a look and the woman doing the inventory was on the phone to a waste management and cleaning firm, who duly arrived an hour later. They cleared out all of the things we didn't want and spent over 5 hours making the house ready for us, cleaning, polishing and generally making everything sparkle. Best of all, we didn't have to pay a penny!

On Thursday morning dh and I dropped the girls off at nursery at 8am. The two men and a large van arrived bang on time at 9am and proceeded to make extremely light work of moving our furniture and belongings out of the old house. They completed the job in just over three hours and dh and I were left with a mountain of things to move and unpack in the new house.

We were discussing where to put the sofa when I collapsed. With brilliant timing, my 'lady trouble' arrived on Thursday morning and that, coupled with forgetting to have breakfast, contributed to a rather nasty white-out. After an hour of lying on the sofa (cushions hastily thrown on by dh as I toppled), some nurofen, a couple of sugary biscuits and a large glass of water, I felt ok again. Being a girl is rubbish sometimes.

Anyway, once I had recovered we cracked on with the unpacking and furniture moving. Apart from a brief sojurn to the pub for a late lunch and a shandy, we spent the afternoon working on the house. Our primary aim was to get the girls' room ready before we collected them from nursery. Cue a 'Changing Rooms' style flurry of activity at 5pm as dh hastily rebuilt their cots and shelving unit and I put away their bedding and clothes.

We collected the girls from nursery at 5.45pm and G had her now obligatory tantrum on the way home. When they were bathed, storied and in bed (without so much as a murmur) we carried on unpacking until 9.30pm when we collapsed into bed.

On Friday, the girls went to nursery for a pre-arranged extra day so that we could carry on sorting the house out. We were just back at the old house to greet the cleaners who would sort the old house out when my Mum rang and offered her unpacking services for the day, bless her! The three of us did a sterling job and by the time we collected the girls from nursery (G tantrumming her way home again), the house was 80% finished.

As I write, there are still a few boxes to unpack - Virgin Media is being installed at the weekend so we can't unpack certain things until they've been - and we need to hang the pictures and photos on the walls.

Last week I sat surrounded by boxes in our old house and wondered how on earth we could possibly move it all in the time we had. A week on, I feel rather proud of what dh and I have achieved over the last week. We're a cracking team.

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We have attracted quite a few stares when we've been out for walks though. Passers-by see R toddling along and smile. The then see G and try to disguise mild horror when they see the bruise. A couple of people have even nudged and whispered to their companions. I've also received a few hard stares.

I'm not hugely surprised by this. After various recent high-profile child abuse and neglect cases, the general public is more sensitive to child protection issues. However, I'd like to point out two things: 1. Abusive parents don't usually sock their children across the nose - they tend to go for the places that don't show. 2. They don't parade their poor battered child around the shops, a huge public park and popular tourist attraction.

I can't even watch a fist fight on a soap without hiding behind a cushion. I'm a huge James Bond fan but always flinch at the fights. In short, I'm a complete wuss and can't bear violence in any form so the thought of doing anything harmful to my children is...well, unthinkable.

Poor G. She's just as accident-prone as me. Hopefully the bruise will heal soon and she'll be back to her usual cute and lovely self.

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Tuesday = conjunctivitis. Gunky, crusty eyes - drops obtained from GP.

Wednesday = fell over whilst running and cut her lip at home). Bled a bit, cold compress applied.

Thursday = fell over whilst running and banged her nose at nursery). Her nose immediately swelled up. Cold compress applied. She is now sporting a very attractive black and green bruise across the bridge on her nose.

So, she looks like she's taken up boxing. Unsuccessfully. Poor G.

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Dh has the whole of next week off and I've taken Tuesday-Friday off. The girls are going into nursery for an extra day next Friday. Our landlord is definitely moving out of our new house next Wednesday and we should be getting the keys that afternoon - fingers crossed. The removal men (two men and a van) are booked for Thursday morning. The cleaners are booked to sort out our current/old house on Friday morning, ready for the checking-out inspection next Saturday. That gives us two days without the girls and one day (Saturday) with, to get both houses sorted before dh goes back to work next Sunday.

It's doable but is going to be extremely stressful...

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Last night we went back to grobags. R slept through beautifully (purring and snoring her little head off) but G started making noises at 3am. Argh! Luckily she went quiet fairly quickly and we all went back to sleep again. At 5am, we got another early alarm call from G. When dh went to check on her, she was completely asleep but wailing and howling. She didn't even notice that dh had entered the room.

A 5am waking is fatal for me. I tossed and turned until the alarm went off at 6.30am and dh dozed on and off. I expected G to be feeling the after-effects of a disturbed night when we woke her up at 7.15 (dh and I were certainly pretty worried about it) but she was her usual herberty self. Night terrors? Dreams? We'll have to see.

So, that's four consecutive sad faces on G's sleep chart (kept for our own reference, not to reward or punish her), which we (thankfully) haven't had since February? Teeth? Who knows. Will she go for number 5 tonight?

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