Twincident October Update - Family Time!
Another couple of months has shot by, in it we crammed in a holiday 🌞, starting nursery, and probably as many family days out as we had in the whole year before. This has been lovely, but may also be indicative of the levels of desperation trying to find ways to entertain two energetic, chatty and very contrary (in their own individual ways, obviously…) 2 year olds.
Additions to the site this month:
Best version of myself
Lessons from other parents - Over the summer I interviewed a variety of parents about the challenges of parenting, I found some really common themes in terms of challenges, but more importantly, in terms of how to deal with them.
What's been going well?
The twins' personalities and interests are really shining through now as their speech continues to improve. It’s easier as they can often tell us what they want and we can, on occasion, even have a sensible discussion when that's not an option!
Whilst the holiday wasn’t plain sailing (see below), we did make some amazing memories and seeing the twins on the beach 🏖️, enjoying nature and making friends with all the new people we met was gorgeous. The prep work we did to help the twins understand what was coming also made the travelling about as painless as possible. 😎
The twins' ability to understand what is going on and to do things seems to be improving exponentially, and I am once again reminded of how quickly they are growing up 🥺
We started the twins at Nursery, so they have a super stimulating environment to spend some time in and lots of new friends to meet and play with. Good timing as we were finding it hard to keep up with them!
Between potty training, the holiday, and facing the reality that the twins are now such a bundle of energy it's tougher to solo parent them, we have probably spent as much time together as a family in the last couple of months as all the time before added together, it’s been aaaamazing! 😁
What’s been hard and what would we have done differently?
The holiday - it was hard work! We were really pleased with ourselves having changed dates so the twins were a bit older. Surely travelling with older toddlers would be easier? It turns out the twins had just entered the “terrible 2s stage” aka doing the opposite of everything we ask them to. Not a great combination in an unfamiliar, non child proofed environment. We both had to be on constant alert as the twins took great delight in running off in opposite directions - pretty tiring it turns out! Naps and sleep routines also suffered, and combined with a bit of sickness picked up on the flight over, it felt more like some kind of endurance bootcamp than the glorious sun lounger and cocktail holidays of old. If we were going again with similar aged toddlers we would definitely:
Book somewhere with childcare options. This would have meant we could have had a break, but also would have ensured that there is somewhere set up to entertain the twins.
Go somewhere with childproofed rooms. These hotels do exist and it would have been life changing for us to have a safe space for the twins to roam.
Get out more. We found when we went further afield and found something to do (especially if set up for toddlers) we had a more relaxing time, rather than chasing them round the beach or pool all day like zombie lifeguards 🧟🧟♀️
We are dealing with the consequences of the break to routine in terms of both getting the twins to sleep independently, and keeping them there, so the zombie state continues for now...🤦♂️
Off the back of such a busy few weeks I have lots of posts on the way, along with some exciting news about something I have been working on to help parents with the challenges of parenting...watch this space!
Ranj and family