Did you know that twins suck each other’s thumbs? Or noses, or shoulders, or whatever happens to be in range. They weigh nearly12 kilos between them now. That’s a lot of baby to be hefting round.
They are developing personalities. Daniel is a big baby with an amiable grin and relaxed manner who reminds me forcibly of his uncle (my feckless brother – I foresee a lifetime of getting extra keys cut). He looks very like his big sister and moves like she did at his age (why should I hold my head up? No, really, why? I don’t intend to crawl until I reach 11 months).
Michael is a very different child. Unlike the Princess and Daniel,he is not a bald baby (how extraordinary). He loves having his legs bicycled and already puts weight on his legs,an ominous sign that he may walk early. Where did we get an athletic baby from? Unlike his older and bigger brother he believes that sleep is for wimps but he is a lot more amiable on his four hours a night than I suspect Margaret Thatcher ever was. Â I, however, am finding the regime challenging and, of course, the Princess likes to add her mite. I am sure you can imagine the joy in the Waffle household when after a night awake with the boys, the Princess knocked on our bedroom door at 6.02 this morning.
kristin
(Homepage)
on 21 January 2006 at 15:54
look at those contented visages! what happy boys they seem.
on 22 January 2006 at 14:54
Sez – afternoon nap, you say? Ha ha ha (come on, join in waffly) ha ha ha. 
on 23 January 2006 at 01:52
ahhh. So cute!!
on 23 January 2006 at 09:10
Sez, Jojo is right as ever. Kristin, Berry, thank you.
Tiring in a Whole New Way
Email from my friend D:
Saw this and thought of you -particularly your description of bringing Princess to school with the twins in tow, one in a sling and the other in the buggy. I feel that this is not a viable option into the future as the twins get bigger..http://www.magicmum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18600
Hope all is ok with you. Baby A has a cold and was awake crying from 1am to 4 am last night. I am shattered. I don’t know how you possibly manage with three. In fact I am surprised that anyone in the world has siblings at all, now that reliable contraception is available….
Yours in exhausted bewilderment,
You will note her wisdom in the matter of siblings.
Comments
belgianwaffle
on 23 January 2006 at 09:08
Good Lord Kristin, how extraordinary.
First World Problems
Our fridge is broken. I rang my sister for sympathy.
Me (dolefully): Guess what?
Her: What?
Me: Our fridge has broken down.
Her: Thank God, I thought that you were going to say that you were pregnant.
I rang the Baroness’s agent (yes our landlady is a Baroness, welcome to Belgium, land of minor aristocracy) but
Charles-Emmanuel was unmoved by our plight. “But,” I pleaded “we have twin babies, we really NEED a fridge.” “Madam,” he said unmoved, “everybody needs a fridge.”
In fairness, however, the Baroness and her ex-husband (all the tenants wish that they’d get back together, he’s very handy and efficient) turned up to inspect the offending fridge, pronounced it dead and have since arranged for a new one to be purchased. Delivery is, alas, still pending. This is a matter of particular regret to me since I bought a lot of post-Christmas discount foie gras (in Belgium, foie gras is for Christmas not for life) and now it all has to be chucked.
Comments
Bobble
on 18 January 2006 at 15:49
We’ll come round and help you out with the eating.
Friar Tuck
on 18 January 2006 at 16:11
Maybe you could send the foie gras to the baroness in order to stress the importance of receiving a new fridge ASAP.
on 18 January 2006 at 16:37
Why *minor* aristocracy ? Aristocracy is measured by its origins in time, rather than a scale of titles … Your baroness could very well be from a family dating from the 12th century, and a Count might as well be from a family belonging to aristocracy since the early 1900’s …
jackdalton
on 18 January 2006 at 20:48
Just as well, knowing what foie gras is supposed to do to the libido…
Friar Tuck
on 19 January 2006 at 02:26
Baroness makes a good point. Take my family, for instance. We can trace our origins back to Adam and Eve.
kristin
on 19 January 2006 at 04:39
just recovering from my posting faux pas of a few days ago to say … ‘toast points for everyone!’ i am quite jealous that you have good foie gras available to you, nevermind its incipient demise.
belgianwaffle
on 19 January 2006 at 12:08
It is very gratifying to discover that you all like foie gras.
Baroness, with all due respect, no matter how old a baronetcy is, I think that it’s pretty low down the pecking order.
poggle
on 19 January 2006 at 12:45
That’s awful – just awful – throwing away foie gras is a tragedy
belgianwaffle
on 20 January 2006 at 12:15
Pog, I am delighted to add you to the long list of my readers who are foie gras fans. Perhaps we could set up a club.
poggle
on 20 January 2006 at 12:53
Yes – we could have secret handshakes and codes (eg the grey geese fly at dawn). Ahem.
jackdalton
on 20 January 2006 at 13:18
Hmmm, grey geese that fly at dawn etc. Another unexpected depth to the Pog(gle).
But what I really wanted to say was that I have vague memories of being emotionally savaged by a policy wonk / veggie type I loved deeply but too well because of what they do to geese to make foie gras. All about locking them in barns, force-feeding them, clipping wings and oversized livers that made their legs break. And so on.
Kind of put me off for a while. But I’m allright now…
Ain’t time a wonderful thing?!
poggle
on 20 January 2006 at 13:20
Your policy wonk/veggie type was telling the truth. I am a bad person. Sometimes my appetite outweighs my conscience. But you already knew that, right?
jackdalton
on 20 January 2006 at 13:51
We are all bad people in some small ways; unthinkingly dragging (one of our two) new blankets through the gutters of life. Except ‘waf. Who is amazingly stoic and clear-sighted or something.
(Can anything truly outweigh conscience? Just wondering…. )
poggle
on 20 January 2006 at 13:53
You’re right, of course. My conscience doesn’t generally get outweighed. Sometimes it gets pushed to the back because of an excess of vin rouge (or similar), but not for long.
belgianwaffle
on 23 January 2006 at 09:08
Conscience? What’s that? The grey geese fly at dawn, my friends.
jackdalton
on 23 January 2006 at 20:41
So that would be geese and conscience flying with the wind….. 0
belgianwaffle
on 25 January 2006 at 08:51
Eh, yes Jack. 0
School and logistics
Monday went fine. Tuesday was ok. This morning she was in floods of tears. The problem is that she won’t sleep at school and she’s exhausted. I am collecting her at 12.10 today with a view to
giving her a nice long nap at home. If she does not nap at home,
I will shoot myself. Mr. Waffle is away on a business trip and
not coming back until tomorrow. Blind terror prevails.
Today will also be the first time that I have to collect her with the
boys as on Monday and Tuesday, I had people in to mind them. I am a little concerned that I will not be able to marshall all three of
them home (Princess on foot, Michael in sling and Daniel in buggy) so, despite the fact that the school is only around the corner, I think I might drive to collect her. Farewell, ozone layer. I cannot
tell you how much I am looking forward to trying to get her out the door to school tomorrow (up to now this has been her loving father’s task) with the boys in tow.
Thought I should mention that yesterday I was superwoman. Drove to the creche to drop off a little present and pick up a portrait of the Princess. Went to my place of work and passed the (immensely well behaved) boys to swarms of admirers. Left before they started to cry. Breastfed them both for half an hour in the back of the car while covered by cloth of decency and reading the LRB.
Lunched with Mr. Waffle while saintly Michael slept and I breastfed Daniel. Mercifully, a kind providence had placed us sitting beside two nordic gentlemen so, being Scandinavian and right on, they didn’t bat an eyelid, I’m not even sure that they noticed.
Came home, dropped the boys with G, set out for school, took Princess to the park and for a cup of tea. Came home, relieved G. With the Princess’s assistance, bathed both boys and prepared dinner for Mr. Waffle’s return at 6.45. Promptly collapsed with exhaustion thereafter.
on 11 January 2006 at 10:22
Sweetie(s) given
on 11 January 2006 at 10:23
Sweetie(s) given ���
on 11 January 2006 at 14:49
Sweetie(s) given ���
on 12 January 2006 at 08:40
Sweetie(s) given ���
on 12 January 2006 at 09:56
Ta Kristin, GPM, UC and Ms. Splog. Special thanks for the sweeties GPM and Ms. Splog. You are wise to continue to be scared of the week alone GPM..
SSC, yes, I used to love the sandpit myself.
The boys were christened. Rejoice. Mr. Waffle got two blankets from Marks and Spencer to serve as spotless garments. By the time we got to the church, one of them had been trailed in the mud. Alas.
The boys were very virtuous and slept and were therefore left in the hall. In fact the poor mites spent a lot of Christmas sleeping in halls.
As promised earlier, please admire photograph of me breastfeeding twins and maintaining a
semblance of decency. Yes, I know you were all desperate to see that.
The Princess eats eggs. My parents-in-law are the proud possessors of one egg cup. One day it went missing. My mother-in-law said, “Don’Â’t worry, you know what makes a great egg cup? A toilet roll”.” She scurried off to the bathroom to get a roll of toilet paper. I said defiantly, ““I am not feeding my daughter an egg from a roll of toilet paper”.” ““But it’Â’s a fresh roll,”” she said. The
Princess started to wail. I conceded defeat and gave her the egg from the roll of toilet paper. It works perfectly. I said to my mother-in-law, ““I’Â’m almost afraid to ask but how do you know this?”” ““Well,” she said “”when I was an air hostess in the 60s and we went to New York overnight, you would get a breakfast allowance. We wanted to save the money, so we would buy eggs and boil them in the hotel kettle and eat them from the roll of toilet paper. That woman is determined to ruin my vision of the glamour of the glory days of aviation.
on 09 January 2006 at 11:13
All of life is, in a sense, about one of two blankets trailing in the mud. 😉
Lovely pics: I particularly like the one where Cha is sleeping among the wine bottles…
Friar Tuck
on 09 January 2006 at 16:07
After drinking all that wine, it is no wonder that they were snockered!
Great pics though. Your breastfeeding pic is even decent enough to be shown in America. It was surely a disappointment to the NSA folks, who, I am sure, have set a filter to find all references to ‘breastfeeding’ passing through the air.
Ha ha. Just kidding. I’m sure they are only looking for terrorists. No, really. I love America. I love G.W. Bush. Please don’t arrest me.
on 10 January 2006 at 21:16
So THATs how you breastfeed two – I’ve always wondered – they’re very accommodating little chaps aren’t they?
on 11 January 2006 at 10:03
Lilo, yup, they are what is known as “good babies”.
Thanks Diva.
Friar Tuck, where have you gone? Why are you wearing an orange jump suit?
JD, profound.
Ta Norah.
on 11 January 2006 at 20:15
I love Friar Tuck. Perhaps this is the wrong thing to be saying about a man of the cloth and all that jazz and I may be going straight to hell, but I shall quote him come the day of being judged….
ali
(Homepage)
on 12 January 2006 at 01:54
you definitely are a wonderwoman! i have enough trouble breastfeeding one!!!!
on 12 January 2006 at 09:52
HJB, quite. I think he should start his own blog..
Ali, forget breast feeding, am deeply indebted to you for the info that Angelina Jolie is pregnant.
Relaxing trip to Ireland
For five minutes there on Sunday, all was sweetness and light. Mother-in-law had taken the Princess for a walk, Mr. Waffle was at the supermarket collecting essential supplies, father-in-law was running up a mountain and the boys were asleep. Then they woke up and we haven’t stopped since. The Princess has acquired a miserable cold and is spreading snot and gloom about the house. And we need to recruit our energies, we’re still recovering from the considerable trauma of flying with three children. A vignette: picture me running back to the plane with Daniel strapped to my chest while Mr. Waffle comforts herself and minds Michael. Guess who left doggy on the plane? You will be relieved to hear that I found him. As we left the airport, my loving spouse pointed out that we would have to do this every week for the next three weeks. We are psychologically preparing ourselves for Saturday’s flight to Cork.
Despite exhaustion, it is nice to be in Dublin with its extensive babysitting facilities. The in-laws are being very virtuous. I have forgiven my father-in-law for saying “Michael is the man for me, he’s very alert but the other fella, he may have his virtues, but to me he’s just a blob”.
The publishing exec jetted back to her family home from exotic London, looked at me and exclaimed in horror “My God, you look exhausted”. She continued in this vein for some time and then noticing my expression amended “Exhausted but, er, really well”. The pub exec is hovering on the brink of promotion whereupon she hopes to do more literary fiction. At the moment she is stuck in the slough of celebrity biographies and TV tie-ins. I suspect publishing may be the only field of endeavour where people would rather deal with less famous people. I foresee a falling off in the quality of her gossip.
I have taken to breastfeeding the boys in public (well, the presence of my parents-in-law) with a muslin square draped over my person for decency. You may assess the success of this from photos to be posted after Christmas (possibly).
So that I could ensure continued breastfeeding and a certain amount of socialising, I brought my breast pump from Brussels. Imagine my chagrin when I realised that I had forgotten one of the six component parts without which it is useless. Oh bitterness. I was recounting my woes on a visit to my friend D who is the mother of a very sweet 8 month old baby. Before we had children, we spoke of other things but now we only speak of baby related stuff or as D pointed out, we may start on other subjects but we are always distracted by fascinating things like breast pumps. And is it not fortunate that this is the case? Yes indeed, because of this and the stranglehold which the Avent corporation has on the breastpump market, she was able to lend me the relevant bit of breastpump from her spare one. The publishing exec asked in some horror whether this was the kind of thing you can share. What can I say, when you’ve breastfed twins in public, sharing bits of breastpumps is really not a problem.
on 21 December 2005 at 15:46
Sweetie(s) given ���
on 21 December 2005 at 19:29
I’m a Medela electric woman all the way. All that handpumping gives me rsi.
Sweetie(s) given ���
Friar Tuck
on 22 December 2005 at 16:13
on 22 December 2005 at 18:53
Sweetie(s) given ���
on 25 December 2005 at 21:30
As ever, I’m in utter admiration of your stamina. Very Merry Christmas to you and all your family – I hope the princess makes a speedy recovery and that you’re enjoying a couple of hours off x
Sweetie(s) given ���
on 31 December 2005 at 23:25
Sweetie(s) given ���
on 09 January 2006 at 10:23
Sweetie(s) given ���
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