Happy Birthday to me

Being woken on my birthday by a 7am call from my brother = bad.
Being woken on my birthday by a 7am call from my brother, so my 3 year old nieces can sing Happy Birthday to me down the phone = totally worth waking up for!

Babysitting duty

Baby: Bye bye Mummy, bye bye Daddy! Be good! We gon look after Aunt Megs!

Seal of approval

I was in a bit of a hurry this morning, rushing to get myself out of the house smartly dressed to meet exhibitors. In my fluster I turned to one of the babies and asked her "Do these shoes look ok with this outfit?". She tilted her head to one side and slowly looked me up and down before nodding her approval. Now nobody can diss my shoe/outfit combo. It is officially sanctioned by a two year old.

Baby guilt

I'm still feeling horribly guilty about breaking a baby at the weekend. I honestly don't see how I can possibly take them anywhere ever again (assuming their parents would ever permit me to, which I wouldn't if I were them). My guilt is such that I have to hope E doesn't ask me for anything she shouldn't have before I have time to get over it. You want to watch telly even though I'm in the middle of Hell's Kitchen? Of course you may! You want to wear my very fragile owl necklace? Yes, go ahead, break it! You want my first born child? Take it! It'd probably be safer with you anyway. In fact, have anything your little heart desires, just please stop looking at me with your pretty chin all scratched up and that reproachful 'you were supposed to take care of me' look in your eyes.

Bad Auntie Megs

I took the babies to the park today; the first time I've taken them out anywhere unsupervised. This was supposed to have the dual benefits of allowing me to spend some quality bonding time with my nieces, and giving their mummy a break. Hah! It wasn't long before I realised the difficulty of taking twins anywhere. How do you watch them both?! E has a habit of grabbing the monkey bars and just swinging herself out into space. Of course when I went to hold on to her she wanted to do it "all by herself", so I held my hands a fraction of an inch from her sides and poised myself to grab. Then N called me from the other side of the climbing frame and, at the instant I turned my head, the dangling baby dropped. I caught her before she hit the ground, but she sort of flopped over my hand and went face first into the floor. I calmed down somewhat once I'd ascertained she was still in possession of all her teeth, but my hands were still shaking as I mopped up copious amounts of blood, deposited kisses on her and assured her that she was a very brave girl. As I was bundling them both into their buggy and starting to panic again, this time about the fact that I'd have to tell their mummy that I broke her baby, the uninjured infant declared "My want hurt myself too". I strapped her in double-quick. It's bad enough that I got one of them hurt, without the other one going all lemming on me. I think it may be some time before the waves of guilt subside, and even longer before I'm brave enough to take them to the park again. Oh, the baby's fine by the way. She has a scraped chin and a bitten lip, but she'll be ok. Or she will so long as evil Auntie Megs isn't entrusted with her care again anyway.

Because I'm obedient like that

Sunday morning, and a baby is feeding me cheerios, while I sit on the sofa. Then she hands me something which is clearly not a cheerio....

Me: What's this?
Baby: Waisin.
Me: Oh, ok. Wait, where did it come from? Did you pick it up off the floor?
Baby: No.
Me: Are you sure?
Baby: Ess
Me: Are you sure it's not a dirty raisin?
Baby: Juss eat it!

So I did.

Shown up

F and I just got absurdly girly and twitchy about a large spider in the house. I eventually relocated it outside, but not without a certain amount of fuss. As I washed the spider feeling off my hands afterwards (even though I didn't touch it, this was very necessary), one of the babies kept up a soothing commentary.........iss okay, iss only spider, iss okay, iss only spider.........I suspect I was just out-grown-upped by a two year old.

I've heard that somewhere before....

You know how I'm crap at taking a compliment? Apparently it runs in the family...

Baby: Ardie Megs you look piddy.
Me: Thank you, darling. So do you.
Baby: (Plucking at her pyjamas) My not look piddy.

Things that make me smile no.75

Two year olds tend to run to "I want! I want!" as a means of expressing desire. I got home today to be asked "Ardie Megs, pease may I bowwow your horsie?". Aw! How can I refuse you anything when you ask so nicely?

Things that make me smile No.74

Having one of the babies make her mummy bring her back down from halfway up the stairs because she wants me to give her a goodnight kiss. It's nice to be wanted.

Things that make me smile No.72

On a cheerier note from the last post; on Saturday I came downstairs all gussied up for an evening out. One of the babies looked at me and declared 'Ardie Megs look perdy'. I was naturally delighted, and she got so much attention for it that she decided to try out the same line on me on Sunday morning. Unfortunately it was slightly less believable at that point in time, when I'd just wandered blearily into the room in my dressing gown, with panda eyes and bed hair.

Shades of Molly

Last night one of the babies grabbed my hand and declared "Ardie Megs paint fingers like Molly". Naturally I was confused. Molly painted her fingernails? Impressive, given her lack of opposable thumbs. And then I realised what the baby meant. Auntie Megs has indeed inadvertently painted her fingernails the colour of the cat. That child is too smart for her own good.

Not for a few years yet

My mum: Right, I'm going to get in the shower.
Baby: Nanny need change nappy?

Well that told me

Me (blowing raspberries on a baby's tummy): I spy a belly! Gonna get your belly!
Baby: Go way Ardie Megs. My belly.

Things that make me smile No.70

Daddy: What are you doing? We don't draw on giraffes. Do we draw on giraffes?
Baby: Yes.

My new area of expertise

When the girls have their milk before bedtime, they get to watch TV. If I happen to have possession of the remote control at this time, I confess to being more inclined to pick out something I like than something they do. At the moment I'm quite keen on Billy - a monotone-voiced, animated Northern kid with a propensity for daydreaming - but try to avoid Peppa Pig where possible, as it bothers me that the pigs' heads look like hairdryers. Dora the Explorer is so unbearably repetitious that I want to cram a stuffed giraffe into each of my ears just to make it go away, but I would watch her anyway, if it kept me from having to go anyway near In the Night Garden; a program so creepy that it has actually been known to give me nightmares.

You learn something new every day

Today I have learned not to allow babies to play with my mobile phone. Last number redial is far too easy to press.

I should probably talk about something other than babies, shouldn't I? Apologies for the recent excess of auntie-blogging, but when you live with them they do rather tend to fill up your home and, by extension, life.

So what else have I learned today, that does not relate to small children? Erm.... that's a good question. I suppose I've learned that spending most of the day on the sofa watching back to back episodes of Come Dine With Me is not conducive to my continuing education. I've also learned that going to the bank on a Saturday means using one of those paying in machines, which in turn means being forced, through aggressive impatience disguised as friendly helpfulness, to assist the myopic, technophobic old lady in front of me in the queue to use said machine, and then getting my hand chewed by the envelope chute when attempting to use it myself.

I think that may be the sum of today's learning experience.

Tea time

The unconditional love that a child gives you is at once wonderful and humbling. There's a lot of comfort to be found in coming home from a bad day to find eager faces at the window and little arms held up for cuddles. On the other hand, part of me worries that my bad mood will taint them in some way. I don't want such perfect innocents to ever know what sadness is, even at a remove. So I plaster on a smile, and I read stories and sing nursery rhymes, and wait for these simple pleasures to take the rough edges off my stressed out mood. It works, to an extent. In fact, I suspect I get much more from our interactions than they do. At the age of two they barely know me from Adam, so I feel privileged that they allow me to be part of their games. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to drinking imaginary tea from a pink plastic beauty and the beast tea cup. She put imaginary sugar in, and I can't stick sugar in tea, but I'll drink it anyway.

Loathe at first sight

I've taught the babies to say "Molly gone for walk". It's a good thing too, since this will always be the answer to the question "Where Molly?". I have never seen such a look of fear suffuse the face of a living creature, as when the poor animal trots through the door and spies the terrifying toddler beasts in the room. They've done nothing to deserve it. They've never even got close enough to lay a finger on her. She's just a wuss. But I suspect all they will ever know about her is a brief glimpse of a pair of goggling eyes and the tip of her tail as she flees. The clatter of the cat flap as she makes good her escape is inevitably followed by a plaintive "Where Molly gone?". Molly's gone for a walk, munchkin........because she hates you.

Invasion

My twin two-year-old nieces are now living with me. They are quite implausibly cute, but their presence does serve to confirm my suspicions that motherhood is a looooong way off for me. I'm too fond of lie-ins to be woken up so early, and make quite enough mess all by myself without kiddies to help out. However, Auntie-dom looks set to be great fun, and I anticipate it furnishing me with plenty of anecdotes, which will have me cooing while everyone else looks back fondly on the days when I talked too much about cats. Starting with this one:

Baby: Want juice, Daddy
Daddy: What do you say?
Baby: Bees