Splitting up twins for the first time

Multiple Mummy is hosting the Multiple Mayhem Carnival this time around so pop on over to take a look at all of the posts by parents who, like me, are multiply challenged.

Thursday was the first time my twins had been split up since they’d been born. I know I should try to get them to do activities on their own to help them develop their individuality, but to be honest it’s not that easy. When Husband is around it’s lovely to spend time together as a family rather than split up, and when my mother in law comes to babysit it’s because we need to go out without the toddlers in tow. Preschool is the closest thing we get to separating them, as the second they go into the room they run off to do the activities that interest them the most (T1 loves books and painting, T2 loves cars and building).

On Thursday, T2 had conjunctivitis so he wasn’t going to preschool. I knew it was going to be tricky. Rather than walk in and then have to drag a screaming child away home, I decided to take the double buggy. T1 got out and ran in as I explained to the co-ordinator that T2 wasn’t coming. T1 ran straight to his keyworker for a cuddle with his hands over his tearful eyes. T2 burst into blood curdling screams, and I felt tears stabbing at my eyes.

I quickly pushed the buggy away, not looking back as this pregnancy malarkey has my hormones all over the place and I knew I’d end up in floods of tears if I dawdled to watch any more.

T2 screamed the whole way home and I had to drag him out of the buggy into the house. I assumed the lure of sweets or biscuits would help calm him down but it didn’t. He didn’t even want cuddles, he just wanted preschool. I was a bit relieved it was the preschool he was missing rather than his brother, but it didn’t make it any easier. I gave up trying to prise him off the sofa and left him to bury his face into the cushions for an hour. By then the snotty and tear-stained monster had worn himself out and needed the sugar rush of the shortbread biscuit I was dangling in front of him.

Once he’d calmed down I offered to do things we don’t often tackle because of the logistics of twins, like baking or painting, but all he wanted to do was play with play doh. So we got it out and spent the afternoon making play doh food and families of wiggly worms. When the pair of them play with it we usually only last about 20 minutes as they get bored and start throwing it around – or trying to eat it- but on his own his concentration was amazing. After we’d finished he hunted around looking for T1, thinking he was playing a very good game of hide and seek. When he realised he wasn’t we sat and played with his cars and his Big Jigs roadway set until it was time to get back in the buggy and go to pick up T1.

Apparently I’d had the rough end of the deal; the second I’d left T1 had perked up and had a ball at preschool without his brother.

T2 sat in the buggy waiting eagerly for his brother to get in next to him, and before I’d even strapped T1 in, T2 was fast asleep.  I knew exactly how he felt, as I was more than ready for a nap myself to recover from the trauma of it all.