How to make your 1980's hair 2015 bendy

Not to brag or anything, but in the 1980s I had perfect hair.

My hair is brown and wavy/curly and thick, and it just wants to grow OUT rather than down, so in its natural state it is like a messy, bouffy oval that reaches its widest point a few centimetres out from each ear, and sits just below shoulder-length.

As a child in the 70s, I wished I could replace my Shirley Temple curls with long straight hair and a fringe, but in the 80s my hair was excellent. I cut it short a couple of times, but mostly I wore it thick and shoulder-length, brushed to make it as soft and fuzzy as possible (like the novels I remember from that time that described the heroine's hair as like a 'soft cloud around her head' - that was a good thing. No anxiety over frizzy hair back then).

The hair goal of all teenage girls back then was this:

Rachel Hunter, 1985

The epitome of female beauty to me was Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone. Who I loved because she had hair just like mine. (And also my sunburned red nose, but that's where the similarity ended).

Alas, by the late nineties the tide had turned against thick curly hair. Even Julia Roberts and Cindy Crawford started straightening their hair.

My hair has always been difficult to straighten. Even when a hairdresser straightens it, it will start to kink by the time I get home, and by the next morning it's back to its messy, wavy self.

I came late to hair-straightening and never fully committed. Unless I wanted to stand in front of the bathroom mirror for an hour and a half with aching forearms, my hair sizzling and steaming under the irons in small sections at a time, and repeat this process every single morning, I was never going to achieve straight hair. I came to a compromise of running the straightening iron through sections around the front and the top and leaving the rest as is, which worked well enough.

But once I had kids and discovered the preciousness and rarity of free time, I lost all interest in spending even twenty minutes of it straightening my hair. It was the mid-2000s and my hair was definitely not correct.

That was a difficult decade for me, obviously.


Now, in my mid-forties in the mid-2010s, I am back to (mostly) loving my hair.  The aspirational hair texture these days is "bendy".  Bendy hair is shoulder-length or longer, often brown, and is supposed to look like soft, natural kink as if your hair does this naturally (but of course it doesn't)

You are supposed to secretly spend lots of time and dollars on conditioner and bendy rollers and curling irons to create this look, but here is how you can achieve it with next to no effort if you have my hair:

How to get 2015 bendy hair when your hair is from 1985:

1. Get regular haircuts (8 weeks max) so your hairdresser will at least somewhat remember what s/he did last time. This is important for curly-haired people as our hair quickly obliterates haircut shapes.
2. Colour your hair regularly to cover grey, obvs, but with the pleasant side effect that your wiry frizzy hair is rendered softer and glossier.
3. Wash your hair every two to three days. 
4. If you want massive, curly sticky-up hair, by all means wash it the night before work. But for better results, wash it in the morning and follow the rest of the steps below.

   

   Step 6

5. Shampoo and condition in the shower as normal. 
6. Blow-dry your hair until almost dry. It should look like you're a member of an 80s stadium rock band at this point.
7. Brush your hair out to remove tangles and curls.
8. Tie your hair behind your head into a pony-tail-bun thingy. A pony-tail-bun thingy is when you pull your hair through the first and second loop of a hair elastic as if you are going to do a pony tail, but then don't pull the hair all the way through on the last loop so that it looks a bit like a bun.
9. Spray your hair with just a bit of hairspray (not too much or you'll have to wash your hair every day).
10. Leave house for work or wherever.
11. As you walk into work/reach your destination, reach back and pull out the hair tie, and casually run your hands through your smooth, bendy hair.
12. The next day, brush your hair when you get up and repeat steps 8-12.
13. Enjoy your ongoing success!

Selfie. I somewhat resemble Rose Byrne

You learn something new every day: refrigerated minced meat edition

I learned a couple of new things today.

Firstly, I learned that I am getting too old and wussy for scary movies.  I nearly had a heart attack throughout almost all of Jurassic World, and actually got quite emotionally terrified when a flock of escaped pterodactyls flew across the island toward the crowds of unsuspecting tourists. (I actually got a lump in my throat, and when the pterodactyls started to swoop I for real started shallow-breathing and almost squeezed out some tears. The children! The children! What would I do if I was herding my kids through a stampeding crowd chased by raptors and pterodactyls?? What would I do, dammit?! The horror, the horror....)

So that was number one. I can obviously no longer go and see scary movies, or even enjoyable adventure movies with predictable character arcs and what I am sure is deeply inaccurate science.

But: despite all that, Jurassic World is actually pretty good and I did (kind of?) enjoy it. I am just an emotional idiot.

The second thing I learned was that managing minced meat can be a whole lot easier than I ever knew. I was making bolognese sauce, and you know how once you've heated the oil and sautéed the onions and garlic, you get the beef mince out of its packet and drop it into the saucepan, and it's basically a big red cold brick that you have to sort of hack away at with your wooden spoon, if you don't want to tear it into chunks with your bare hands first? And it's actually quite hard work chopping it all up and mixing it and turning the pieces until it's all broken down and brown and starting to cook?

Well, it turns out you don't have to do that. Today I dropped my red brick of cold minced beef into my saucepan, then turned away momentarily to read a couple of pages of a book I am reading, then got lost in the book and completely forgot about my saucepan... until a faint cooking smell wafted over, and I hurried over to resume. Voila! My minced beef had all "melted" into the pot, broken down and almost all browned, and only needed a couple of easy stirs to get all mixed in and ready for cooking.

So there you go.

Cute Dino Pics

How Do I Find The Time To...

I think of myself as pretty organised, but in truth I am in some things and am not in others. I am very organised at procrastinating for example, because I am committed to finding the time to doing things I like, and not so committed to finding time to tidy up my clothes, clean the oven or dust the bookshelves.

I was tagged for this meme by Single Married Mum, and I'm more than happy to play along. I do like a good meme questionnaire.

First (very important)

Here are the rules:

1. Please post the rules
2. When answering the questions, give as much information as possible. It’s all about the finer details people!!
3. Leave a comment on Sex, drugs, rocker…and stroller,baby. (http://sexdrugsrockerandstroller.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/how-and-when-do-you-find-time-tomeme.html) This is so we can keep track of the Meme and take a polite nose into everyone else’s lives.
4. Tag 3 or more people and link to them on your blog.

Second... the main event: How and when do you find the time to….

Do the laundry: The Neverending Story. I have a separate laundry basket for the kids and I do one load of their stuff every night. Summer is easier as things that don't go in the dryer will dry hanging up overnight. Now it's winter here so I have to force myself to slow down with the washing loads because I end up with too many wet things to hang up, as they take 2-3 days to dry. I tend to do 2 loads of the grown-ups' clothes on the weekend, and sheets/towels for us one day and kids another day so that each person's bed gets changed every two (oh alright roughly THREE) weeks. This system has always meant 2 or more baskets of laundry plus clothes on the clothes horse/washing line hanging around the house all week, but I have recently made a change following a suggestion on Smart Working Mother to "commit to wash, dry and fold every night" which entails doing one small load every day, and putting it all away. Some days I manage this and it feels pretty good!

Write a blog post: After a couple of years of trying different things I think I've found my method. I don't try and do a post every day as that way lies madness (for me). I aim for two posts a week and if I manage more then I'm a hero. I do a Fiction Fridays post most Fridays, a Pick A Post link on Mondays and a Listography post once a month, so that takes some of the pressure off and keeps me engaged. I also keep a notebook in my bag where I jot down post ideas, or dictate them into my phone, and some nights when I don't have a full post in me I'll draft up one or two to complete later. That said there are quite a few drafts that have never been finished.

Look after yourself : Oh I am not good at this... I have a treadmill at home and am trying to get on it most days, even if it's just for ten minutes. I dye my hair when the grey starts getting too much to pluck out, in the evenings once the kids are asleep. I don't really do regular hair appointments but book myself in when my hair gets out of control. I rush my make-up and usually do it in the car when I've arrived at work. I'm a bit too much mummy and not enough yummy...

  

Spend time with your other half?: *Squirms guiltily*. Well, we do hang out a bit in the evenings once the kids are asleep, though he's often watching TV and I'm on the computer... Every now and then we have done a "date night" when the stars have aligned. I enforce the "family time" dinner rule and we all have a bit of a chat and a laugh over dinner, which helps.

"The Lorax" preview
family fun day

mini golf on holiday

Do fun stuff with your Little Ones: Currently my kids are a bit "over-scheduled" with Greek school, swimming and dancing classes in addition to school, so Sunday is a "rest day" as I call it, or a "boring day" as my kids call it. I do a craft with them most Sundays, or we bake a cake. We take the dog for a walk or go to a cafe or I take them to a park. My husband works weekends but every so often he has a Sunday off and when that happens we try and get to a beach or do a picnic or go out for coffee and cake (always fun!). As they get older though, they are wanting to do more things with friends than with their mum. I try and make home time fun by joking around with them during dinner, bath time etc. We have some kind of laughs every day even if the kids don't see it as a "fun day".

Spend time with your family: That's an easy one, as Y works most weekends my mother and/or father tend to visit most weekends. I catch up with my sister every few weeks, usually with us visiting her as she has a toddler. I'm very close to a cousin who lives about 20 minutes away and we catch up every now and then too which is also fun for the kids to hang out with her cooler, older kids!

Socialise with friends: I'm very bad at this. I tend to use Facebook to fill the cracks, as it's just so hard to catch up when most friends are working and have kids. One friend and I try to do a movie night once a month or so - we don't always manage it but the idea is there and we do tend to catch up on a semi-regular basis. Recently I've made a little list in my head of friends I haven't seen in awhile but with whom I'm still in touch, and I have resolved to fix up a visit with each in the next three months. I know, very ambitious!

Prepare an evening meal juggling a baby/toddler bedtime routine? Ditto to Single Married Mum's comment: "I can't take my foot off the pedal - I need to keep up the homework-tea-bath-bed-momentum, or it can all go pear-shaped pretty quickly." Exactly that. When I was working full-time I used to cook 2-3 nights for the next day, Y cooked 1-2 nights and the other night was a "picnic dinner" which worked pretty well. Now I work 3 days a week, so I cook on the 2 days I am home, and this gives us enough to stretch to 4-5 nights' dinners. When it's dinner time I need to be able to heat/finish the meal and get it on the table fast, so I worked out some time ago trying to start and cook at 5 or 6pm is no good for me - even those "15 minute meals" are too hard and take too long at that horrendous time of day.

After dinner it's homework then bath then wind down for bed. 

Deep clean your house: I don't deep clean, but every few weeks I will go into something of a frenzy and do a couple of extra things, like clean out the appliance cupboard, clean skirting boards or wash the windows. But I don't do them often enough, so my house would be a prime contender for one of those "how clean is your house" TV shows. It's all surface baby.

Do the food shopping: I tried online shopping a few times when the kids were toddlers but it just frustrated me because every freaking time there would be a few things out of stock and I'd end up having to go to the shops anyway. It was easier just to go to the supermarket at nighttime when Y was home and the kids in bed. Now I tend to go on my way home from work or on my days off (now that I have days off!). We do use Aussie Farmers Direct and get milk, bread and orange juice delivered, which is fantastic. 

Do bulk ironing: I don't iron. I put school dresses and the odd other thing in the dryer for 10 minutes to de-crease them, and anything else gets re-washed and re-hung to de-crease if needed. Y irons his own shirts and pants. Pants these days come with permanent creases in them - yay! 

So that’s how I find the time....sort of.

Now I am going to break rule 4 above and not tag anyone to join in - because I recently did a Liebster Award post I don't want to start annoying too many people by tagging them every second post. But I do thank Single Married Mum for tagging me, and I had fun joining in.

Would you like to join in? Feel free! Say that I tagged you ;-)

How do YOU find the time?

A Surprisingly Easy and Lovely Week - but I'm very tired

The last 10 days my husband Y. has been away. I won't annoy the hard-working single parents I know and admire by saying "I was a single mum for a week!" as I know, I really do know, that it's not the same thing at all.
But it has been an interesting week.

It was not hard. I expected it to be a bit hard. I thought I'd be stressed and exhausted and angry.
Always the optimist, me.

I was not at all stressed, exhausted or angry - emotions that I tend to feel on a regular basis as do many mums I think.

On the contrary, I was relaxed, organised, calm and happy the whole time.

I know that sounds bad, but don't worry, my marriage is not on the skids and I do love my husband.
But I have always been something of a loner and very independent. I like being able to run my own show at home, do things how and when I want to do them, keep up with the household things I think are important and know my free time in the evenings and while the kids are occupied is 100% my own. I know that's not what life is all about, but to me it's a little bit lovely.

Though I like being married and Y. and I are tightly bonded and have a lot of laughs together, I have always found relationships a little... stressful, I suppose. And while I'm not going to fall into that thing of denigrating men by saying things like "it's like I have another kid" there is no denying that it can feel sometimes like everyone wants something all the time, and my teeth are set on edge by kids and husband all talking at me at the same time. So it's nice not to have that for a little while.

I wouldn't want this long-term of course. Even I get lonely, and there is no denying that two parents run a household (and raise kids) a lot easier than one.

At the simplest level, without Y. around I can't take the dog for a walk before the kids wake up, or nip out to the shops unless I take the kids with me. And there's no one to tidy the kitchen while I do laundry, do the morning drop-off at school so I can get to work on time, or pick up the slack when I lose my shit.

So these last 2 weeks, I did not lose my shit, not even inside my own head where the kids don't know I'm doing it. Where I am usually very organised, this week I was scary-robot-organised, because I had to be. I also decided I was going to keep up with everything and not let anything slide, to avoid the chaos-theory effect when little things keep adding to the pile until you have the full catastrophe at the end of the week and a crappy, catchy-up weekend. I figured the weekends should be free for the kids, who the first week especially, missed their daddy and felt a bit insecure at his absence.

Also, perhaps, if I'm honest, maybe I wanted to keep the house in really good shape (for our house) so I could show Y. that (a) my way is best and that's why we have to keep up with these various jobs I nag about every night, and (b) I'm not always an emotional stressed out wreck, I'm actually super capable and impressive.

So here's what I did:

• I used Smart Working Mother's tip to "commit to wash, dry and fold every single day". I folded and put away laundry every day so we didn't have (too many) baskets piled high around the living area.
• I made school lunches the night before, every single night.
• I tidied the kitchen and eating area every single night, so that I always got up to it clean and tidy.
• I laid out the girls' school clothes and my work clothes every single night.
• I vacuumed 3 times a week (as opposed to my usual rate of once every 2 weeks. It helped that we recently got a new vacuum cleaner)
• I changed all the bed sheets twice - but this was partly due to the dog weeing on them in the micro-seconds I wasn't watching him and before bedroom doors were closed.
• I maintained constant supply of snacks, fruit and veggies in the house, cooked rice in the fridge and meat for dinners. That's so much easier when you don't have to account for a spouse eating things from the fridge out of schedule!
• I re-used or froze leftovers.
• I didn't faff around with the snooze button or set a new alarm on my phone for an extra 15 minutes when the alarm went off - because there was no-one next to me to thump me and say "Wake up, and for Christ's sake get up or set your alarm later!"

None of this is new to me or anyone of course, and these are all things I have done before, but when you work full-time especially it is very hard to keep them all up consistently. And in fact - my main beef with all these well-meaning time management tips - it is not actually physically possible to keep them all up  consistently. Things happen, we get tired, we make mistakes, we have to work late or someone is sick, etc. But, I did it these last 2 weeks.

And along with all this - more awesomeness - I found I gave a lot more time to my kids. I spent more time talking with them, hanging around with them and doing stuff with them. What I did a lot less of was playing on my phone, tweeting, blogging, scanning news sites and Zite, talking on the phone, and reading.

Also, I have to say, it was fun and easy to spend time with them as just the three of us. That doesn't mean that's the way I want things to be. But it was nice.

The downside is, I rarely got to bed before midnight, so I am now a little bit exhausted.

And here it is midnight again, and I still have some tidying to do. We pick up Y. from the airport tomorrow and then take the kids to school and me to work, so I definitely need some sleep.

Goodnight!

Dinner - Now!

When you work full-time, you are often not picking up your baby/toddler/child from daycare/after-school-care until late. And when you get home, you need to have dinner ready. And I mean as soon as you get home.
Here is the scene. You leave work at 5pm (to the envious glances of colleagues who have no idea what you are about to face). You bolt for the car/train and make the dash to the daycare centre/school, knowing you have to be there by six. Every minute you linger at your desk to finish an email, every missed traffic light, every late train, sets your heart racing and your mind stressing.
Against the odds, you arrive on time. You park the car and race inside, to your little one(s), which is a great moment - they smile, yell "Mummy!", run to your arms, and show you what they've been doing. You hug and kiss them, marvel at their achievements, catch up on their feed/sleep status with the carers, sign them out, grab their stuff and you all head to the car.
From that moment, the nice bit is over.
Assuming there are no dramas getting the kids into the car (big assumption - but let's move on), the drive home quickly turns into a battleground. The kids will start off happy but within five minutes it starts - "I'm hungry!" - "I need to do wee!" - "Stop it", "You stop it", "Mu-u-u-m!".
I chose a daycare centre close to home rather than close to work, and I am glad I did - that evening drive home is just awful. I love it now that school is only a five minute drive from home, and am thankful we went with our local school every night I make that drive (which is only two nights a week, but that is so enough).
When you get home, you need to get the kids out of the car, and into the house.
This is your only goal, though the need to move quickly onto dinner-homework-bath-bed is tapping at your skull like a woodpecker. "Come on, out of the car, come on, inside please, come on, come on, come on," you parrot endlessly while the kids fight, slump in their seats "I'm tired..." or fight over who is going in the front door first.
When they're babies you might have one fall asleep, or both crying by the time you get home.

So you get them in the door, and it's after six. They're hungry, they're tired, they're grumpy, and they have no tolerance for waiting fifteen or twenty minutes while you cook something from scratch.
You need to feed them ASAP or lose them to sleep, tears, your temptation to turn on the TV for them, or they start playing with toys and you can't get them to the dinner table.

So what are some really really quick ideas for dinner? Try these:

• scrambled eggs
• baked beans on toast
• macaroni cheese (yes, the one in the box)
• picnic on the table: pull out what you have in the fridge and put it on plates on the table for all to share: boiled eggs, left over rice or spaghetti/spirals cooked the evening before, slices of ham and cheese, cut up fruit, yoghurt, etc. Works well as little kids don't even like their food very hot - lukewarm is best (and easy)
• fish fingers and vegetables (cut up two veg and chuck in microwave/steamer while the fish fingers cook, so you don't have to wait for water to boil)
• half an avocado and a spoon, and some toast
• we always have a tub of tzatziki in the fridge and put it out with bread - the kids love it
• chicken tenderloins cook really fast - couple of minutes either side in a pan with a splash of hoi sin and soy, or butter and honey, and serve with rice and/or veg.
• (On the weekend when you have more time you can coat chicken tenderloins with egg and breadcumbs and make 'chicken nuggets')
• my kids love spiral pasta - on its own as a side dish. They're not big on potatoes, but we serve rice or spirals with dinner often.
• fried rice is fast - if you have cooked rice in the fridge. Chuck in some frozen mixed veg or if you only have fresh pick two veg and chop up a handful. Fry up 1-2 eggs, add the rice and veg and a splash of hoi sin and soy sauce, five minutes in the pan and it's ready
• in summer time, barbecues are great. We ate a lot of grilled/barbecued meat with rice and carrot and broccoli. Requires designated barbecue operator to be home at same time as parent bringing home the kids

In the evening after the kids are in bed, you ideally cook the next day's dinner, so it is in the fridge and ready to heat up when you get in the next night. If you are super organised you could freeze stuff like spag bol or stews. But this is not sustainable every day, you will sometimes (often) be too tired, or you won't have ingredients, or whatever. When my kids were toddlers they liked cooked carrots and broccoli so we often had par-boiled carrots and boiled eggs cold in the fridge. We did more than the occasional dinner of carrots, broccoli, eggs, bread and tzatziki.

You don't need to plate up meat and three veg, or produce a bowl of something made from all the food groups.

Especially when kids are at daycare, they get a cooked meal at lunchtime, and food throughout the day. My kids sometimes had a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. Sometimes they got spag bol or risotto I had cooked the night before. At least one day a week they got scrambled eggs and toast, and one day was baked beans on toast. The other 2-3 days we did the 'picnic' meal of boiled eggs/carrots/whatever from the fridge.

I also took advantage of the toddler years when my kids didn't mind eating the same thing for dinner two or three days in a row (no longer the case, alas).

I noticed evenings went a lot better once I took the pressure off myself to produce a "dinner" and just focused on easy fast and basic food.

Kids love simple food. So do mums.

Tips and Tricks for Managing Twins

These ones are fairly easy

Now I have to warn you - I don't have much.

That's because, as I have learned, there are limits to what you can do, juggling two crying babies for example. (And what about triplets?? Eeek!)
Accept that there are limits, accept that it is sometimes hard, and get on with whatever you need to do until the difficulty passes. (And if doing what you need to do is shutting the door and sitting crying on the floor for 20 minutes, then do it. Been there, done that!)

So anyway, for what it's worth here are my suggestions. I hope they are helpful.
If you have twins and there are things you are struggling with, I would love to hear about them. What has worked for you? What would you like advice on?

Managing two crying babies
The biggie. When mine were bubs, this was my biggest problem, and one I searched for help with the most. I rang my parent co-ordinator in our twin club for some tips. Her advice? "I always made sure I had someone else with me." Hmm. Thanks. Good idea, not always possible!
I did finally come across some helpful advice on this - are you ready?:

Comfort the calmer baby first.
This is counter-intuitive but it is right. You will calm the less-worked-up baby quicker, and prevent her escalating to the point where you have two screaming babies (at which point, you are pretty much screwed).

Use equipment if you have it.
BEST THING EVER for me was my two simple rockers. I used these all the time and was so fervently thankful for them I don't know what I would have done without them. They cost us $70 each but at cost per use over 18 months probably worked out at about $0.000000001.

Yes, they're both girls.
But I loved that black and white growsuit!

They were great for settling or for popping the babies into for 'playtime' or relaxation, and you can rock them with your foot if you're busy on other things. I put them in the rockers and had them near the kitchen while I was cooking, in the bathroom while I showered, or in the loungeroom in front of a window while I showered. They were always happy in them and as they got older they could rock themselves.

When they were one and a half and sitting up in the rockers while watching TV, I had to admit to myself we had probably outgrown them.

 

A in the swing

Second best thing ever for me was a baby swing loaned to us by a lovely lady in my mother's group whose baby didn't like it (bless him!!). I swear we used that thing until M was 6 months old and the swing mechanism was groaning under her weight. By that stage I was willing to pay whatever it cost to buy a replacement if we broke it (we didn't fortunately).


Managing two screaming, really really upset babies
Fortunately this doesn't really happen very often. Mostly you will have one more upset than the other, or two crying but not both screaming and unmanageable. It does happen though.

There is no solution to this one. You just have to "choose" one baby and comfort it first, and leave the other one till next (in a safe place such as a cot of course). And yes, it's horrible. But here is where you use one piece of really useful classic wisdom that I used to chant in my head like a mantra:
"This too shall pass."



Settling two babies
Can I just say that having taken myself and my twins to sleep school as soon as we could get in and having only really cracked the sleep thing consistently when our girls were four, I am not in a position to offer advice here. But the following bits and pieces were genuinely helpful to me.

• have them in the same room when they're little, especially if you are alone at nights a lot (as I was). It's so much easier to tend to two babies, go between two cots, sit and hold hands or pat backs, as well as read stories, use the change table etc, if everything is in one room
• have them in seperate rooms when they're older. We found one definitely kept the other awake, and should have seperated them much earlier than we did.
• try and always settle them in their cots, rather than faff about with bassinets, rockers, prams and the like as I did (thinking I was making things easier, when in fact I wasn't). You need a routine and you need it fast.
• routine, routine, routine. But not one of those crazy regimented ones down to the minute. That will just make you feel inadequate when inevitably your babies don't fall perfectly into line. You also need to be able to accommodate the occasional trip out or unexpected event, so a routine that is a bit flexible is best (but don't hesitate to lay down the rules you need either - for instance I never went out in the morning with my babies as it didn't suit our routine and they were not 'morning' kids). My routine was "11-3-7" feeding times, "feed-play-sleep" with "play" after dinner being bath and cuddle, and the 11pm feed being the "sleep feed" in the bedroom. I had a cheap wicker rocking chair in the bedroom between the cots, and fed one at a time in my arms, or used the rocker for the second one if they were both awake. If my husband was home we'd feed and cuddle one each and whisper to each other which helped keep them settled. The nightime and 7am feeds were my favourite ones - both are a lovely time of the day, even if you are exhausted.
• soft ambient music or lullaby music in the room works well and is relaxing for you too
• however tempting it is when you're exhausted, try not to rush the settling because it will backfire and take you longer!
• once we had the swing, I used to put M in the swing while cuddling A, sing them both a song then put A in her cot, then pick up M for a cuddle and put her in the cot (usually asleep). Yes I did feel guilty that A got more night-time cuddles than M on the nights I was on my own, but at the end of the day you need to get them both to sleep using whatever works, and this worked for us
• dummies, especially once they're a few weeks old. Newborns keep dropping them out of their mouths and then they wake up.
• logic. Remind yourself, "Eventually, they will sleep." When I was really exhausted and at my wits' end, I used to look at the clock and think, "OK, this will take me one hour, probably. So by .... o'clock I will be able to go to bed and sleep." Oddly enough I found this very helpful.

Controlling two (or more) mobile babies while busy, or taking one at a time to the car
Use a playpen. Don't even try not to.
If I was taking one baby at a time to the car, or if I needed to go to the toilet, or if I was ironing (I believe I did do that once), I put the babies in the playpen while I was out of the room or busy with the other one. They weren't crazy about it, but it was only ever for a few minutes at a time, and was instant peace of mind.

Feeding two babies: bottle feeding
One word: rockers!
I used to hold one baby in my arms and feed her, and have the other in her rocker, rocking it with my foot, while she fed. Then halfway through I'd burp the first baby and pop her in her rocker to finish feeding, then pick up the second, burp her, and finish feeding with her in my arms. So each got a turn in the rocker and in my arms. These were the times I always felt most competent and kick-arse as a twin mum.
When the babies were really little I just used to feed one at a time, in my arms.


Feeding two babies: breast-feeding
Have to say I did not rack up much experience in this so am not qualified to give advice. But you basically experiment until you find what works. You can feed one at a time but as breast feeding tends to take longer than bottle feeding, you might not be able to do this - eventually most twin mums prefer to find a way to feed both together. Sitting on a couch or propped up on a bed with lots of pillows and twins propped up is the way most go. It takes some getting used to.

Most mothers I know ended up doing a mix of breast and bottle feeding, as breast feeding twins (or more) exclusively can be very difficult.

Taking twins to the supermarket
Avoid where possible. In a word, horrendous. You can have one baby in a sling and one popped in the baby seat in the trolley, or somehow manage to juggle both of them out of the car and all the way over to one of those twin baby trolleys (to this day I can't figure out how you're supposed to do that - leave babies in the car, go into supermarket, find the one trolley with two baby seats in it, and bring it back to the car?). I took my twin pram in, and limited my shopping to what could fit in a basket - but carrying a shopping basket while pushing a pram is not as easy as you may think. Factor in one or both babies crying and it is a nightmare.

Once they're too old for the pram, it's one sitting in the toddler seat in the trolley and one in the main part of the trolley, sitting on the sturdier groceries as their balance is not the best at that age.
My girls are nearly six now, and I can honestly say I have only recently not absolutely hated every second I was inside a supermarket with them. They're quite good now - but I still go on my own unless completely unavoidable.


Keeping track of feeding, medication, who had which breast, who had what solids, who did what bowel movements, etc.
Keep a diary. I had exercise books I just ruled some columns down, one double-spread page per day (one page per baby). Each day I ruled up the columns and wrote in my little heading initials, I toyed with becoming an internet mumpreneur, sourcing and selling custom-made baby diaries so that I wouldn't have to write up the columns and headings every day.

But they were very helpful and also made entertaining reading later on, when I could chuckle at my foggy panic over quite normal little variations in their day to day lives. ("A had very loose poo and looked unhappy. Sick???!")

Even keeping a diary I did suddenly realise one day that on the previous feed I had inadvertently fed one baby twice and the other not at all. No lasting effects thankfully.


Feeding Solids
Unless one of them is sick (and sometimes even then), just use one bowl and one spoon, and feed alternate mouthfuls to each. Have the odd spoonful yourself if it's an especially delicious mix of mashed veg. On the other hand, use seperate bowls if you find that one is eating faster than the other and you want to make sure you don't short-change one (see paragraph above).

On solids, two great pieces of advice from Robin Barker, whose book Baby Love I adored:


(1) Don't bother freezing mash into ice cube trays, as it is a lot of trouble and they don't defrost well. Just make a big bowl of mashed veg and keep in the fridge for 4 days. This is excellent advice and I would add, to make your busy lives as easy as possible, make an extra large bowl, and each evening for dinner the parents eat a piece of barbecued or grilled meat and a big helping of the mashed veg. Delicious, easy dinners.

(2) Her avocado recipe (great simple recipes in this book by the way) goes like this:
"1/2 a ripe avocado (you eat the other half mashed with garlic and lemon juice or just splash in some balsamic vinegar). Mash avocado with a fork."
I love that - love that she thinks of the mum too, with a quick and healthy pick-me-up that is also a practical way to use up all the avocado. Thanks Robin Barker!



Non-Matching but Similar Outfits
Not easy you know. You don't want them to be dressed the same, but you have to get TWO (or more) of each KIND of thing. For instance, 2 long-sleeved tops. 2 pairs of soft pants. 2 coats. 2 sets of summer pyjamas, preferably low fire danger, and of same type (2 shorts and tees, OR 2 nighties) and similarly cute motif /colour to avoid arguments. But, if you have the energy to be fretting over outfits, you have mastered the harder stuff, right?

A couple of other things
Warming bottles without using a microwave
Boil water, pour half a cup into a plastic jug, and sit the bottle of formula in the jug for half a minute. Shake gently before testing. Very easy. Naturally you need two plastic jugs.

Formula out and about
I used to boil water, let it cool slightly and fill the bottles while it was still quite hot, then take formula with me in one of those little formula dispensers. By the time I had arrived where I was going the water had cooled to room temperature, and I just mixed the formula and away we went.

Sterilising bottles
I keep waiting for new advice that tells us we don't need to do this. Because what we do does not really end up with the bottles being sterile. What do you dry them on after sterilising? A sealed vacuum? A tea towel? The draining rack? (I used paper towel, but that's still not sterile. Sometimes I even tore off a couple of squares first to get a really 'clean' square that hadn't been exposed to the air! Even while I knew this was silly). Do you meticulously wash your hands with soap and hot water every time before touching the sterile parts? Do you really use those little tongs to pull the whole teat completely through the ring? C'mon, admit it! If you make up formula in a jug (which the hospital recommended to me, so I did for awhile, until I realised how much easier it is to make up the bottles), do you sterilise the knife that you stir it with every time before you pour?
But, of course, until they come out and debunk it, we're not game to stop sterilising, when the babies are little.
I stopped sterilising around 5 months when we started solids, because no one sterilises bowls and spoons!



So anyway, those are my suggestions and opinions. I hope they are helpful, or bring back memories.

If you have twins (or more!) and there are things you are struggling with, I would love to hear from you.

What has worked for you?

What would you like advice on?

The Working Through It Spag Bol

I was very impressed with myself today so have decided to share with the lucky internet my delicious recipe for a sort of spaghetti bolognaise, invented and ingested today.
Inspiration: We are only a couple of days back from a short break away, and there is not a lot of fresh veg in the fridge, but there were 2 tomatoes and an eggplant sitting there which were about to turn.

I made this this afternoon while working from home and it passed all my just-invented busy-working-mum tests: it used enough fresh ingredients to make me feel virtuous, used all ready-at-hand ingredients to make me feel economical and clever, was easy to make, incorporated a good serve of veg, and was liked by 3 out of 4 family members - that's good enough for me!

Ingredients:

• olive oil
• 400g lean mince
• one eggplant, diced
• 2 very ripe tomatoes
• bottle of commercial bolognaise sauce or other variety (mine was Dolmio Red Wine pasta sauce) (and cut me some slack on the sauce, I'm busy)
• one celery stick, chopped (I buy celery and cut up each stick and put them in ziplock bags and keep them frozen for soups and sauces - so in my case this is one bag of frozen celery pieces)
• one packet of frozen spinach
• one sachet, or about 2 tablespoons, tomato paste
• squirt of tomato ketchup (if needed)

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a heavy pot over medium heat
2. Add the mince and brown it
3. Add the eggpant, celery, spinach and pasta sauce; mix so the frozen vegs are in the middle of the pot covered with sauce. Turn down heat to low, cover and simmer for 40mins plus, checking and mixing occasionally to make sure the mixture doesn't reduce too far.
4. When the sauce and veg are well cooked, mix in the tomato paste and leave on low heat uncovered while spaghetti is cooking.
5. Cook and drain spaghetti, mix in with meat sauce in the pot, and taste.
6. If a little extra flavour is needed, or if kids need enticement to try it, then at the table add a squirt of tomato ketchup.

Delicioso!

Time-Saving Tips - Huh

Ah, time-saving tips. Supposedly a godsend for frazzled working parents, and a feature of every women's magazine, newspaper lifestyle supplement and any published pamphlet, leaflet, article, book, magazine, website or written word of any kind produced for parents.

Time-saving tips remind me in general of the following: when my girls were babies and I was on my own with them and both were crying at the same time, I was convinced there must be some special sort of trick out there that people use with twins and triplets. There had to be things people had learned, to manage more than one distressed babe on those occasions when both (or three - shudder) were equally in need of some comfort - if ONLY I could JUST find out what they were! I called my 'new parent' contact at our twins club and asked her "What are some things you can do when both are crying at once?" She said "Well, I just used to always make sure I had someone else around at all times." Okay then!
Now as it happens as you go along you do manage to find some little ways to juggle two screaming babies – and these things will actually work sometimes. But not all the time. It took me awhile to accept the truth: there is no trick. You can rock both in their rockers or pop one in a swing while you cuddle the other, or you can lie on the floor and cuddle them both (sort of works), but there are some times where the only option is to comfort one and let the other cry. Heartbreaking, stressful and sad at the time – but sometimes just can’t be helped.

So back to time-saving tips. They can remind me of the advice in the little history above, because they are either of little use, are unrealistic, or if not they are things you’re already doing, or are unsuitable for your own situation.

There are the tips that sound good but aren’t:

“Cook double quantities of meals so you have some to put in the freezer”.
Yes, that works well with my special double-sized mixing bowls and double-sized pots and pans. I do do this on occasion but also never quite escape the feeling that it hasn’t actually saved me a huge amount of time.

“Get up 15 minutes earlier”. What, earlier than 5.30??

“Only check and respond to email twice a day”. Hmm, what company do these writers work for? Not mine! I seriously wonder how many people can get away with this one.


There are the frankly unrealistic:

“Make a list of staple foods to keep in your cupboard to help save time on weekly shopping”. Um, yes, I will definitely find time to do that.


Then there are those that seem to be there in order to make the list of tips a decent size, but are nothing you are not already doing:

“Chop up vegetables while the pasta is cooking” Good idea! Otherwise I would have just stood around while the pasta was cooking!

“Turn on your oven half an hour before you need to use it, to ensure it is hot” Yes this is called pre-heating and is already mentioned in my recipe thanks very much.

“Double up on appointments where you can”. Excuse me, does anyone who has to take time off work to get kids to a specialist and a cat to the vet actually need to be told this? Or maybe it’s like, the first thing that comes into my head when I am planning my appointments!

The rest are good ideas but are just not achievable all the time. All those suggestions to lay out clothes and prepare bags in the evening, plan family meals a week ahead, do your grocery shopping online, make and freeze a week’s worth of sandwiches – you can have a nice little routine going doing these for awhile until some Unforeseen but Inevitable Event occurs which means you don’t do it one night and then you’re thrown out of whack for the rest of the week. Or month. Or six month stretch!

The truth? It is impossible. You cannot save yourself lots of time. You can’t cheat the universe and be that organised. Working and child-rearing and the hundreds of household and administrative tasks that go along with them are time-consuming and constant. You will be tired and falling behind and will never have enough time. And that is called… Life!