Dear Babies,

This month has flown. I heard someone say recently, ‘the days are long but the years are short’, and that is exactly how it feels sometimes. The days become undiscernable from one another; a steady roll of mess and laughter and telling the hound not to eat your crackers. But they all have their shining moments, which is in part why I started writing all this. That, and wanting to tell people this story. The story of what all this really looks like; how ridiculous and whole it is. Because it is the biggest story I have ever had to tell. And the one I am most proud of. I am so proud of you both, it is as if the sun is rising in my chest.

You are so good to one another, so kind and generous. It makes me feel like I am doing something right, even though all I am doing is going by feel. Listening to you and hoping I make you feel heard. You are both quite insane, I am sure of it. You chase me around the house every day and do not give me a moments peace. You follow me into the toilet. You yell at me while I am in the shower. You run around and around me on the bed shouting ‘GO TEAM GO’ while I am just trying to write. You cannot take a hint and the hints you do take you completely disregard. You only want to eat dreary old bloody pasta every night for dinner, but will devour whatever I make for myself with ferver and gusto. You make the most noise of any children ever. You never stop asking questions and you say the funniest things I have ever heard. For a full week this month you were obsessed with saying ‘BUMCHEESE!’ and would roar it at one another constantly. I have no idea where you got it (this is a lie – I was very tired, okay? And one cannot be expected to recall all the bloody names of all those bloody trains. Thomas, Percy and Bumcheese seemed feasible.) You do this thing where I am trying to have a lie-in and you run full tit from the lounge into my bedroom and smash your little bodies into my bed that fills me with an impotent rage, but you find it so hilarious I am powerless against it. Even now, you are sat either side me, Mae just fell into me and poked a Christmas card up my nose. She keeps saying, ‘goodness you!’ for reasons I do not understand but am enjoying. You laugh all day. It’s exhausting.

Mae calls lipstick ‘slippers’. This one took me a while to figure out. Among your favourite things to do is to inspect my every beauty spot and freckle with your index finger. My ‘sticky spots’ you call them. You are bright and fearless. If you were a Shakespearean quote you would be ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce!’. That is you down to the ground, Lil’ Boss. You are so kind and gentle and show the greatest concern if anyone gets hurt. You kiss Otto on the cheek and when you say I love you, you say ‘I love you so much!’. It almost hurts how precious you are. I can’t believe you are real. It’s like you got lost on the way from one fairytale to another and decided you’d stick with me. I promise to do whatever I can to live up to how good you are. How good you both are.

Theo, there is nothing you would rather be doing that using the telephone. Or discussing using the telephone. You love the concept of electricity. Your brain goes 100 miles and hour and I know what that’s like. We talk all day. And at night, the nights when things are going too fast, I lie down with you and answer question after question until they are no longer pressing so hard upon you, and then you ask me to pat you for a while, and I do, and you fall asleep. You are bossy and brave. You tell jokes and shake hands with people and say ‘nice to meet you’. You can eat 4 hard-boiled eggs in a single sitting. You always know where everything is. When you don’t want to do something you tell me that you are not feeling well, and when I ask you what’s wrong you tell me that your bones are sore. I know what that’s like too, Bubba. To feel something so deeply it is as if it begins in your bones. But we are together, and we’ll work it out. Like always.

I don’t know if this is how every parent feels. But it is how I feel about you. Right now, in our messy little house in the Summer filled with questions and ice-blocks and 3 in the bed.

If I ever hear ‘WHY, MAMA? WHY?’ again it will be too soon.

Love, Mama xx