This blog was set up in 2006 as a resource for parents of multiple birth children.
Then it moved on to include journalism, fiction, media requests and advice under the 'Write away' category as well as the odd bit of nonsense about my family and eating too much cake. Then it sort of stopped. But I still pop up here now and again when the fancy takes me.
Thanks for reading.
CONTACT
By post:
2 New Street, Bridgtown, Cannock, Staffs, WS11 0DD.
PHEW. Thank you so much for all your support of this special week on You've Got Your Hands Full which has reminded me why I set this blog up in the first place and put me in touch with some fabulous blogs, some already familiar, others new to me.
If you can say one thing that unites all parents of multiples, well it's that they're busy.
Forgive me for stating the obvious. So I didn't know what to expect with my planned carnival. I've ended up with a dozen or so entries and so I'm delighted.
In all honesty this was very short notice so if anyone wants to make this a more regular feature, with us taking turns to host a monthly carnival, then please shout up and we can kick off an on-going Multiples Mayhem carnival?
The guest posts this week and the carnival entries have made me laugh and made me cry. I hope our small but perfectly formed carnival informs and entertains.
LIKE millions of others, I watched Children in Need through a mist of tears as two young sisters told an interviewer how much they loved their Daddy, before a caption revealed he'd since died.
I recently worked on a project involving research on how to help bereaved children. As it's not online, I thought I would rewrite and edit it, as well as adding in some bloggers' wisdom. I've pulled together posts that touch on this most delicate of subjects. I hope this may be useful to someone out there sometime.
PARENTS are supposed to embarrass their children. It's the law.
Here are some of my "mum crimes" so far - that I'm willing to admit to anyway. Why not share yours too? Would love to read them - would make me feel better for a start...
1.Whatever you do, don't bend over again
When my daughters were tiny, people used to stare. A lot. We got used to it as twins often attract attention. Most meant well, even if sometimes the comments got a bit much.
That's why when fellow customers in a department store's coffee shop seemed transfixed and a bit perturbed as they looked in our direction, I didn't bat an eyelid.
ELEVEN years on, the moment I was told I had lost my babies remains a heart wrenching memory.
April Fool’s Day 1998 was one hell of a day. Just 24 hours after a home pregnancy test revealed I was expecting, I was having a scan to find out if I had an ectopic pregnancy. I had gone to my GP to get the pregnancy confirmed but instead she sent me to hospital to discover more about stomach pains.
Thankfully the pregnancy was not ectopic, and the resulting scan showed not one but two tiny heartbeats. At that moment, I was ecstatic. Little did I know that just seven days later I would be having another scan, in more sombre circumstances.
That weekend my partner Neil and I sat down for a serious talk. There was no question of us not keeping the babies but money was tight. How on earth were we going to manage? We weren't even living together. We had twins on the way. Whoah.
Years ago I was to be found head down, effing and blinding, starting work before anyone else arrived and finishing after they'd long gone home. In my work in regional papers (I wanted to make it to editor or at least deputy editor level) I was known - by some at least - as a right old cow.
I remember telling reporters who presented a lack lustre list of what they were working on, that they were taking the piss, bawling at them on deadline that their spelling mistakes were unacceptable and printing out what I saw as substandard work to put big red rings around it to show them the error of their ways.
For anyone wondering what it's like to venture outside your front door with three babies, this video gives it you straight. How many "you've got your hands full" can people say in such a short space of time? I counted four - and there are plenty more crass comments besides.
Read this family's wonderful website here. See more videos from multiple birth families here.
