'You've got your hands full'

Do you mind when people refer to your children as "the twins" or "the triplets"?

I SORT of know I shouldn't care about this, yet I do. I know it's not the end of the world and there are lots more pressing matters we can all turn our minds to, but when people call my daughters "the twins", it irritates me.

"They have names, you know," I want to point out. (But of course don't because then well, the other person would see that I sort of cared about something so outwardly trivial.)

Tagged by Littlemummy.com and Dulwich Divorcee: Some stuff about me

Erica and Alice have passed the baton on this one, so here goes...

1. What are your current obsessions?

As ever lots of things. Family and work, work and family. That's about it really. Blog wise, I'm still reeling from our Disney experience, and am blown away by the work of Camilla Chafer and Keris Stainton so far on our new travel blog, Havealovelytime.com.

2. Which item of clothes do you wear most often?

Just anything black, black and more black. If you want to know why, look here.

Book review: Twins in the world by Alessandra Piontelli

Review by Katrina Hill

As a recent mother of twins I was very excited to be given the opportunity to review Twins in the World: The Legends They Inspire and the Lives They Lead and wasn't disappointed.

From the moment I found out I was carrying twins I felt driven to find out as much as I could about the two little lives that would be entering the world and coming home with me. Whilst an expert with singletons, twins are a whole new experience and, quite frankly, daunting at times. Unless you have twins, are a twin or have a fascination with twins then you probably don't know about the complexity with just the basics of the genetics.

Does having boy/girl twins make you emphasise your daughter's femininity?

I'VE not heard of this before, but it's a question that was recently raised by a new aunt of a brother and sister.

If you've heard of this happening, or feel you may have done it yourself, then please get in touch.

I'd love to hear your experiences. Or if you are the parent of boy/girl twins and feel strongly that this isn't the case, please let me know why.

As this isn't a question I'd happened across before, I thought it could make quite an interesting discussion.

Bloggers, columnists react to California octuplets

WE shared the CBS News coverage with you after a woman in California gave birth to octuplets last week. At first, she was anonymous. Now, more and more information is coming out, and it's raising all kinds of questions in the media and on the Internet. I'm sure there's more information to come, but many bloggers are reacting to what's already known.

Lisa Belkin at Motherlode at The New York Times wrote Update on the Octuplets.

I covered medical ethics for years for this newspaper, and wrote a book on the subject, and while I have not directly heard this mother’s story nor that of any doctors involved, at the moment I cannot think of a scenario that would ethically allow the implantation of eight embryos in a woman who already had six children. Actually I can’t think of scenario that would allow the implementation of eight embryos ever. There is just too much risk here — to the mother, to the newborns, even to the emotional needs of the existing children. And we need not even get started on the expense.

How many eight-year-olds have a mobile phone?

THE first time I saw any of Emily and Melissa's friends with a mobile phone was at their eighth birthday party.

The two girls who brought them along didn't know how to make a call.

My daughters regularly ask for a phone as a present as a birthday or Christmas approaches. Now 10, they haven't got one yet.

The following is a post from Camilla Chafer on her blog about family-friendly gadgets and stuff, Technoglam. It has amazed me so I'm going to go away and find out more about the research, I'm wondering how big the poll was.

Camilla says she's also surprised by the figures and reports that 40 per cent of eight to 11-year-old girls are using a mobile phone every day, while 22 per cent of boys the same age are busy on their handsets.

I can't quite believe it - can you?

What do you think of almost identical sounding names for twins, triplets or more?

SO long as children are loved and happy, there's little that any other parent may feel comfortable about criticising in connection with the way another family brings up their kids.

But when it comes to calling multiple birth children almost identical names, feelings can run high.

Related post: Twins' names: How about Linda and Brinda?

From X Factor to Eurovision hopefuls: What next for The Twins?

THIS sister act has been around for a while, hasn't it?

They come across as lovely, warm girls - perfect say for kids' TV, but they're not Eurovision material really, are they?

Or perhaps I should say they could be, if the competition this year wasn't so strong.

Personally, I find it a tiny bit annoying to see them encouraged to flag up how they feel they 'are the same person' - as they do in the video below. But I understand that's how these things work.

And here's how they did on X Factor:

Double the trouble for lazy authors

DID you see the BBC’s star-studded adaptation of Little Dorrit at the weekend? It went straight for the ‘evil twin’ cliffhanger as Mrs Flintwich came face to face with her husband’s doppelganger in the dead of night.

Dickens is not the only author to have trodden the well-worn path of mysterious, shady, mischievous or downright evil twins.

I wrote about this in the Guardian's book blog this week. I hate to see writers lazily rehashing stereotypes about twins so was pleased that people agreed it was a point worth making.

There are also some fantastic suggestions in the comments for new reads featuring characters who are twins or triplets so I hope I can check some out.

Thank you again to everyone who got in touch with suggestions about portrayals of twins which drive them up the wall!

What's the fascination with twins, triplets or more?

WHAT'S the big deal? What's the point of this blog?

This interesting piece from BBC Online reports on some of the fascination with multiple birth children, especially identical twins.

Here's a snippet:

And in the West twins, triplets and other multiples are a staple of daytime television on shows that are the modern-day take on the freak show.