'You've got your hands full'

Everyday Stranger on the "fragility and darkness" of postnatal depression

SHANNON's blog Everyday Stranger, is a new find for me. It's filled with beautiful writing and photos and  captivating thoughts.

She's also shortlisted for a Best Writer award in The MADs, where her blog is described as a "glorious patchwork of stories."

Here, she shares with us her experience of depression and what I'd call a cautious optimism about life on the other side.

Thank you Shannon for sharing your story, which I'm also including at Breaking the Silence.

She writes:

MY twins are two years old now, hurtling towards three.

This morning our son decided to "caterpillar" across the floor with his Thomas the Tank Engine trains, and our daughter politely asked “Can I have a turn too please?” after her brother had a spin from his half-sister.

They sing, they hold my hands, the kiss me, they fill my days with light.

It hasn’t always been this way.

Multiple mayhem -- a carnival of posts about twins and more

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. 

Twins, Triplets and More week 2010: Guest posts, blog tour and carnival

I SET up this blog to offer information and support for parents and carers of twins, triplets and more. Years on, people searching for help with post natal depression still find us and I'm touched that I can be of help.

I've also a longstanding association with Tamba, the Twins and Multiple Births Association, being a member and former magazine editor and PR helper.

That's why when the hardworking people at the charity got in touch to tell me about their annual awareness bid, Twins, Triplets & More week, and the fact that they want to publicise free help for multiple mums, I thought it would be great to spread the word.

It runs from Monday, June 28.

Twin Tuesday: Coping with tantrums

HOW do you cope with tantrums? It's a hard enough question when faced with the prospect of one bawling toddler, let alone two.

Lisa Burn recently wrote about tantrums on Sofeminine.co.uk and what a refreshing change it was to see the views of some twin mums included as a matter of course in a parenting article.

This comes hot on the heels of Joanne's fab advice on Parentdish.

She reports:

For Karen, splitting up her twins soon as a tantrum starts, helps diffuse the situation. ‘They certainly make each other worse if left together,’ she reveals. ‘We have to remain firm, give them time to calm down and then explain we will not have that behaviour in our home.'

Lisa also kindly included some input from me in the piece.

Here's what I had to say on the subject:

Because families come in all shapes and sizes...

I'VE just posted about this at Have a Lovely Time, but it's something that I also wanted to add here in case anyone who just so happens not to have a family that fits into a neat 'two by two' box is reading. I know families with triplets or one child then twins can feel the pinch so I hope this can help!

Plus I absolutely love Quentin Blake so I wanted to use the picture again!

DOES your family fit the shape of a standard family ticket?

Or perhaps it's Mum plus her four kids, Dad plus his only child, and the young cousin who lives with them.

Maybe it's grandparents and their grandchildren, for whom they care or big sister and very little sister, whom she looks after. Mum, Dad, Auntie and her daughter.

Yet what’s the shape of a typical family ticket to a museum or gallery? Two plus two.

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.)

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.

Tips to help get your children into a sleeping routine from You've Got Your Hands Full readers

A WHILE back I wrote about how disappointed I was that when my daughters were younger, we never managed to conquer the 'get them off to sleep and you can have a life in the evenings' challenge.

Commenters offered some excellent advice and shared their stories of how they had mastered said challenge. Now I have been asked for advice from an expectant mum of twins. So it has made me remember that it would be a good idea to bring those pointers together.

Michigan mother of triplets and singleton battling breast cancer

JILL Nelson of Saugatuck, Mich., is the mother 4-year-old Kate and 11-month-old triplets, Ben, Andrew and Emily. She also has breast cancer. She was diagnosed in April and had a double mastectomy in May.

A friend entered her in the Classy Mommy Mother's Day Big Give, and she won $1,200 in prizes.

Jill is now undergoing chemotherapy. Follow her story on CaringBridge. We wish her all the best.

Video here.

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~ Posted by Becky, who also blogs at Deep Muck Big Rake. Write her at becky_handsfull@yahoo.com.

What might have been? My experience of being a "lone twin" who is a mother of twins

WHEN my girls were babies, hardly a day went by without someone asking me: "Do twins run in the family then?"

It was a question I found very difficult to answer – not just because my mum was adopted but also because she had lost a baby early in pregnancy at the same time she was expecting me…

I'm still asked today and it still makes me uncomfortable, most often I just smile and say "no."