They are funny creatures, other people’s children. Now I don’t mean nieces and nephews, who are invariably interesting and rather lovely; of course, the same is mostly true for the children of your friends. No, it is children you don’t know at all that, well – dare I say it – can be a little bit of a pain.

As I write I wonder if my opinion is, perhaps, somewhat tainted from yesterday’s experiences; climbing thrice into a child-sized indoor climbing frame, bashing yellow and green mini punch bags out of my way and wading through the ball pool on my knees to haul out one of our little ones from beneath a brutish four year old. Moments before that I saved both sets of toes from violent destruction under the wheels of a red plastic car driven by a heavy-looking boy far too large for the vehicle.

These indoor play areas, built into the back rooms of a few cafes we know round here, are both a parental godsend and hellhole, all depending on the unique dynamic of children which can form inside their hot, (and often slightly sticky) colourfully-painted walls. This dynamic is not unlike that of a playground, except that it seems to churn up scenes of anarchy more quickly and intensely than its outdoor equivalent. I suppose because it bubbles and bubbles in its confined area and with its finite number of heavily used resources – toys.

In my heart, where I hope a spirit of fairness reigns, I know that I should not blame the children. Most of them are only being wild spirited. When they dash and pull and tumble and shout, they are expending that wonderfully childish energy all pent up at the end of a rainy Sunday. But sometimes (on the hellish days) shouts become screams, the tumbling – fighting, the pulling – pushing, or even worse – biting, then you start to think “someone should be stopping that child”. Casting your eyes around, you see no likely parental candidates for this said beast, and then your fair heart drops a little in your chest, with the realisation that they are probably sitting comfortable in the relative calm of the adjoining cafe sipping a latte and reading the Sunday magazines.

Sometimes, then follows a brief moment of moral quandary – do I take it upon myself to explain to this child that biting is just not the done thing these days, or would that be deemed interfering? Mostly, though, as was yesterday the case, my maternal fury is so inflamed as I see my poor little mite close to being shoved from the edge of a perilously high plastic slide that my voice sharpens instinctively, as I point my finger intimidatingly and say, “stop that – the child is much smaller than you”.

As time goes on, there is another side to this, too. The older and sturdier our children become, the more the onus also falls on me to protect tinier ones from their more capable hands. I must say that I have never seen either of our children purposefully set out to injure another child (apart from each other, that is). Not wanting to paint them as saints, however, it could also be that they have simply not yet reached the brutish stage. But when and if they do, I promise I will do my absolute utmost to prevent them from behaving like little hooligans ruining other children’s fun, even if it means reading the Sunday magazines in the evening once they have gone to bed.

There I lay in the big bed, a sleeping child grasped tightly in each arm. I had been there for more than an hour, for our children do not fall asleep easily as the children of more organised parents might do, and my hands were starting to tingle. The situation was at once magical and rather awkwardly limiting. You are one of only two people in the world who can do this, I thought to myself, for want of something pleasant to pass the time until I could be sure they were sleeping so deeply that I could carry them to their own beds. But with this same pleasant thought rushed in a sudden overwhelming feeling of enormous responsibility, the strength of which was unlike any I had known since those early days with tiny babies.

Twenty months in and this was my first night alone with both children; tonight is to be the second. Now, of course, I feel very responsible for the wellbeing of our children all of the time, but this night alone represented something different. I, a singular I, had to make this work – we all needed an evening meal, a good night’s sleep and to get to our respective posts in a reasonable state the next morning. Not so hard, you say – and, indeed, it happily wasn’t – until you start thinking in what ifs. What if they don’t sleep at all; what if one of them is ill; what if I am ill; what if I set fire to something in the kitchen, or I forget to turn the tap off in the bath? On a dark night the list can infinitely grow. We live in a city without relatives. Our friends here tend to have children of a similar age, or busy jobs to go to during the day. Probably as generally fatigued by life as we are, to call on any of them in the middle of the night would feel extremely anti-social. In an emergency, yes, but not for minor upsets. Father was two plane journeys away and I was in this on my own. As I might at the start of an important exam, I felt under a great deal of pressure to remain clear, calm and focused.

So I extracted myself slowly and meticulously like a human spillikin, briefly looked down adoringly on my sleeping bounty, tiptoed to the door and proceeded to pass obsessively from room to room, turning off heaters and lights, triple checking the oven, and wrenching at bathroom taps. We all slept (soundly enough) in one bed that night; I was too chicken to risk waking them up. Tonight, I’ll brave it and try putting everyone in their proper beds. There is some leftover porridge from this morning after all.

We are being troubled by toys. They sit in a mound in our living room, wedge themselves down the sides of the settee, roll under the bed to gather dust and scatter across the floor to wriggle under our feet with a squeak and a squawk in the night. These toys will not be worked through like the food spilling out of an overfull fridge and we will not give them away; they will only accumulate and multiply as the months and years go on.

I like to consider myself a restrained toy buyer, desperately staving off temptation with the odd oh-so-cute treat for special occasions (and, yes, I admit it, sometimes when a child may be feeling a little under the weather). But we still have masses of stuff knocking around the flat. So when I see the crowds flocking to the tinsel-clad toy department, three trucks, a keyboard, a fairy make-up set, and some plastic power drills already weighing down their metal baskets, I have to wonder how people move for flashing plastic objects in households with parents of a more generous bent.

It is true that there are so many wondrous toys for children. Some will teach your child to count. Some will be your child’s best friend. Others will sing to them of all the colours in the rainbow, until the battery runs out. Most (apart from those organic wooden ones which liberal-minded, slightly over-competitive parents will be drawn to but no child would dream of grasping with their sticky, chubby fingers) will invariably delight your child on first acquaintance.

And there is the heart of it. This childish delight is an addictive thing. Have you ever noticed how hard people work to get a child to collapse into a fit of giggles – one chortle and they are blowing harder, tickling more quickly, pulling fingers in mouths into the most painful of distortions only to hear more and more and more. So perhaps these toys, these gifts we pile under the Christmas tree, are mostly about catching a glimpse of an amazing smile and excited eyes. But most toys do not become favourites. After those first few charmed moments, they are flung to the bottom of the toy chest or pushed down the sides of the settee, because the few old favourites are more appealing.

There was something in the crowd in that toy department that stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of excess and probably a bit overheated in my woollen hat and heavy winter coat, I found myself taking the plastic power drills and putting them back on the shelf. I had probably been reading too many old fashioned stories about children only having one teddy and one ball – the lucky ones, that is. Or maybe I was thinking about how the adult singer in Twelve Days of Christmas only gets 12 presents (or 78 depending on how you choose to understand it, but we won’t think about it like that for now), the giving of which is distributed over the course of nearly a fortnight.

And as the days grow longer and Christmas creeps to New Year, my resolution can be to relearn that song about a rainbow and to spend a bit more time on counting games. Good job I don’t need batteries.

It could have been dreadful, our week of sickness. Two children and one father all grey faced, dragging themselves around the flat like damp flannels, spurning each tiny morsel of food, however delicious. We had been copiously warned about this inevitable combination of winter and nursery schools and had suitably dreaded it. But the odd thing is that when it happened I didn’t mind it too much at all.

I realise my tale would take on a different note had the illness been more serious, or had I caught the same lurgy. Touch wood, touch wood. Lucky too, the children were consequentially ill rather than simultaneously: we had one sorry child for the first two days and then another sorry child for the two days following. Father fell ill right in the middle.

But there was something intensely intimate about those days alone with each poorly child. We cuddled, read book after book, napped all curled up on the big bed. Food rules relaxed as I indulgently picked out all sorts of treats which might tempt them into breaking their fast. Each morning I carefully sifted through their clothes choosing the softest, stretchiest garments which couldn’t press them uncomfortably anywhere.

My sphere, intellectual and social, narrowed into these small yet immensely important domestic decisions, any self-absorbed once pressing concerns – going to the hairdressers, making job-related meetings, calling my friends – were pushed to, and left undisturbed at, the back of my mind. As a consequence, I felt pleasingly calm and focused. I don’t suppose this is a twin specific experience; parents with multiple children of different ages, with a sudden opportunity to focus on only one child, may say the same thing.

Sleep deprivation is hardly a joy, but it is never as bad as those relentless first few months with twin babies. Wide awake at 3am you worry about how terrible you will feel the next day. But the sun comes up and your body clock does remarkable things, leaving you feeling surprisingly sprightly until at least 8pm. The fear of grogginess is far worse than the feeling itself.

Then there was the reaction of the healthier, happier child. By contrast to their rather wan sibling, each in turn became resiliently independent; barely asking to be carried, sitting patiently whilst sick was cleaned up from the floor, trying hard to gently cheer up their usually more rumbustious playmate. It appeared to us that they understood the other child’s need was in this moment greater, and they would sacrifice their own desires to help. Peculiar, rather unexpected and a tremendous relief.

I say all of this, but now temperatures, nausea and lethargy have passed, there is the even greater satisfaction of seeing children and father vigorously tucking into big bowls of porridge and still asking for a banana to complete the meal. And how I shall enjoy us all charging around the park this afternoon, bracing fresh air, stretched legs and chubby rosy cheeks.

Why most of us find little children just about as sweet as candy floss from Brighton pier is at once obvious and obscure. The reasons, some individual and others surely biological, are many and varied. But one of them, it seems to me, must be the simple truthfulness of children’s expression.

For creatures without words, it is remarkable how honest little children are in their opinions, and how effectively they communicate the strength of their desires. I will give you an example. This morning I tried to change my son’s t-shirt, because the one he was already wearing looked a bit too small. He was outraged at the prospect of pulling on a new stripy green t-shirt instead of the old red one. He lashed his arms wildly, screeched with all his might and he pulled and pulled at the neck until I, worried he might hurt himself, thought this battle was not worth it and put the red one back on for him again. Satisfaction beamed from his face.

A less conflict riven example. My daughter is obsessed with bananas. She has been for months. It was one of her first words, and if the bananas are in sight at any mealtime, no matter what other delicacies may happen to be gracing her highchair tray – cheese or raisins or even yoghurt – she will imploringly stretch out her arms in the direction of the said fruit and chant the word until I concede. Her absolute ecstasy at being given a banana is so transparent. She squeals with delight, smiles at anyone looking and proffers it proudly before her whilst peeling it carefully. The joy is very charming, but a banana every mealtime is just not on – I have taken to hiding the bananas alongside the plates in the cupboard.

To come back to my point – there is no manipulation here, or shyness about expressing happiness. These children laugh without restraint, scream with rage when dissatisfied and peer with full, unabashed curiosity into every single cranny that interests them. Adults and older children, bound by social convention, do not behave like this. We spend hours, months even, discussing a slight regret with nuanced language tempered by a fear of offending, when a simple honestly turned down lower lip may have done the job just as effectively in a few seconds.

Perhaps it is because we become creatures with words – this acquired linguistic ability – that what we express is sometimes so far away from what we really feel. Who knows. But somewhere along the well-trodden road from babyhood to adulthood we lose this innate capacity for truthfulness and learn how to lie. I suppose by watching my children’s development I will see when they start telling fibs, and thereby discover that there is not a universal age for this passage from truth-telling to obfuscation.

For all I heard other mothers rave about their children simply loving nursery, I remained unconvinced. A convenient delusion fuelled by maternal guilt muttered the three-horned, seven-eyed sceptic perched on my shoulder. Children are happiest with their parents, it said arrogantly puffing up its scaly wings, best keep yours at home for as long as possible – career schmareer, look after your babies.

But my desire for a few hours each morning to do something other than getting chilly on a windy playground was strong enough to clip the sceptic’s wings, if not to entirely push it from my shoulder. Off to nursery they went; and so began two dark weeks. How my little boy protested. Wild dogs could not drag him from my grasp, and he would howl louder than they if they tried. Had it not been for my little girl, by contrast, embracing this nursery world of opportunity, relishing new friendships and basking in the glory of a thousand unknown toys, I would have believed the sceptic entirely vindicated.

Her tangible happiness made me think it was quite likely many children enjoyed it just as much – these mothers had been telling the truth. Fooling themselves, they were not. Still, what about those children – like my son – who could not stand it? I have talked before about our decision to treat his progression into nursery as an entirely different challenge (http://fatgoldwatch.posterous.com/nursery-school-a-familial-divide). The combination of emotions which ensued was curious. First the relief that I did not need to force him to stay when he did not want to. Then the frustrated realisation that by keeping him at home at bit longer I would not have any child-free hours at all. Finally, the disappointment for him, that by staying so tightly by my side he was excluding himself from all this good fun. 

Therein lay the answer – I had seen that nursery could be good fun. I knew that if only he could bear to look beyond my shoulder, he, like his sister, would actually like being there with all the goodies on offer. Armed with this parental arrogance (thinking, hoping more like, that I knew what was best for my child), I was able to quell my maternal instinct and leave him unhappy in the arms of the nursery teacher a few days in a row, listening at the door as he immediately stopped crying once the door was closed.

And to my relief, how quickly the farewell scene changed. Now they both trot in, barely pausing to brush a kiss on my proffered cheek. They have learned to be confident in the thought that I will soon be back and they can still spend all afternoon with mum getting chilly at the playground. I have learned that sometimes my most immediate reaction – to stop the crying as quickly possible – is not always the happiest solution in the longer term. I would like to say that the three-horned, seven-eyed sceptic has learned too, but it still sits muttering on my shoulder about some disbelief or other in what other parents say.

We arrive at the flat late afternoon. The children trail pathetically behind us from room to room, whimpering and stretching out their arms to be carried. Familiar toys lie untouched in the living room, neatly stacked where we left them five days ago; the tub of bricks remains tightly closed in the children’s bedroom, no child clamours to prise off the lid. After six hours imprisoned, hot and sticky, in their car seats, only a brief hour respite toddling around the grimy play area of a service station, we had expected this homecoming to be more celebratory. As so often with small children, expectation’s hopes are dashed on the rocks of reality. 

To say I am impressed by the chic of other mothers at the playground is an understatement: amazed, flabbergasted, utterly and longingly envious are perhaps more accurate. I look down at my clothes and see the pale smears of yoghurt and toothpaste, the dusty marks from little shoes banging against my thigh, and scuff marks on my trouser knees from crawling around in the sand, all worn like the scars of a soldier at war.

When friends with other lives come to visit, I cast forlorn glances at their stylish ensembles, and think sadly to myself how pointless it would be to buy such a pretty and expensive jumper, as it would only end up with chunks of porridge in its chunky cashmere knit. My battle dress is drawn from a narrow section of my wardrobe, which, these days, is rarely found hanging neatly alongside its more glamorous and delicate compatriots, but instead heaped over my bedroom chair and chosen for its machine washable qualities and ability to protect my decency whilst crouching by the railings of the duck pond in the park.

My envy goes beyond clothes. These other women, these high-heeled Madonnas, wear make-up, have manicured nails and complicated braids twisted into their hair. How do they do it, I wonder, when my two-stage ‘beauty ritual’ consists of a modest pulling my in-much-need-of-a-trip-to-the-hairdressers hair into a messy knot and brushing my teeth before leaving the house each morning. Exfoliating and moisturising belong to another age. And the high heels? Shoes these days are determined by being comfortable and hardy enough to march around the streets for two hours each day, whatever the weather.

Back at the playground – one child, they must only have one child, I say to myself reassuringly. Then I remember a line I read somewhere about the aesthetics of motherhood. There is a chic in old jeans and slightly stained and rumpled t-shirts, too, right. I meet the eye of another woman equally stained and dishevelled. She must also have twins, I think, or at least two children close in age, and offer her a comradely smile: she is on my side.

Silly to parade at the playground, I think smugly. Who are they trying to impress anyway, my three-horned, yoghurt-stained, green-eyed monster mutters cruelly under its breath.

To treat children equally is not to treat them the same. A slightly jaded educational tag line bandied around by Dave and his Big Society? Not this time – it is my most recent half-baked theory on child development. 

Two weeks ago the children started nursery. Our plan was for them to spend the morning there and most likely only four days a week, depending on how busy I was to become with other things. For all its modesty, this was nevertheless seen as a significant development in all of our lives. Reality is yet to meet expectation. For I say ‘started’, but more accurately, my little girl has jumped straight in and my little boy has merely gingerly dipped in one of his baby toes.
Each morning at five to nine we traipse down the road. We take off our coats and shoes in the miniature cloakroom and then I wait outside the open playroom door, perched on a tiny bench with my back pressed against a hook bearing the picture of a duck, whilst the nursery school teachers attempt to lure the children away with plastic cars, paintbrushes and all the other lovely temptations they have.

My little girl is routinely seduced. Off she trots, her unsteady legs barely able to match her enthusiasm for plunging into some game of the older children. They, in turn, are delighted to see her, charmingly chanting her name when she appears at the door, and squabbling over who gets to hold her hand for a little walk around the room. The nursery school teachers are pleased with her progress and say I could easily leave her there quite happily for an hour or two. I agree – I don’t think she would miss me at all.

My little boy behaves quite differently. After the rush of excitement in the first few days, when he too was tempted by the toy whisk in the child-sized kitchen and all those big yellow building blocks – and I sat smugly thinking to myself that this separation business was going to be a doddle – he started to realise that being inside the playroom meant being away from me. So now he refuses to go inside, preferring to stand at my knees in the cloakroom, shaking his head at whatever delightful toy is pushed his way, demanding to sit on my knee when anyone else gets too close. Every so often I attempt to gently encourage him back inside, pointing out his sister’s exciting antics, only to be met with that determined shake of the head again and an appealing wordless request to go for an amble around the cloakroom to inspect the tiny sinks and toilets in the adjoining bathroom. And so it goes on until an hour is up and it is time to go home.

This period of my sitting outside the room is supposed to have ended days ago. According to nursery school plans, we should now be increasing the time the children spend in there and I spend out of sight and out of the way. We all begin to realise that were we to do this, he would get very upset. Nobody wants this, of course. The nursery teachers suggest that I leave her there, as planned, and I take him home again with me. We are to continue like this for the next few days until she is staying happily for the required time. Perhaps he will be pulled along with her, once he realises she is going without him, they say. And they are worried that if I don’t go now, she will get too used to having me in the corner and not to want to stay there either. He evidently needs more time.

A pragmatic approach. Why then, do I find tears springing to my eyes as I pull on his coat and tie his laces? I feel guilty and rather sad. It seems unfair that she should be deprived of my attention for this short time and he be lavished with all of it. Walking down the road, pram half empty, I start to wonder mournfully if she does not have such a strong bond with me as her brother. Picking up her favourite tofu in the supermarket, I realise I am also somewhat relieved that they are both not clinging to my legs: dealing with two of them not wanting to leave me would have meant even more hard work. Yet more guilt at this relief: it does not help that in the morning I had read an article on how British children are some of the unhappiest in Europe because their parents cannot give them enough time and try to compensate with material gifts instead.

What angst, you say. Quite right, too – by the dairy section, I am resolved to stop worrying with every turn about what future deep psychological damage I am potentially causing and to concentrate on actively responding to their needs in the present. I am being sentimental, I say to myself. Just because they have always been together, side by side, head against head, since the moment of conception, does not mean that they cannot be apart for a few hours for a few days. She is happy and enjoying herself, and we do want them to spend more time there. Don’t we? But what if he loves being at home with me on his own? He will be fifteen before we can wrench him away from his mother’s tender embrace. Then I start to wonder if I am jealous that the nursery teachers will see her making that adorably funny face when she first tastes peppermint tea. Oh dear, will motherhood be so full of conflicting emotions forever more.

The present, I remind myself. Pragmatism, I remind myself. Half days, four days a week. You will still see them more than anyone else in the world, and he will learn to enjoy it in his own good time.

I had been saying for weeks it could happen any day now. But it didn’t and it didn’t again, and I suppose, deep inside, I never quite believed it. Seeing it in my mind’s eye was an impossibility. So let’s say, it took me by surprise, though I suppose it shouldn’t have done.

“Little girl, you’re walking,” I exclaimed. “Look at you, you’re walking!” “My oh my, little boy, you’re walking too! You two, you’re so clever. Just look at you, you’re so clever!” My words were gushing, faster and more riotously than an African waterfall.

I slipped backwards across the floor, backing out of the door with my arms outstretched towards them both. Still, they tottered on towards me, one a few feet behind the other, their little feet padding slowly in perfect, uneven baby steps. And what a phrase that is – baby steps – one which I will now forever use with far greater accuracy; something or somebody hesitant, bewildered, shaky, but for all of that utterly compelled by nature to move forwards.

Oh the sweet elation and utter astonishment. Fleeting, wretched thoughts dragged up by sleep deprivation and the occasional, drudging monotony of childcare all forgotten in an instance. The air, their and my faces, overflowed with exceeded expectation. The world, in that moment, was full of promise and possibility: those tiny creatures I cradled in my arms those many months ago, if they can now walk across a room all alone what else can we do? Anything, anything at all.

I clapped my hands, and exclaimed still further. They did too. And then, they simultaneously fell to the floor and collapsed into confused sobs. It is alarming, I suppose, to walk upright and alone with its thousands of possibilities and many miles of potential distance. But I think it was also relief. They had passed the test they set themselves, and now with it behind them the world is theirs to conquer.