When feeling particularly efficient in my professional days, I would write myself a ‘to-do list’ to power through as the day progressed. The List was not without its own internal structure. The first few items were absolutely, job-keeping essential; the ones further down, boss-pleasing but not critical, and those languishing at the bottom – well I could take or leave those for another week as time allowed. Beyond meetings and interruptions this list would shape my day, each ticked point a step closer to that sludgy floating feeling which comes when wearily shutting your computer down and slipping on your trainers to cycle home.

I no longer spend my days sitting at a desk, but I am aware of another ‘to-do list’ constantly rattling through my mind as an inner monologue. The New Mummy List starts the moment I wake up and fades only as I drive it out with a good book as I fall asleep at night. It too has its internal structure – (1) things that I must do to prevent all hell breaking loose; (2) things I would like to do for peace of mind and to stop the flat descending into a crumb-filled, greasy fingerprint marked pit, and (3) things that it would be fun for me but are, if I am absolutely honest, very unlikely to happen.

The items shift and change as the day passes and requirements change, each one weighed up against the existing circumstances. What are the children doing? Can I get on with something? How long do I have until they need my attention again? Each action is balanced against other possibilities, slotted in as circumstances allow – “I must make porridge, but if the children are happy playing in the other room, I may also get the chance to wash up the milk bottles at the same time. If the children are unhappy, I shall have to entertain them in the kitchen whilst the porridge cooks.” Even when the children are in bed my time is set out as a series of compromises, “The children are in bed but might wake up. It is more likely they wake up an hour after we have put them to bed. I would rather be interrupted whilst eating than whilst showering – so I shall shower now.”

How dull I sound. I sometimes wonder to where my capacity for deep thought has disappeared, but then I cast my mind back to the old List and don’t think that was always more profound than these items I am marching through now. Perhaps my approach to motherhood is merely the result of my professional experience. Other people – less compelled to write things down – may well approach their work and caring for their children in a very different way. But it seems that my time will always be divided up, eked out and its activities compromised. I don’t say this with regret, mind you. No, there is a pleasure in getting things done and doing them well and seeing everyone happy at the end of the day.
Enough for today – a shower and the news seem more important than elaborating further.

The local playground has become my second living room, Indeed, given the frequency of our visits, it may well be better termed our first – I currently have clearer ideas for improving refurbishments for the playground than I do for our own home. All of which is to say, I realise now, as an adult, I must learn a new set of playground rules. Parents, who desire a relaxed time on their playground trips, take heed.

Other children will play with, and most likely remove to another part of the playground, your children’s toys. This is not something to be commented on or complained about. Your children will steal enough toys in return: quid pro quo. Just don’t bring anything very precious with you, in either financial or sentimental value – it could well be going home in the bottom of someone else’s pushchair.

Eating copious amounts sand has no obvious detrimental health impact on your child. Though tempting to vigorously discourage this – the thought of having all that dry sand in your mouth is positively horrifying – generally your efforts will lead only to hilarious guffaws from your child and do nothing to prevent them eating more sand two minutes later. Save your energy. My hope is that they will simply realise themselves that it really does not taste very nice.

Sand is not the only thing going in their mouths. Your children will steal large chunks of food from other children, most likely the cake and biscuits you don’t usually let them eat. They may also sit beside eating adults, piteously begging for whatever tasty morsel on which they are nibbling (a packet of crisps perhaps), giving the impression that you never feed them, neglectful mother that you are, whilst also putting you in the awkward position of having to say in a mildly disapproving voice that you don’t really like them to eat crisps yet. Said adult’s child is obviously tucking in happily nearby.

When not eating or stealing or being stolen from, your children will undertake great feats of daring, putting them into some sort of unimaginable danger : e.g. climbing up a very high slide backwards in their stocking feet; wrapping the metal chains of the swing around their necks; sitting beneath the bouncing pony and putting their hand in the great big metal spring, crawling inside the wooden boat through a gap barely big enough for a small child let alone an adult and sitting well beyond arms reach in the darkest, dankest corner where all the cast off cigarette butts must lie. If you have more than one child these sort of occurrences will inevitably happen simultaneously, both children at the furthest opposite edges of the playground. Not wanting to tempt fate, but these moments usually pass without real catastrophe, though they do train your reactions to royal marine speed, and make use of previously unknown Goliath strength and David cunning. Inspector Gadget looks untalented in comparison. Flexibility and a cool mind help.

When not rescuing your children from some frightful threat, you may find yourself seeking social contact with other parents, somehow and remarkably lounging at the side of the sandpit. This is not as straightforward as it sounds – some parents are looking to make friends, others are not. Beware the unsociable parent (this comes hard to me, for I am prone to chitter chatter) usually found with a book in hand (pretending to read because no one can really read calmly at the playground), or looking determinedly past the activities of other children, perhaps frowning when your child comes begging for one of their crisps. Don’t worry though, because there are usually lots of other much happier people who do want to lend you their cupcake and ice cream sand pit kit. You can make some very nice friends this way.

I have been toying for a while with a more profound idea about the mysteries of motherhood. Perhaps spending too much time at the playground lessens your ability for serious thought – brain cells being scuffed on the sand like the seat of your pretty summer trousers. When the weather turns and I spend less time wishing I had three sets of eyes, to watch both children and the adventures of our favourite red spotty ball, I will formulate some grander ideas. But then I will probably be busy thinking about wellington boots, jumping in puddles, throwing up handfuls of leaves and wondering when it is time to buy a sledge. Hey ho.

We lay such emphasis on a child learning to talk but spend little time thinking about the uncanny ability of babies and children to communicate before they have words. Last summer my granny described our babies’ early smiles as “their first attempt at communication with the world.” Though all that early crying is a communication of sorts, I suppose it is less like active communication and rather more like a noisy reaction to inner feelings of hunger or discomfort. The smile by contrast, engaging with people and inviting them in, seeks a response. 96-years-old, mother of four, grand and great grandmother to many more, my granny had a point – the smile is the first step in mastering the art and power of wordless communication.

These days, looking deeply into my children’s eyes, at their facial expressions, how they are holding their head or their hands, I can tell almost instantly how they are feeling – whether they would welcome being tossed up into the air, spun around the room, given a bite of tomato, sat down and read to, or being rocked gently like a little baby. If I don’t look intently enough, not paying their non-verbal communication the attention that it is due, I get it wrong. So they cry when put on the floor, brush aside the morsel of bread they’ve been handed, spit out the beaker spout in disgust. At times, this neglect is a matter of necessity – we have twins after all and I can’t always be looking intently into two pairs of eyes, nor constantly carry two bouncing 1 year olds in my arms. And we all get tired sometimes, and don’t really feel like fully engaging, verbally or non-verbally. But mostly, I get it right.

I am often struck when listening to parents or carers talking to small children (or old people for that matter) that their choice of words and tone of voice seems to disregard the child’s current emotional state. It is almost as if they have a blanket voice, intonation and set of phrases employed to talk to all children in almost all circumstances. Try this on an vocal adult, and likely he or she would be indignant; but when it comes to some little person who cannot yet form indignant words, it is easier to get away with this one-size-fits-all approach.

What a shame it is to miss these beautiful nuances of emotion conveyed through wide eyes, raised eyebrows, curling corners of lips, and wriggling fingers, expressing feelings words would only obfuscate. And, how much easier the child is to please when you realise their significance. But this is not just about understanding children: I don’t think we lose this power of wordless communication as adults; we just forget to pay it much attention. Perhaps a few hours observing one-year-olds could replace endless seminars on MBA programmes and markedly improve business results.

My little girl tipped her chin to her chest and peered up at me coquettishly through her long eyelashes. “Oh go on, Mummy” the look said. I melted inside and promptly scooped her up into my arms and threw her above my head over and over again until she roared with laughter. No words were exchanged, but what a lot we understood about each other.

I will tell you our babies’ favourite first birthday present so far – a brightly coloured xylophone, and more precisely the wooden stick with a pretty red ball on top for hitting it. I have watched the children play with it and fight over it these last two weeks and so will try to explain the reasons for their love through baby eyes.

The obvious, of course, is the delightful noise the stick makes when whacked against the xylophone notes and all sorts of other things lying about. The less expected and more common reason, however, is the fun it seems to be to put it into your mouth like a big red lolly pop. I would never have suggested to the children that they do this with the xylophone stick. Indeed, when they are gadding about on all fours, stick in mouth, there are times it looks to me a little dangerous and I would really rather they didn’t. But our safety measures are not the point here.

Rather, to what extent should we adults prescribe how babies play with objects (that is assuming they can do no real harm to themselves or others)? I tend to be rather laissez faire, watching and waiting to see how the play unfolds. To the point, I admit, that I feel a bit prickly when other adults carefully (and always lovingly) show our children exactly what to do with an object, taking it out of their hands and turning it around, or pressing their open, uninterested little hand around it. Something in me thinks, ‘if they choose not to, they should not really have to play with it, should they?’

Call me an overly indulgent mother, but the striking part is that babies left alone almost always work out the very best use for something, at least as good as, but often better than, I could have ever suggested. Watching these scenes of splendid creativity, I realised accepting (or rejecting) the intervention of other adults in how our children do things is likely to be a dilemma I will face over and over again for years to come. Optimistically, I suppose there are lots of teachers and other parents out there who can appreciate how exciting it must be to crawl around with a xylophone stick in your mouth. And for all those more prescriptive types, well, they can make me eat my words the day our children become world famous percussionists.

It was only three hours, and I was only in the other room. I went in to see them more than once too, just peeking my head around the corner to check everyone was alright, catching a baby’s eye and giving him or her a smile before sidling back to the study to work. At the end of my self-inflicted isolation and on my proper return to the living room, I was greeted by such glee. Shouts, knee bouncing, hand waving – the works. What a treat for me, as I first scooped one child for a hug, kiss and a quick dizzying spin around the room – a current favourite – and then the other. “Oh, I’ve missed you,” I exclaimed in happy raptures, “Let me give you a nice bit of banana.”

I am working on a little project, so this has been the pattern these last three days, and will be for the next four. I rather like it, going off to the other room and thinking about something else for a while. The babies don’t seem to mind too much either, as long as they have someone jolly chasing them round the flat and slipping them the odd tasty snack from time to time. It seems a happy compromise between devoting myself to my children and keeping my mind in gear.

The interesting aspect of this experience, beyond my mental gymnastics, is that I am so determined to lavish them with love when I let them come crawling back into my arms. In these moments, I will do anything to see them smile; more so, if I am honest, than the rest of the time when I am likely to start unloading the dishwasher or sneakily browse my emails whilst they clammer at my ankles. I offer them food though I know they are not hungry, carry them around though they would be happy enough crawling around on the floor, fling them up into the air knowing it will make them chortle and strain my back.

Spending these few hours doing something else seems to make me a more attentive parent, at least for a little while. But imagine if I were to spend forty hours each week away from them; I would have to concentrate my desire to please my babies into such a small period of time. What a fine line there must be between indulgence and over-indulgence. I suppose striking the balance comes with experience.

Babies are so insatiably curious, crawling to every corner, peering into countless drawers, staring intently at each passerby. How joyful the discovery that the third kitchen cupboard contains rice and lentils, and the sound the packets make when pulled one by one onto the floor, even better! Of all the babies we know, I am yet to meet an uninterested one. It would seem, limited though my anthropological knowledge may be, that curiosity is innate.

By contrast, I am struck by how many adults are not very curious at all. In a new environment, they gravitate towards strangers most similar to them in social background and experience. On holiday, they recreate a little home from home to make sure they are comfortable. Rarely would they walk down a street simply because they never have before. Why constantly adventure, when you have already seen what the third kitchen cupboard contains, you might say.

But you meet plenty, old and young, who, almost as insatiably as babies, hunger for new experience, seek out provocative ideas, welcome an interruption to the regular rhythm of their thoughts. So it cannot be that knowledge and experience drives out our curiosity. Also, this lack of curiosity manifests itself in some much earlier than adulthood. Talk to the schoolteacher and they will cite examples of five-year-olds who on their first day of school are unwilling to learn anything new. Still, it is hard to believe that some people are simply born more curious than others. To return to my baby observations – they all look pretty curious to me.

My supposition is that there is an unfortunate group who, somewhere along the way, have their curiosity crushed. Babies appear to exercise their curiosity most when feeling confident and content. Post nap, their little tummies full but not too full after a tasty snack, they crawl off to a new room, throwing frequent glances back at the adults they trust the most. How much more exciting the adventure is when they know that this adult might follow shortly after vocalising an interest in the things they see, or when the same adult might throw an unknown plaything into their path. This must be a learned experience. Babies (and adults) who don’t always get enough sleep, the right food, enough encouragement and security probably do not go off exploring with quite the same zeal.

I scratch only at the surface of this quelling of curiosity. Whatever the multifaceted and all too complicated reasons may be, I feel an inner compulsion to build my children’s curiosity as high as it can be, to help them feel secure to enjoy a life varied and exciting. There is simply so much magic to discover. I want them to marvel at the daybreak, to ask why the bird has a beak, to unravel metaphorical string to its final threads. It seems to me that indulging their imaginations whilst giving them the confidence to set out into the world on their own in whichever direction they may choose is, beyond the basic needs of nurturing, one of my primary parental responsibilities. Think of the fun we can have.

I was in an exclusively organic supermarket brushing the soft organic cotton of a sage green baby jacket when I suddenly realised the fine line standing between me and the parody of the yummy mummy. Had I had only one baby, I am pretty confident the line would now be far behind me: it was multiplying the price of the jacket by two – the best part of a week’s package holiday to somewhere exotic – that made me pause for thought. And, I admit that for all this ‘moment of clarity’, I still left the horribly overpriced shop with the other items in my basket: two new wooden toys painted with non-chemical paint; three jars of baby food – pear and blackberry puree, pumpkin with brown rice, and spinach risotto – and some spelt baby crackers, organic of course.

When and how had this descent into mummy madness come about, I wondered, on leaving the shop. I and my big bump had dutifully scoured second hand clothes shops for sweet little babygros. In the first few months of their lives, I refused to dress them in anything but the plainest and easiest clothes. No matching knicker and dress sets or button down shirts in our cupboard please; I shunned presents of clothes which I thought might be too fiddly to pull on. Had bobbing around the room singing songs from the jungle book at all those baby yoga classes caused the great big dark blot on the white page of my practical, sensible parenting? But to have relished those hours, even to have signed up for them in the first place, the tendency must have already set in.

No, I think at the root of all this was envy. How could I not be tempted into this frivolity, spending all those mornings sitting on the floor of friends’ living rooms nibbling organic dates and sipping calming herbal tea, babies crawling around us knocking over tasteful wooden toys blocking their paths. All these mummies were having such a lot of fun browsing catalogues full of luxurious baby clothes and gossiping over which organic millet and corn baby snack their tots liked best. I wanted to revel in this baby world too.

It is simple indulgence for the mummies and the babies – a bit like buying shoes you know you will only wear twice but you love so completely and utterly, or keeping far too expensive yoghurt covered cashew nuts in your desk drawer to cheer you up in the office late in the afternoon. As long as you stop before bankruptcy or gluttony, what pleasure there is in it.

I woke up yesterday with sunlight streaming through the window onto the face of the sleeping baby beside me. The spring sun was lovely, but the baby was magical. For the last ten months, the babies have woken us up. This time, I woke up first. Perhaps it was the combination of the reasonable hour to be waking up and my biased mother’s eyes, but his little face was truly as sweet and round as a freshly-podded pea. This is a moment to treasure, I thought to myself, carefully stirring in bed so as not to wake him.

This morning I caught the other baby pushing herself backwards from all fours to sitting; something I knew she could do – she had secretly manoeuvred herself from tummy to upright the day before – but had not yet seen in action. It was so wonderfully exciting to see her understanding how to use her strength and coordination to such good use. How we cheered and clapped when she succeeded. I made another mental note.

I suppose we could be trying to capture these remarkable moments on video. Perhaps I should for their future interest, but I have no real desire for myself. No, these are the moments to be stored up in one’s mind for long family dinners or for idle hours on a park bench or for when my children have children and I start telling them all about how it was when they were young.

I sat in the sunshine outside our local bakery the other day, babies sleeping in the pram, when the man on the bench beside me told me he also had twins. They are now three, nearly four he told me, and oh what a joy they bring. The sight of him filled me with optimism; he seemed so relaxed and happy, eating his piece of cake on a spring-filled Sunday morning, no children in tow. Then we started talking about nights, foolishly perhaps on my side. No, they still don’t sleep well, I heard with horror. One wakes up and then the other one and they almost always end up in their parents’ beds. What, I thought indignant, I am sure I was promised all of this sleep deprivation would have faded into a distant memory by then.

That’s the thing when you starting talking to parents of older children. The conversations often provide some initial reassurance and then almost always seed some grain of doubt. My first experience of this was when talking to the mother of twins, eight months older than our two. She told me the first two months had been really difficult, but then they had this miraculous turning point when everything seemed to slot into place. Ten minutes later she remarked that the second afternoon of our acquaintance (when I was still pregnant and her babies were around four months old) was one of the most stressful she had ever lived through. Hmmm, not quite the turning point she had promised then. A few months later, I was walking in the park with another mother of twins, when we bumped into yet another of our type walking in the opposite direction. My immediate companion had just been telling me how she found life got much easier once her babies hit four months. But my hopes were then dashed by the next mother (her big eleven month old boys chewing on bread and sitting jolly in their pram), as she flashed me a sympathetic look and said, “the first nine months are ever so hard.”

The trick of self-preservation must be to stop believing everything you hear. It could be that there is no particularly easy phase with children, but also, in general, only a few fleeting moments when it is desperately hard. Then again, I always feel slightly smug when I look at younger babies, and think to myself – ooh, how nice to be through that phase. So perhaps it is getting easier. And, my optimism usually quickly returns when I tell myself these children are not our children, and ours , of course, will be very different.