Harry's Blog

Being the father of twins imbues one with a certain amount of cockiness. After all - those early days together saw me as their sole carer having been cruelly widowed. And so when I hear couples talk about how hard it is to look after their one child I tend to inwardly snort with derision. “You want to try it with twins,” I think, “On your own, while your heart has been ripped out.”

But the truth is that no matter how well prepared you are, how much you think you’ve seen and done it all, the second time around is still difficult even for a couple. The twins didn’t walk properly until they were 15 months old. This was laziness on their part - they cruised for months - but thanks to our narrow house there was no gap that required them to let go of a wall to get anywhere. By the time they decided to give “look no hands” a go they were already experts at it. There was no phase of falling over, no wobbliness, all nice as simple.

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One of the great joys of being a parent of a three year old is the mad stream off chatter emerging from them. Granted if you're not in the right mood it can be tiring - our daughter readilly admits "I can't stop talking daddy" - but on the whole it's hugely entertaining hearing the thoughts of bonkers pre-schoolers.

Having twins makes that even more entertaining because you can overhear conversations they have with each other. Take the following for example - I was driving them back from school along the back road, where one often sees military helicopters flying to and from RNAS Yeovilton. I've retained their pronunciation of helicopter and other words.

[Pat] Oooh I've just seen a heliclopter.
[Kitty] Did you Pat?
[Pat] Yes Ditty, it was very fast.
[Kitty] It was an airlaplane.
[Pat] No Ditty, not an airlaplane, it was a heliclopter.
[Kitty] Well I can't see a heliclopter.
[Pat] That's cause it disappeared.
[Kitty] Ooh, was it a magic heliclopter Pat?
[Pat] No Ditty, it just flew away.
---
[Kitty] Daddy why are you laughing?

I just about kept control of the car.

I Left Pat on the naughty step for two long yesterday. So while he was sat there bored he decided to up the ante of naughtiness. Except it didn't go exactly as planned for him and soon he was crying his head of to us.

The stupid lad had put a little stone up his nose and it had stuck.

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Our gorgeous, beautiful, amazing, happy, smiling little baby boy is two months old now. Doesn't time fly?

Patrick and Kitty have developed their own belief system of late. It seems that there is a dinosaur in the sky who watches over them.

You would think this was rather scary and would lead to many a sleepless night - after all our boy Pat is afraid of next door's cat, every dog in the world, hoovers, lawn mowers, his own shadow and the creepy motorbike man at Westbay.

But you would be wrong, because both twins talk of the dinosaur in the sky with love and reverence. When it rains they are greatly concerned for their dinosaur deity - "oh no, dinosaur in sky get wet" they say.

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How's baby Will getting along? You can see the latest pictures after the jump...

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I'm sure that you're not surprised there's not been much blogging in the last week or so. We've been very busy with the newest addition to our family - little baby Will. Or Baby Woo asd Jo and I continue to call him following Will's big brother's lead.

Last week was tough for all manner of reasons. Firstly there was the obvious addition to our family of a baby. He's pretty easygoing as babies go - sleeping much of the time - but we've had major angst on how to feed him. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth we've settled on a pragmatic rather than dogmatic approach and everyone seems much happier, especially little Will.

Then there are issues of how two toddlers will cope with the little interloper entering their lives. Patrick has been a complete star. His behaviou over the last week has been something to behold, he's fascinated by baby will but also seems to have grown up to fulfil the role of big brother. He's hardly been on the naughty step since Will arrived.

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My wife is a brave woman, she's nine months pregnant and yet decides to give the twins their first go at painting. But I guess with the rain pouring down that teacher training has stepped in and she's gone into "wet break" mode. What a trooper.

See the picture slideshow after the page jump...

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The twins love playing with their toy shopping trolley. You can often find one of them pushing it around, having filled it with a variety of multi-coloured plastic toys. Invariably they will announce they are going to the shops.

Kitty: Look dadda, shop.
Me: You're going to the shops sweetheart?
Kitty: Yes
Me: And what are you going to buy at the shops?
Kitty: BISCUITS

It's always biscuits, every single time they play shop and you ask them what they are going to buy or have bought - the answer is biscuits. We don't feed them on a diet of biscuits, honest, they may have one biscuit a day, often none. Yesterday my son was playing shop while Jo was out taking Kitty to see the doctor. Patrick was pushing the trolley around and I asked him what he was going to the shop for.

Patrick: Mummy's Tea and Daddy's tea

Bless him. Isn't that lovely. Not only has he broken the biscuit spell he's thought of us too.

Me: What are Mummy and Daddy having for tea then Pat?
Patrick: BISCUITS

Lovely.

Butter Wouldn't Melt, originally uploaded by Harry Neary.

Don't the twinnies look gorgeous? And so grown up too. They are in a totally adorable phase at the moment. Though that also brings many a moment of mischief.

Their speech is really coming on too. Sentences are getting longer week by week and their comprehension of what we tell them is improving rapidly too. It really is amazing watching your children grow up.

Neither can pronounce a hard C or the letter K yet though, once they manage that their speech is going to sound really impressive. Right now car is "char", but even that's adorable in its own way.

For the curious photophiles among you II shot this on black & white film. Yes actual film. Taken with a brilliant Canon EOS 5 SLR I bought for ?30 on Ebay, oh and a much more expensive Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 lens. The film? Ilford HP5 400.

Kitty and her Grandpa, originally uploaded by Harry Neary.

Our daughter is just over two years old but has clearly decided that she is a grown up. She points at other children, often ones a year or two older than her and declares, "Look Dad, a baby."

And that last quote brings up my main point for this post. For the last few weeks Kitty has been calling me Dad. I've got very used to being Daddy or Dadda especially as Kitty's voice¹ is so sweet and angelic.

Now I'm merely Dad. And while she's still the same tiny adorable flirt that ignores her mother's orders and attempts to wrap me around her little finger, something has changed.

Being called Dad makes me feel old in a way that Dadda or Daddy didn't. When I try to point this out to Kitty she just laughs at me like I'm an idiot.

_{¹At least her normal voice, not the one she uses for screeching "my toy" at her twin brother.}

Click the image to watch the video of our twinnies...

From Ring o Roses