step up and sort it out Mrs Nature – now!

I need to start this post with a disclaimer:

I love my kids more than anything (including chocolate and wine)

However this parenting job is bloody hard work and at times my beloved offspring can be enormously annoying.

I remember when the twins were small enough to snuggle in each arm and I would gaze upon them with pure adoration; had you told me then that one day I would feel my hands twitching as I tried to contain the urge to bang their heads together after listening to them pick at each other for an hour I just wouldn’t have believed you.

But its true; how can anyone be expected to keep their sanity when conversations like this become a daily occurrence;

Twin boy (in the car) ‘mummy are we there yet.’

Me with long drawn out sigh ‘no’

Twin girl ‘how many minutes’

(Conversation halts for five minutes whilst the twins have a short argument because twin boy wanted to ask the minutes question – argument ended by me losing my cool and issuing an unrealistic threat that we all know will never be carried out)

Twin boy ‘how many minutes’

Me ‘twenty’

Twin boy and girl ‘1,2,3,……20’ followed by ‘are we here? Shall we take our belts off?’

The view through the window clearly depicts we are still on the motorway therefore seatbelt removal will result in potentially a large fine from the police, or more realistically mummies head exploding through shouting too much.

Me ‘there are sixty seconds in one minute so that means you need to count to (falters here…) A lot of minutes.’

Twin boy ‘oh, so are we nearly there yet?’

Me ‘no’

Twin girl ‘how many minutes?’.

And so on…

Even short car journeys now can feel like an eternity and on long ones I am known to feed them both huge sunday roasts before setting off and then turning the radio onto classic fm and whacking the heating onto maximum in a bid to encourage sleep. This is a risky strategy though because it often results in the twins being as awake as ever whilst I bite down on my hands in order to keep my eyes open. Or god forbid the worse happens as we pass the last services on the M25 at the longest point between junctions and twin boys’ sunday roast digests into his bottom and issues a five second warning before it reappears. Cue much shouting and wiggling from him and tears and exhaustion from me and often a bag with soiled underwear as the final insult.

And why do five year olds have to shout everything and ask a gazillion questions; and why do five year old girls have to perfect the ‘scream’…

Should twin boy accidentally catch twin girl with a glancing blow to the skull she is known to issue a wail that could shatter glass. My spikes rise up on my back and I could once more gleefully strangle them both.

And why do they eat so loud? And with such bad manners? I was showered today in cod and chips as twin boy regaled me with a tale of his footballing glory whilst shoveling food into one side of his mouth and the cleverly flicking bits at me with his tongue from the other side. I couldn’t even ask him to stop as I would have had to open my mouth and risk him getting the money shot and his aim was spot on today.

You can’t blame us, the parents, I know this because twin girl eats impeccably where as twin boy inhales and exhales his meals. Twin girl screeches like a; well like a girl; and twin boy doesn’t. Both were brought up exactly the same so I have solved the nature verses nuture argument. Further proof of this can be found by watching twin girl eat tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber whilst her brother pretends to vomit when presented with a representative of a healthy food group.

So I repeat; I love my kids but since Mother Nature made them a little bit annoying and I am finding the task of parenting quite hard work maybe she ought to step back in the saddle and sort them out?

Any one have a number for Mother Nature?