Dummies

If there’s one thing that keeps kids entertained it’s watching a dvd of themselves. The hours of footage from their baby days I’d had compiled onto a dvd to reminisce on in later years doubles as a babysitter by holding them enthralled.

Trouble is it’s hard not to be drawn to it yourself as the startling sight of younger versions of you and your family leap off the screen. But any depressive thoughts of this reality are quickly overcome as, with relief, I realise I now have a volume switch for the incessant crying that suddenly fills the house.

I don’t know whether it’s the surround sound amplifying the assaulting noise or just the fact my ears have become unaccustomed, for the howling duet by my beautiful baby twins sounds like a symphony orchestra gone wrong.

How did we live like that during those years?!

Oh I remember. Our volume switch came in the form of a plug – a dummy to be more precise. But while these small pacifiers bring welcome relief during the day they have the ability to make parents’ lives a living nightmare by night.

Imagine this scenario: Baby falls asleep chomping on their dummy (think Maggie Simpson-style), dummy eventually slithers out of baby’s mouth, baby wakes up and begins crying for their dummy. Repeat cycle every half hour.

This, my friends, is called dummy addiction.

Now imagine this happening all night every night and times it by two. Oh and throw in a toddler who is trying to sleep.

It’s a wonder the hallway carpet wasn’t rendered threadbare that year as we took it in turns, stumbling down the hall and fumbling around in the dark for the blasted dummy – that being a euphemised version of the many names it came to be called. It was never located in a logical place – often down the side of the cot or under the pile of blankets. But it was a race against time for fear of waking the other twin who’d probably just nodded off themself after their own dummy mishap. 

Just cut their dummies up, I was told. But I couldn’t bring myself to so, instead, this shattering tedium went on for months, and surviving on only two and a half hour’s broken sleep every night, I was a walking zombie.

Sometimes my wonderful mother-in-law would come and do the night shift, where she’d sit up and not get an ounce of sleep while we locked ourselves in the rumpus room, two floors below, shutting all the doors with the aim of getting a solid night’s sleep. That didn’t work for me – I could still hear them. As it turned out, I needed (and still do) years of training to re-programme myself not to wake. Instead I’d lie there fretting about what was going on upstairs and feeling sorry for my mother-in-law.

This torture continued until I read about glow-in-the-dark dummies. Why hadn’t someone told me about these before?! It made finding their location much easier but, eventually enough was enough. I’d steered clear of attaching their dummies to their sleep suits with a clip fastened to a short ribbon as it was a big no-no but I couldn’t see how the ones we had could be a hazard so that was what I did. They soon cottoned on that they could now easily locate their own dummies and everyone was a lot happier.

They kept their dummies (for sleeping only) until they were nearly three and eventually bit holes in them so I got them to say bye-bye and chuck them in the bin.

And that was the end of that – no one ever looked back.

You’ve probably worked out by now that it’s not a good idea getting your babies addicted to dummies. However, that’s all in the past and my three have slept through the night for years.

… If only I could.

Embarrassing Bodies

Oftentimes I dread picking the twins up from kindy.

You see, like many kids of their age they are keen story tellers and like to divulge a little too much information, the likes of which sometimes gets repeated back to me come pick-up time.

“Well if they ever say anything about me, don’t believe a word of it,” I reply, in an attempt at preventative face-saving.

It’s not that I have anything particularly shameful to hide, but you never know what embarrassing piece of fact or fiction is going to come out their mouths.

Speaking of embarrassing, last week when I went to pick up the kids I was met with: “Oh Jai’s been telling me all about watching Embarrassing Bodies. He told me there was a lady on it who couldn’t stop weeing and pooing.”

Jai has only caught a glimpse of the tv show once but is obsessed with it and will take any opportunity even just to bring its title into a sentence.

Quite some time ago while I thought they were happily entertaining themselves in their rooms, I attempted to catch up on some pre-recorded programmes on MySky.

There’s nothing like a dose of Embarrassing Bodies to boost one’s self esteem and I’d just settled down to it when the kids all piled into the lounge.

They skidded to a halt and froze with looks of horror on their faces.

Then: “Ewwwwwwwwww,” they stared aghast at the African woman with the oversize nipples on the screen.

The cat was asleep on my lap and the remote had somehow ended up on the other side of the room so they saw a few other sights before I finally prised myself from the couch and turned it off.

Shortly after their father returned from surfing.

“Dad,” Miss Four screeched. “We saw fannies and willies and big black boobies!”

Her dad looked at me shocked while I recoiled guiltily further into the sofa.

That evening, while out walking with a friend I told her about my childrens’ impromptu lessons of the human body.

“But I suppose it was sort of educational, like teaching them about the human body and that it’s flawed,” I said trying to justify my lack of parental responsibility.

“No Jodi, that’s just sick,” she said matter-of-factly.

She was right. Allowing my kids to watch Embarrassing Bodies was now coming back to haunt me by embarrassing myself.

“Mum you have an embarrassing body!” Master Four yelled in his overloud voice while walking through the playground at pick-up time.

I couldn’t shut him up fast enough.

Return to School

If you’d asked me last week whether or not I was ready for the kids to return to school I might have said no. 

After re-establishing the pecking order at the start of the holidays things went surprisingly swimmingly. Further, upon returning home from a two-week beach holiday they were kept happily entertained re-discovering their Christmas toys to the point I didn’t even need to consult the “Surviving the Holiday” tips I’d cut out of a magazine.

But then, earlier this week, while I was enjoying this newfound time-out as the kids companionably turned their lounge upside down one floor below, Miss Four knocked out Master Sixes tooth and all hell broke lose.

Jolted back to my senses I raced downstairs to the tune of Master Six screaming blue murder. There I found him grasping his mouth, which was gushing with blood while Miss Four clutched her stomach looking sick at what she’d done.

“I might just put myself on the naughty step,” she uttered amongst the racket, leaving the room.

It was hard to stay mad at her after that.

By now we should be used to Master Six’ dramas every time he loses a tooth. It’s always a fiasco once he spots blood. After I’d cleaned him up and calmed him down I went back to Miss Four on the naughty stair and let her tentatively near her brother to see the damage and apologise.

The blood had stopped but he now had three top teeth in a row missing and was standing over the basin whimpering with Master Four’s arm around him while looking daggers at his sister in the mirror.

“You’re going to be rich with all these teeth falling out,” I said trying to distract him from potential retaliation.

“But mum,” piped up Miss Four. “Why does the tooth fairy want his teeth?”

“Because she buys them off him and takes them back to fairy land and makes necklaces out of them,” I replied making something up on the spot and feeling quite pleased about it. “That’s why you have to keep them clean – she only buys nice white teeth.”

“But why does the tooth fairy want necklaces?” she persisted, totally missing my point.

Anyway, the tooth fairy (who is now broke) paid well that night to make up for the pain. But this unscheduled debacle was the beginning to the end - cue World War Three.

Come Wednesday I’d had quite enough of playing referee amid the tales and tears, the banter of who’s marrying who (yes, they’re still obsessed with that) and calling each other “Poo-poo diaper babies” (in American accents) courtesy of the (soon to be banned) Cartoon Network channel.

So now they are safely ensconced within their respective school gates I’ve managed to restore the house back to its former glory and can breathe a sigh of relief that we made it through the holidays intact, bar several missing teeth.