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Mami To Five

Life: The good, the bad and the ugly bits!

Twins; Should you buy two of the same toy or make them share?

Recently, a question popped up in my Facebook timeline from a group dedicated to parents of twins. This particular mother was asking about having identical toys for her young twins and whether this was okay. Many of the replies to her post were from parents insisting that she was wrong to do so and that her children would never, ever learn to share if she always bought two of everything. 

Personally? I believe those parents are thinking about it all wrong.

My daughters are now 16 and let me tell you buying two of certain things just makes your life so much easier! Actually, they still get two of a lot of things. In fact even their 14 year old sister quite often gets an identical gift, all by request. At Christmas they have always sat with their backs to each other and everybody’s gifts are numbered so everyone still gets their own surprise.

Did my children grow up unable to share? 

Of course not! My children grew up to be much more selfless than many other children I know. They would share more readily at playgroups when they were toddlers and always ask for a treat for everyone else if one was being offered to them.

Being a twin, in fact being from a large family in general, means that sharing is ingrained into your every day life from the day you are born. Everything is shared. Nobody gets a snack if there aren’t enough to go round, bags of sweets are shared, chairs are shared, hell even pyjamas are shared in this house! twins with new notepads twins share everything? www.mami2five.com

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3 Comments CATEGORIES // Kids, Life with twins, parenting TAGGED: large family, multiples, twins and triplets, twins sharing

Multiple Madness Linky #8

Hello all and welcome to Multiple Madness!!!

Apologies for the slight delay in getting this up today!

This is *the* place to be if you have any posts that feature twins, triplets or higher order multiples (for simplicity’s sake I will just say twins/multiples from now on!)

Having multiples is a completely different experience to having singletons. It is a uniquely hard, chaotic and yet wonderful experience, shared by only a few and their families. This is why I created this linky, so parents, family or twins themselves, can share with others who will get them and understand their special kind of joys and heartaches.

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Leave a Comment CATEGORIES // Life with twins, Multiple Madness Linky TAGGED: #multiplemadness, blog hop, fraternal twins, identical twins, linky, Linky party, multiples, triplets, twins

Multiple Madness Linky #7

Hello all and welcome to Multiple Madness!!!

This is *the* place to be if you have any posts that feature twins, triplets or higher order multiples (for simplicity’s sake I will just say twins/multiples from now on!)

Having multiples is a completely different experience to having singletons. It is a uniquely hard, chaotic and yet wonderful experience, shared by only a few and their families. This is why I created this linky, so parents, family or twins themselves, can share with others who will get them and understand their special kind of joys and heartaches.

A twin pregnancy is so different from a single one. Not only do we get a double whammy of those (not so) lovely hormones, we also get twice the number of arms and legs, bums and knees to wriggle and push our huge swollen tummies into odd shapes. We might get extra peeks at our unborn babies but we also get extra hospital appointments and the added burden of higher risks, just because there is more than one.

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Leave a Comment CATEGORIES // Life with twins, Multiple Madness Linky TAGGED: #multiplemadness, blog hop, link up, linky, Linky party, multiples, triplets, twins

Multiple Madness Linky #6

Hello all and welcome to Multiple Madness!!!

This is *the* place to be if you have any posts that feature twins, triplets or higher order multiples (for simplicity’s sake I will just say twins/multiples from now on!)

Having multiples is a completely different experience to having singletons. It is a uniquely hard, chaotic and yet wonderful experience, shared by only a few and their families. This is why I created this linky, so parents, family or twins themselves, can share with others who will get them and understand their special kind of joys and heartaches.

A twin pregnancy is so different from a single one. Not only do we get a double whammy of those (not so) lovely hormones, we also get twice the number of arms and legs, bums and knees to wriggle and push our huge swollen tummies into odd shapes. We might get extra peeks at our unborn babies but we also get extra hospital appointments and the added burden of higher risks, just because there is more than one.

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Leave a Comment CATEGORIES // Life with twins, Multiple Madness Linky TAGGED: #multiplemadness, blog hop, link up, linky, Linky party, multiples, triplets, twins

Multiple Madness Linky #5

Hello all and welcome to Multiple Madness!!!

This is *the* place to be if you have any posts that feature twins, triplets or higher order multiples (for simplicity’s sake I will just say twins/multiples from now on!)

Having multiples is a completely different experience to having singletons. It is a uniquely hard, chaotic and yet wonderful experience, shared by only a few and their families. This is why I created this linky, so parents, family or twins themselves, can share with others who will get them and understand their special kind of joys and heartaches.

A twin pregnancy is so different from a single one. Not only do we get a double whammy of those (not so) lovely hormones, we also get twice the number of arms and legs, bums and knees to wriggle and push our huge swollen tummies into odd shapes. We might get extra peeks at our unborn babies but we also get extra hospital appointments and the added burden of higher risks, just because there is more than one.

No parent of singletons will ever quite understand those first few weeks/months of trying to deal with two helpless newborns. Learning to pick them both up and carry them together, feed them together, just generally do what every mother does with one baby, twice, and still be able to use one hand to open doors or eat!

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4 Comments CATEGORIES // Life with twins, Multiple Madness Linky TAGGED: blog hop, Linky party, multiples, triplets, twins

Multiple Madness Linky #4

Hello all and welcome to Multiple Madness!!!

****Please remember that the whole point of linkys is to comment on other posts. Last week only myself and two others actually left any comments at all! I know things happen and sometimes life gets in the way, but I will have to start deleting those who repeatedly do not comment****

This is *the* place to be if you have any blog posts that feature twins, triplets or higher order multiples (for simplicity’s sake I will just say twins/multiples from now on!)

Having multiples is a completely different experience to having singletons. It is a uniquely hard, chaotic and yet wonderful experience, shared by only a few and their families. This is why I created this linky, so parents, family or twins themselves, can share with others who will get them and understand their special kind of joys and heartaches.

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Leave a Comment CATEGORIES // Life with twins, Multiple Madness Linky TAGGED: #multiplemadness, family, linky, Linky party, multiples, parenting, triplets, twins

Guest Post ~ Carving Pumpkins with Mummy of boy girl Twins!

With half term and me being extra busy with my special posts this week to celebrate my Blogaversary and my 100th post I just haven’t had time to write a Halloween post as I had planned to.

With that being the case a good friend of mine (although we are yet to actually meet face to face!) Jess who blogs over at Mummy of Boy Girl Twins kindly offered to write this guest post for me. Her twins are a lot younger than mine so have that extra Ahhh! factor too 😀

Carving pumpkins with the twins

pumpkin carving

Don’t hurt my new friend!

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2 Comments CATEGORIES // Halloween, Life with twins TAGGED: boy girl twins, family, guest post, multiples, Mummyofboygirltwins, pumpkin carving, siblings, toddler, twins

Two Brand New Linky Parties are on Their Way!

I’m really excited to announce that over the next few weeks there will be two new linky parties that will be appearing on the blog. Now I know my readers who are non bloggers will be completely flummoxed by that sentence so let me try and explain what that means! A linky party is basically where one, or a few, bloggers ‘host a party’. This is where they publish a Linky post with a special button that allows other bloggers to place a clickable picture that will take you right to their post. Sometimes it feels really lonely when nobody comments especially when you think your post is that extra bit special. So the whole premise is that everyone who links up visits some of the other bloggers so everyone feels the love by getting some extra visits and comments.

These linky parties can have a theme. You might remember my Summer Days linky that ran for two months during, well, the summer! Or they just might be a place for you to link up any post you want to get some extra attention.

If you are NOT a blogger but love reading them you might find some other fabulous blogs through these linky parties. Don’t feel obligated to click through but I’m sure they would all love for you to take a peek at what they have to say!

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Leave a Comment CATEGORIES // Multiple Madness Linky, Sunday Stars Linky TAGGED: #multiplemadness, #sundaystars, best post, linky, Linky party, multiples, star post, twins

Life with twins. Who’s the big sister?

life with twins

Life with 12 year old twin girls is a very melodramatic life indeed.  Things never seem to go easy, one of them always feels they are missing out on something or has done a millisecond extra of chores than the other one. They are always comparing grades and lengths of written work.

Don’t get me wrong, they get on great most of the time. if one is home from school, I’m continually asked how long it will be before the other is home.  They still sleep tangled together and truly do depend on each other.

But their life has always been a competition right from little, my hair is curlier than yours, but mine is longer, my feet are bigger, but I’m a centimetre taller than you.  Seriously they have been competing like this since they could talk!

When they were small it was easier to minimise the arguments, making sure they had identical toys, even books!  they had the same clothes, even if they chose to dress differently.  We made sure the plates looked the same, I didn’t go as far as counting peas, but it wasn’t far off!

Yes all parents compare, we (and you!) would be lying if we said we never have but we did try to make a conscious effort to not do it earshot of any of the kids.  But when we realised quite how argumentative they were we made on thing secret.  One tiny piece of information that now they are getting older and I hate to say it more quick-witted than us is getting harder to conceal.

what is this simple little piece of information they are so desperate to glean from us?

They don’t know who is the oldest!  there are a few choice adults who are in the know, like grandparents, aunts etc but it has been a secret for so long I’m sure not even all of them remember!

Why did we do this?  Because in all the arguments they have had over the years neither has been able to pull rank on the other.  Neither can say ‘I’m the big sister so I’m in charge, I’m right, or you have to listen to me… you know how it goes with siblings.

Over the last few years they have actually been conspiring together to get us to slip up. Even though it means that I now have to really think every time I get asked an obscure question by any of my kids, because they have drafted the younger two in as well, I think it is a great thing that they are learning teamwork!

When will we tell them the truth?  Probably on their 18th birthday.  I have been trying to conceive of a cute way to let them know rather than just blurting it out but I haven’t settled on anything yet.

do you think we are cruel, or mad, or even ingenious to have done this?  Are you a parent of twins? let me know how you deal with the twin rivalry thing.

Mami2Five

6 Comments CATEGORIES // Kids, Life with twins TAGGED: large family, multiples, sibling rivalry, tweens, twins

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