As I opened my 42nd birthday presents today from my father I found he had thoughtfully included a small battery tester wrapped in silver paper. A few years ago I would have wondered what on earth had got into him. But I’m a father now, and my father obviously understands what challenges life is throwing at me now, usually with the words “Daddy fix it!”. So he’s bought me one of the most practical presents I could have hoped for. OK, so this is definitely a very clear benchmark of the stage I’m at in life, but I was really excited to open up this small parcel and find something which will get constant use here.

When my son was born I was given a lot of useful advice. As a family we were given a million and one useful presents from friends, and lent maybe 2000 baby outfits, because, as we were reminded, we can never have enough can we?

But, and here’s a big but, nobody has yet thought to give me what I now consider to be one of life’s true essentials for Dads – a full set of screwdrivers, both Phillips and regular ones. Why hasn’t anyone come up with this as the perfect gift for Dads to be solemnly presented to them within several hours of the arrival of their firstborn. Because it seems like I have a never ending set of toys which need new batteries (which can be pre-checked for energy capacity from now on – cheers Dad).

I still don’t have a full set of screwdrivers yet so I’ll no doubt be adding to them forever. So from now on when anyone asks me what I want for Christmas and birthdays I will direct them to my Amazon wishlist which will soon include a comprehensive set of screwdrivers. And sadly, if I do get them, I’ll be thrilled!

Share This

I’ll be 42 soon and today I just learned three brand new words: Zygosity, monozygotic and dizygotic. And I can tell you, I’m feeling just a little bit pleased with myself about it. Zygosity is a noun – and could be used thus “Have you determined the zygosity of your twins yet?” (meaning have you found out if they are identical or non-identical?).

A standard answer could be “Yes, actually, they are monoxygotic.” (identical) or “Well, funny you should ask, but luckily for us they are dizygotic (non-identical). That’ll save us having to look closely at each of them to remember which one is which.”

Although we don’t yet know the gender of ours, we do know they are dizygotic which is something of a relief… for me, in any case. I know I would love them equally if they were identical but….. I’m so gullible and unobservant that I just know they wouldn’t have to do too much to confuse me. I can see the fall-out going on forever.

Me: “OK, so tell me, be honest, which one of you was driving the car when it went off the road and into the lake?”

“It was him” they say as they both simultaneously point at each other.

Thank God I won’t have to go through that.

Share This

My wife, Charlotte, said earnestly at lunch today that the worst part of being pregnant is choosing names. We both have similar ideas about this. We don’t want to go for anything in the “Top 50” as we’d like our children to feel unique and special while they’re growing up. When I was at school there was nobody else called Luke. At the time I wasn’t sure I liked it but now I’ve got used to it and actually like being one of the only Luke’s of my age. In fact I don’t remember coming across many others with my name at all when I was young.

So we’re now going through the process of choosing names for our twins. Not yet knowing the gender of them means we have to select our top four boys’ names as well as our top four girls’ names just in case we have two boys or two girls. We had a challenge choosing Monty’s name and surprised a few people when we christened him “Monty Joe”. We often get asked what Monty is short for and we reply saying that it’s not short for anything – it’s just Monty. No point in giving him a name if it’ll just get abbreviated later on, we thought, so we did it for him.

So today I stopped in a bookshop and looked through the baby book section to find a book on names. And there were loads of them, several written by authors who seem to be very well known experts in the world of names. I nearly bought one for £8.99 which gave detailed descriptions of names and their origins. But in that copy there were only 5,000 names listed whereas I secured what I consider to be an absolute bargain when for a mere £6.99 I found a heavyweight volume called 40,001 Best Baby Names (as if there’s a Worst Baby Names volume). Advertised as “the one-stop baby-naming shop” and at just over a tenth of a penny per name I felt this represented the kind of superb value I just couldn’t walk away from.

The book thoughtfully provides a definition for each name together with variations on the spelling. There is also a section early on with several lists of suggested names including: Girl names for children of lesbians and gays (e.g. Celeste, Darcy, Pia and Ramona), Over the top boy names to avoid (e.g. Attila, Caesar, Lancelot and Rambo), Macho names (e.g. Bucko, Rip, Zoom and Spike), Exotic names for your baby girl (e.g. Cheyenne, Phyllida, Saffron and Sheba) plus many many more (as they say).

So it looks like Charlotte and I have a lot of reading (and probably laughing) to do over the coming months. Our definite no-no’s will appear here in due course. We’ve agreed that we’ll only include names we both really like. And because of that, sadly, Kermit has already been struck off my list. Happily though, Scooby is still in with a shout.

Share This

My knowledge about twins is really restricted to what I’ve seen or heard over the years from either twins or people who know people who have twins. That is to say – it’s all random and I don’t really know what’s true and what isn’t. Do they really have some secret code or language which only they know? Can each one really tell when the other is in trouble, even when they’re nowhere near each other? Do they have some telepathic link? What is the long term impact on their sense of individuality if they are dressed in matching clothes?

So I know I’m going to have to find out some of these answers and consult the “experts”, i.e. people who have written books on the subject. Amazon displays over 1,500 titles when I searched under twins so my reading list could get a bit out of hand. So I asked the Oracle (my wife) for a recommendation. The first book she pulled down off the overloaded baby-book shelf was Double Trouble (Twins and How to Survive Them) by Emma Mahony.

Leafing through the pages swiftly I notice a lot of white, lots of clear, bold headlines and short paragraphs. This looks like my kind of book. I can dip in and out and not feel I have to read to the end of each chapter before putting it down.

So I’ll be able to report on my learning and progress in due course.

Share This

Choosing names for our children is presenting a real challenge. When we were expecting Monty we googled a lot… Mainly we searched for lists of most popular names. I was the only Luke at my schools between the age of 5 and 13 and I was keen to have names which were out of the ordinary and “bold”. I thought this might encourage our first-born to develop bravely. So we went for Monty. It’s not an abbreviation. It’s just Monty. And we gave him a second name, Joe. We did that because I was fed up with not having a middle name. Most of my friends did and I always thought there was something special about having a second name. My parents had both grown up during the war so when I was born in the 1960’s rationing was clearly still in their mind. Therefore I was to receive one name and one name only other than my family name and this was to be used sparingly.

So Charlotte and I decided to give our children more than one first name. I wanted to go for three but she wasn’t so keen. So we agreed on two. And it was fine with Monty. But now we have to find four boys’ names and four girls’ names. Charlotte doesn’t want to know the gender of our twins in advance. I would prefer to know but don’t want to know if Charlotte isn’t going to know. I’d only let something slip and feel terrible. So we’ve agreed we’re not going to find out until the twins are born.

We were slow to research names and even slower to agree on any. All of the ones we quite liked were in the top 10. So we were forced to be amore creative. We thought of Greek, Roman and Norse deities. But we couldn’t see ourselves really telling Zeus for the third time to brush his teeth or reminding Thor to wipe his feet before coming indoors.

Luckily Monty’s pregnancy went two weeks into extra time so by the time he arrived we had chosen his name already.

So now we’re going through the same process all over again. We have a few months to go but we can’t even agree one name let alone four!

Share This

This has been one of our many pet projects. We need two – one for carrying the kids around generally to and from the shops, nursery etc but we also need one for Sunday mornings. On Sundays I run with our son around Richmond Park, one of the most beautiful open spaces of parkland in the UK. I’ve regarded it as my back garden for the last 10-15 years since living in South West London. I’ve been running there since the early 90’s and it’s become a bit of a sanctuary for me. And now we have Monty, I push him around a 7 mile loop of the park each Sunday. After that we go to the café where we have “the usual”. Monty has cake and the froth off the top of Mummy’s hot chocolate and Daddy has coffee and whatever cake Monty hasn’t eaten.

It’s become a bit of a family tradition – we always used to run before Monty came along and we didn’t see any need to change things afterwards. On the contrary, I thought it would be good for Monty and any other siblings to get used to the idea that Mummy and Daddy like to exercise too so it must be normal. That way maybe they will grow up wanting to exercise too. But it was always going to be logistically tricky. We just had to adapt. But now I realise I will have to run with him and the twins as well. Richmond Park has some hills which can be appreciated best when seen from a distance as they enhance the beauty of the Park. Pushing a buggy up them, however, is a different kind of experience. It’s knackering. So I reckon that instead of pushing them up the hills I’d be better off hauling them up in a kind of running rickshaw.

So if anyone knows where I can get a running buggy which will sit three please let me know. I saw a guy out in the park with a double buggy last week so I know it can be done. It’s not that I’m competitive but I haven’t seen anyone pushing or pulling three in a buggy yet. OK, so yes, I do want to be the first.

I do an extreme sport which is footracing across wilderness environments. Twice I’ve done races of over 300 kilometres in the Arctic hauling a sled so I’m thinking of asking the guy who designed my sled to build me some Heath Robinson style contraption which will fit all three kids in it. I have some time as I won’t put the twins in a buggy for the first 6 months. Therefore we need to have this by May 08.

Exciting stuff! And just one of our many projects…

Share This

The part of Clapham where I live is nicknamed “Nappy Valley” owing to the huge number of families with children and babies. I’ve heard it’s the area with the most number of Mums, Dads and 2.4 children in Europe. This is an amazing fact. And I have no doubt it’s true. The fact that that someone actually bothered to count them is no less amazing. I am proud to think that throughout the almost 42 years of my life so far I have learned many utterly pointless things. This is definitely one of the most pointless of them all.

There’s a street near us called Northcote Road – it’s the main shopping street which runs the length of the “valley”. On Saturdays it is packed with local mothers and fathers out shopping with their children. It’s a bit chaotic, especially as there doesn’t seem to be any kind of buggy etiquette. Charlotte, my wife and future Operations Director of Montholme Twins Ltd, came home yesterday commenting that some mothers with two or three children weren’t given right of way by other mums with single children.

You see, we’re expecting twins. Hence the blog.

I’ve never blogged before. But I’ve never had twins before so I guess it’s just another new experience, right?

And the reason I’m blogging is because becoming a Dad of twins isn’t one of those new experiences you can just casually breeze your way through. Well I can’t, anyhow.

I need to do research. I have questions. Millions of them.

We’re expecting our first batch of twins at the end of November and by then I want to have found some answers…

And this is one of the various purposes of the blog – to ask and answer some of the questions I have – I’d really appreciate any feedback, comments and suggestions from anyone with any bright ideas.

I’m going to need all the help I can get.

Share This