Fatherhood makes you notice the little things in life... and then boast about them
DOUBLE TROUBLE FOR A FIRST-TIME DAD OF TWINS
HAVE you ever bought a car?
Let’s say it’s a Volkswagen Golf and only after its arrival do you suddenly notice the vast variety of Golfs out there.
Some have bigger wheels than yours, some have tinted windows and some are in the effective but expensive metallic blue (£695 extra).
Before that moment of Golf ownership, they were all just cars, and that’s how I feel about being the proud owner of two straight from the showroom babies. Obviously, the car analogy only extends so far. You can’t give the twins a good jet wash, even though that would be handy.
My point is that, a year ago for me, children existed under a generic umbrella of small humans.
This all changed on day one of fatherhood when I realised mine were different. I’d survey the maternity ward looking at the competition – mine were far cuter for a start. A few days later and some had lots of thick black hair, some no hair and some the perfect dusting of brilliant blonde hair – mine. As the months have gone by I have been amazed at the sheer variety of babies out there. They can’t have just appeared, but I’d never seen them through the eyes of a father before. There were millions of little personalities and some smiled, a little too much and some laughed, a bit too loudly. Funnily enough,
Thomas and Emma have the balance right with the smiling – save it for special occasions or when I’m dancing to Wham!.
Naturally, my children weren’t perfect and there were occasions when they cried, but less annoyingly than other people’s children and usually for a good reason.
I recently noticed a baby, roughly Emma’s size, eating a chocolate muffin from a plate in a well-known chain of coffee shops. I was impressed by her motor skills but also amazed how such stupid parents could create that baby.
If developing motor skills enabled her to eat a block of fat, sugar and preservatives then I’m pleased the twins choose not to be capable of eating from a plate.
And then one day last month, as I was changing a nappy, I realised Thomas was almost speaking to me. Emma too, was chatting or at least discernibly gurgling, and the thought struck me our children were ‘special’.
It’s a fine line between boasting and wanting everyone to know how much better your children are than theirs. This is why I’m going to keep the twins’ talents to myself and let their actions do the talking.
Surely there aren’t many parents who think their children are as good as mine, are there?