So I have twins boys who are two and live in a cottage with 2.5 bedrooms, getting outside is essential. Either that or I will be refereing a lot of physical fights for the day. However, we live in the wildest place in Ireland which also happens to be the windiest place in Europe. Twin 2 has taken to tentatively putting his head round the side of the house so see how windy it is and often retreats back into the house. He doesn’t have many words for his age but unsurprisingly ‘Windy’ is one is the 20.
So my favourite hobby is looking for cheap flights and holidays and I got return flights for €60 to East Midlands. We have free accommodation at my mums and a much cheaper shopping bill once we are here. This is the price of a trip to the soft play and food while we are there. I’m not knocking their prices just trying to put it into context as people make comments, as they do, about the amount of money we must have because I make these trips!!
Since the boys turned two and I can travel with the three kids on my own we’ve done it a few times. They get to see granny and I get them out the house. It’s not like we do anything exciting, we got the park near the house, walk up the town and our favourite is getting the tram to the ‘cash point’. For £2.50 we go into Nottingham and look at the lions and take our time. We get off and go to the park on the way home and the house is a bit calmer than I’m used to and I feel more relaxed. And if it’s wet music at the library, a raft of mother and toddler groups and play centres that have enough clientele that can open on weekdays.
None of this is actually relevant for the story I wanted to tell. We all share a bed at granny’s and I was lying there with my daughter snuggling my back her arm draped over my shoulder and Twin 2 holding my had with his little fingers laced through mine. And my legs were all tangled up in Twin 1’s because I literally did’t have enough hands. I had to keep saying to him ‘I’m here and tickling him with my toes so he didn’t want to come and displace one of the others and cause a fight. His little giggle and ‘Mom’ made my heart melt and I felt lacking.
Then I remembered something that happened on the tram today. An older lady, I don’t know why but it carries more weight from that generation but it does, came over to me before she got off at her stop and said to me ‘I’ve been watching you on the journey and I think you are an amazing mum’. It was the words that made it different from the usual, ‘hats off to you’, ‘you’re doing an amazing job’. It was that she said that she was watching and made the assessment I’m an amazing ‘mum’. This was in the context of Ciarán going into melt down when I strapped him in because he wouldn’t stay in the pushchair.
I should have hugged her because that compliment will stay with me much longer than my trip to England but when I’m with the three kids having a conversation with a grown up is often a step too far.
So today we are going to get our coats and gloves on, ride the tram to the lakeside and feed the ducks. The best €60 I’ve ever spent!