"Morning Dad! Can We Have Pancakes?"

Earlier this year at the back end of January 2017 I was pulling an "All Weekender" at work. This means I start work at 7am Saturday morning and I won't finish until 7am Monday morning. As always when I am on this shift I woke up at 6am to get myself ready and sorted for work and, as always, I tried to be as quiet as I could be so that I didn't wake the twins up. This is not an easy task for me as I am, according to my wife, "like a pet elephant" and apparently it is more obvious when I am trying NOT to be like a pet elephant. But, like I say, I generally try my hardest not to wake the kids, however...I failed! I pulled back the shower curtain at 6:06am to see Ruby, one of the twins, sitting on the toilet with a massive smile on her face as she shouted "MORNING DAD! CAN WE HAVE PANCAKES?"

I'd like to meet the parents who have time to do this!

I am not sure what it was about that exact moment in time but as I stood there naked as the day I was born, dripping wet, still not quite fully awake and without my hearing aid (I am partially deaf and wear a BAHA) and being greeted by a beaming 5 year old demanding pancakes I suddenly had this thought that I should be a blogger! Something about that moment made me think that people might actually be interested in reading the blogs of a 35 year old father of twins as they are pretty hilarious (most of the time) and I like to think that I am quite hilarious too! And modest! Since the day the twins were born I have talked about them on my Facebook page and over the years I have been told by various people I have bumped into that they "love reading about my girls" and that "your twins are hilarious. I love reading about them" so I figured people must enjoy reading what I have to say.

Facebook doesn't have a huge blogging community so I knew I would need to look elsewhere to get some advice and to get started. My wife's cousin, the twins Godmother, is a book blogger and she has a really heavy Twitter presence so I decided I would start Twittering. I also decided that I would approach blogging in a steady way and not just jump straight into it and I knew that Twitter would be a good place to start. I created a Twitter account with the handle "Dad of Crazy Twins" and I explored the Twittersphere following other dads who tweet and blog and within a matter of weeks I had connected with a great bunch of people living very similar lives to mine and with their own stories to share. I enjoyed, and still enjoy, reading their blogs and their tweets and finding out that EVERYBODY just wings this whole parenting gig and that everyone experiences the same joy, frustrations, hilarity, anger and pure exhaustion of parenting that I was experiencing. And that has brought me to today where I am officially starting my blog.

Ready to drop 1993's hottest new album

So, now that I am starting to get into it, I guess this would be a good place to introduce myself. My name is Graeme, I am 35 years old and married to my awesome wife, Kate. We have twin daughters called Ruby and Poppy who are currently 6 years old. The twins, or "The Twiglets" as we call them, are like chalk and cheese! Ruby is a tomboy who hates wearing dresses, hates the colour pink but loves dinosaurs, superheroes and jumping around on the furniture. Poppy is a princess who loves wearing dresses, loves anything pink and enjoys other princesses, tiny little animal toys and admiring herself in the mirror. They are, however, the best of friends and they adore each other. They are also absolutely bonkers and they make me smile, laugh, occasionally cry and they also frustrate the life out of me on a regular basis with their random foibles and the typical behaviour that you would expect from two 6 year olds. But, like the vast majority of parents, they are my life and I love everything about them (well, maybe not everything, I am certainly not a fan of their selective hearing or their ability to mess a room up within 16 seconds of being home from school).

And that brings my first blog post to an end. I think I have covered what I wanted to cover and provided a little insight in to who I am and what the purpose of this blog is. I intend on posting on a regular basis in which I will share moments of my parenting life that I think are worth sharing for one reason or another. It won't be linear and will probably be as random as "In The Night Garden" but hopefully nowhere near as trippy and I definitely won't be including a creature that looks like a stoned axolotl who likes to stack bricks or whatever the hell it is that Makka Pakka does. I will also be naming each post with a related quote - future titles will include:

"I Think I Pickled Our Baby"

"Are You Sure It Isn't A Burger?"

"We Don't Talk About Barbara" and

"Kaaaaaaaaate! I Have S**t On My Lips! It's Dripping Off My Eyelashes"

Hopefully that will intrigue you enough to come back...

Improvised Moana and Maui costumes

Oh...and in case you were wondering. They never got pancakes. Poppy woke up a few minutes later, I took them downstairs, put them on the couch with a drink and their breakfast, put the TV on and asked them to be quiet and to not disturb their mam. I left for work at 6:45am and I got a text off Kate at 7:03am saying "Thanks for trying"...

Until next time

The Twiglets Dad