"The greatest battles were won through logistics"
Two minutes.
Two minutes doesn’t sound like a long time but a lot can happen in just two minutes.
Two minutes is an eternity when your baby is crying and you’re making up a bottle.
Two minutes is a workout series.
Two minutes is extreme stress when kids are screaming in the back of the car.
Two minutes is all you need to read an email and find out if you got the job.
Two minutes is all your twins need to untidy the entire house.
Two minutes is what you wish you had to drink your coffee warm.
Two minutes is the time you need to see the result of a pregnancy test.
And two minutes is the time there was between my twin 1 and twin 2.
At 12.21 and 12.23 on a Tuesday afternoon, they were here and they were real, and life was about to get a whole lot busier.
Just like that, 2 minutes changed absolutely everything.
Me
My name is Irene and I’m a twin mum. I have boy & girl, 3 and a half year old twins.
It’s funny – when I started writing all this, it was a way to remind myself that I can do other things outside of being a "mum of twins" - yet that is the first thing I say to describe me.
Around the time they turned 3, I realized that it'd been pretty much 3 years and 9 months since I had done anything for myself. Pregnancy was so intense that all I was focused on was making it to the end safely (for us all). Once they were born, everything I did revolved around them (their feed & nap times controlled my whole life every single day).
At some point I did feel I had forgotten about the things I liked to do for myself or the things that I was good at. I was always so extremely busy that I physically could not turn my mind off at the end of the day, I'd be constantly thinking about what had to be done. So I wanted to find a hobby, something to help me unwind but easy to plan. I couldn't go from zero to 100 so it had to be something with minimal planning involved, no childcare required and that I didn't rely on anyone else to do it.
I’ve always liked writing, since I was very young, so it felt like the perfect hobby choice since I could do it from the comfort of my couch or bed at the end of a long day surviving twins, without having to worry about scheduling or organising. I had to at least give it a go, and it has been the most effective way to switch off and give my mind a break.
Aside from being a twin mum, I am also a qualified Primary Teacher and Early Years Educator. I own two childcare settings in Cork where I have amazing staff who share the same passion for education that I have. I've always loved working with children and I've always wanted to be a mum, so I consider myself very lucky to be able to do both!
If you're reading this, I hope that you enjoy it and it also helps you switch off at the end of the day, but I do want to say that I'm not claiming to be an expert or to have magic solutions for anything, I do my best and try different things to take care of my twins so that they grow up happy and healthy. Like any parent does.