Life And Me: I'm Sorry xx

Hi everyone.

I hope you all had a happy Easter break and that you were surrounded by your loved ones and made some lasting memories.
Easter was not really a big celebration in our house when we were young although we did always have hot cross buns. Neither of my parents were religious so we didn't really celebrate it as a religious event and Easter eggs didn't play a big part in our lives either as far as I can remember. I am probably completely wrong here and I will wait for my siblings to correct me! I do know that our Nan used to give us a gift or two at Easter and I remember her giving all four of us our own egg cups one year. Mine was in the shape of an Easter chick wearing a bonnet and I had that egg cup for years. I loved it. There was also one in the shape of a panda but I can't remember the others.

This last weekend has been hectic for us. My daughter came to stay for a few days with the twins. I collected them and all of their paraphernalia on Friday lunchtime. My car was full to bursting by the time everything was loaded. When we got to my house we unloaded everything and tried to get everyone settled in for the next few days. It took a while as you can imagine! My daughter was very weary so she went and put her head down for a while and the rest of us looked after the babies which was lovely. We had lots of things planned for if things weren't too busy. None of those things happened!

On Saturday we had the unexpected pleasure of a visit from our eldest four grandchildren and their Daddy. On a previous visit, Poppy had left one of her toys at our house - namely her dragon - and she decided that she couldn't sleep without it. She lasted a few days but spoke about how much she missed dragon all of the time and so I think Mummy and Daddy decided that enough was enough and Daddy was despatched with all four children to come to us and collect the much missed toy.

The elder four children had not ever met their new cousins and their Daddy hadn't seen them either and so it was really lovely when they arrived and they got to spend some time with Phoebe and Sam. They all wanted to hold and cuddle the babies and it was an ideal photo opportunity. How wonderful for me...all six of my grandchildren together for the very first time. I was, as someone commented, in my element. How very proud I felt!

Robyn (eldest granddaughter) with Phoebe (youngest granddaughter) xx

The rest of the day really went in a bit of a blur of cooking, washing, cuddling, feeding and trying to keep up with everything and everyone. I lost count of the number of nappies I changed or feeds that I did or helped with. I have no idea how many times I sterilised bottles and dummies, how many times I mislaid the muslin nappies and bibs or how many times times the babies were awake during the night times. After a few days I felt completely exhausted. I have no idea how my daughter does it!

Talking of my daughter...one of the last blog posts that I wrote either on here or on the triathlon blog that I also write, was composed after a particularly difficult day with my daughter and the twins. I was extremely worried about my daughter and, insensitively and without enough consideration, I went into a lot of detail about how things were going for the family. I didn't give much thought to what I was doing when I posted the link to Facebook and emailed it to friends and family. My intention was for everyone to realise how things were going and to encourage people to offer help and support and for my daughter to not feel that she is alone in all of this. In reality, and completely unintentionally, what I managed to do was make the situation worse and to make my daughter feel inadequate. This was the very last thing that I wanted to do. I so desperately want to help and support the family but I know that I need to take a breath before I go launching off on a mission to try to get things sorted out for them, to get them the support that they are entitled to, to assist in any way that I can.

The twins have a loving, caring and capable Mummy and Daddy. The decisions that Mummy and Daddy make are theirs and not mine.

Since before the babies were born, I have made it very clear that my daughter was and remains my priority in this situation. She is my child - despite her age - and I will move mountains for her if I have to as I would for any of my children. However, while I love the twins with all my heart, their Mummy and Daddy are there for them, to love them and provide for them. I must remember that.

So, once again, I am apologising for making my daughter feel uncomfortable and probably embarrassed. I'm sorry sweetheart, I truly am.

I'll leave you will a couple of photos. As usual, I have more photos somewhere on my phone and ipad that don't seem to want to be transferred to this laptop so I can't use them which is a bit annoying.