Albeit somewhat like extras from Shaun of the Dead, they’re now walking. First steps happened about a month ago, and I’m prepared to label them walkers officially now that they choose to go on foot rather than on hands and knees if they happen to be upright when the urge to travel strikes.

Rosa’s the more walky of the pair, but with Ruby’s boundless courage and energy making up for her slower start, she does very well. They both move as though their legs have gone to sleep, but they don’t seem to mind. In fact they seem delighted, though they don’t yet get anywhere fast, and resort back to a highly polished power crawl when speed is of the essence.

I’m told once they’re regularly walking outside, we’re looking at a £50 per month shoe habit – and that’s just one measly pair each – eek!

Rosa managed yesterday, with a single enthusiastic whack of her maraca, to smash the glass on my 1970s leopard skin coffee table with the fine tapered legs. Either she’s got superb arm and shoulder strength (which will please her daddy no end - winning forehand here we come…) or the glass in my beautiful but flimsy table doesn’t conform to today’s standards. Though I’m sure her muscles are adequately developed for her age, I suspect it’s the latter; I had been doubtful about its safety lately.

Anyway, they were delighted to be pounced on (Ruby was there too, the shatter occurred right under her face and hands, it was she I was more concerned about), whisked to the bathroom, hosed down and given a basin of water each to splash in, sleeves up to elbows, and not even close to bedtime. Jolly fun… Then I changed their clothes for good measure which they didn’t like, and our day got all boring again.

The table’s outside now in the rain. Though I loved it, I don’t care two hoots that it’s gone. It’s nice when old things die and are ready for the bin – makes way for something new. Paul on the other hands likes things to stay the same forever. But that’s a whole nother post…

Suddenly it’s happening all over again, terrier jaws meet nipples – Ruby has one gert big tooth bursting out of her top gum which quite frankly chafes like hell! And I seem to recall twatting on about the same subject, that is feeding and pain, almost exactly one year ago. So it’s with some regret that I’m winding down, just over one year of (almost) trouble free feeding, bar the first crazy 8 weeks or so. 

As I prize them off and sneak in the silicone teat (actually they love the bottle, humph!), I recall planning on a year, or at least to try for a year and then to see. However – what I planned and what I feel now seem to be just a little at odds. And I think breastfeeding mothers the world over will totally understand what I’m on about. Actually, if truth be known, I don’t want to stop just yet at all, but I think it will have to be.

Because although with these babies I have no desire to go on for much much longer (in practical terms it’s become very tricky), I’m afraid I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that I’m not one of these prudes who’s shocked by extreme (as Emma would say), or extended, breastfeeding. Nor do I hold with the view that this complete food, natural and unmodified, offers no nutritional benefit for babies over the age of one. The studies that aim to prove this commissioned by formula companies perhaps? But what business is it after all, of anyone other than the involved parties, whether or not a large baby or small child tucks in to a nip of most delicious elixir of breast a couple of times a day? 2 year olds, 3 year olds, 4, 5? Don’t mind me – fill your boots! Free food can’t be bad after all. And your mummy gets to eat all the pies.

If I’m honest, I think we might be designed to breastfeed for two years or longer. Which is what I’ve done, in a way, but condensed into one year, shared between two. And when you consider that at my lactating peak I was producing at least 1.5l of milk (pumped volume: actual volume usually assumed to be significantly higher) each 24 hours, I’d say there’s a fair chance I’ve met my quota and some…

Yep, they are one. One whole year old, each of them. It happened on Tuesday. We had a celebration, just a little one, but we went for a second today just to make sure, though this one was more ‘grown-ups drink beer’ than ‘kiddies eat jelly’. Because although they thoroughly enjoyed the wrapping paper the other day, they really haven’t a clue so we might as well indulge ourselves while we can get away with it. In fact since I assured our guests that there was no need to indulge the girls with presents, I managed to divert attention onto myself, scooping some fresh roses, a bottle of wine and a pot plant all for myself. A cunning plan. 

And here’s what they get up to these days.

New to the idea of spoon feeding, Ruby spreads chocolate pudding more around than in her mouth…

Rosa digging her bread.

It’s weird. How very spookily twinny…

At precisely 5.25pm yesterday, Rosa crawled right across the kitchen floor. She’s been trying to get her knees in the right spot under her chubby belly for some 10 weeks now, and then suddenly, at this precise moment, as if in a crawling masterclass having had the technique finally explained, she was off. Ruby at the time, was in her hight chair, back to Rosa, scoffing a particularly large chunk of cheddar, oblivious to the athletic milestone being passed beneath her.

Precisely one hour later at 6.25pm, Ruby, having tried to get her knees in the right spot under her own (slightly less) chubby belly also for 10 long weeks, crawled obligingly right up the corridor to her waiting bath, as if she too had suddenly fully understood the functions of her quadriceps, patellae and hip joints.

This is very exciting, and must prove to my mind, their split egg-ness; exciting mostly, because I’ve just saved myself £90 on DNA zygosity testing. Pint, anyone?

Who was it exactly, that decided that contact with floor renders food instantly inedible?

I’ve been observing my babies. Doing their best to crawl, damp sticky fingers making good contact with less than squeaky clean floor, occasional pause for rest, contemplation maybe, then thumb (in Rosa’s case), straight into mouth. Yum.

Now given that babies have been carrying out this kind of reckless behaviour for centuries without even a hint of extinction, not to mention the insertion of any thing to hand into the favourite orifice just on the off chance that it may be quite delicious, who on earth decided that food that had escaped the the plate need be condemned to the bin? That breaking the rule just once, would leave one struck down with some terrible debilitating infliction?

My house and its contents are relatively safe; cave baby might have fared a lot worse, I suspect, dead rodent, decomposing bird… But anyway – I reckon for more most people, whether to salvage floor food or not would depend a bit on who’s looking. Which reminds me, it was my brother that told his small son that it was “fine to drink from the carton (of juice) as long as nobody sees you doing it”. Not sure about that, but it does make me smile.

Even I (who scrapes mould off food) would be delighted to chuck a Mr Kipling away using the floor as an excuse, but the slice of home made tarte tatin I had recently? I’d scrape that off the carpark…

As for who masterminded the current fashion in germ hysteria - food production industry bigwigs probably (shift more units), in cahoots with fear mongering antibacterial soap makers. And who invented that ghastly stuff? Probably the same people who peddle those pricey little shots of probionic gloop, bacteria for the gut. Oh – so we’re OK to eat bacteria then? Oh, these are friendly bacteria, I get it.

Thrush, incidentally, I’m told is rife nowadays, under the fingernails due to that antibacterial soap stuff, mostly among women. So there’s a good reason not to buy it, rant rant…

They say that when choosing a baby’s name, you should test it in various ways. One is to imagine calling the name out in a crowded place. The mother of ‘Miracle’ seemed perfectly happy yelling the word last Sunday in the crowds of Southam car boot sale; I could only speculate on the specifics of Miracle’s conception as I observed her mother rounding up a flock of assorted children with the skill of an experienced sheepdog.

Yesterday I found myself in a certain well known chemist that I won’t mention because they don’t need any more advertising, surrounded suddenly by what seemed to be every single female member of staff. And they were, it transpires, all pregnant. Well not all, but most. This squeaking, giggling flock of womanly curves girls swooped on my double buggy, quite taken with my two apparently identical babies.

It just so happened, on this day, that my precious cargo were dressed alike. Worse than that, they were in pink velour, with identical flowery tops. I don’t know how it happened; a total accident, I promise. I don’t even like the pink velour. These impeccably groomed, fragrant ladies laughed when I had to come around to the front to identify each baby – this always raises a smile – as if I could tell them apart by the top of their hooded heads…

They loved my buggy with its lambskin lining and suspended toys (‘Alton Towers’ Julia called it, when on our first outing in the grown-up seats, I positively loaded the thing with attractions, lest our new mode of transport prove unpopular and scupper my shopping plans); They loved my cute girls, all grins and wriggles, relishing the attention they’re quite getting used to. Twins fascinate – especially a perfectly matching pair, in the same twatty outfits. None of these were carrying twins, they said with the usual sigh of relief. (You so love mine, but you shudder at the thought of getting a pair of your own.)

Now I can’t help wondering how that one off the cosmetics stand will look in the midst of grimy labour. Sweat ploughing clean furrows through the obligatory facial gunk, revealing the real face beneath? Or will she re-apply Touche Eclat between contractions?

Anyway, back to my girls. Thing is, they get attention, then I get attention. Remind me next time to try and find a pair of trousers without sick on, and a brush for my ratty hair. They kindly said I was looking good for a new mother of twins but I know that if I wear black, suck in my belly like billio and swing my handbag swiftly round to mask the remaining postnatal bulge, in poor light I can almost get away with it.

But you’ll not catch me in a binki as my granddad used to call them.

So yep, we’re onto solids. It’s going fairly well. And I was even congratulating myself on the quality of fare I serve up to the smallest members of the family, as I tucked in to their leftover sweet potato dish. Yum, pretty good…. But then as I savoured the last smooth little baby spoonful I remembered that I’d mixed it with my own breast milk… Yuk. Not as bad as drinking your own pee, but still very, very wrong.