I am no fan of the newborn days when all babies do is eat, sleep and fail to burp.
I spent those months longing for the time when my twins could spring up and run about in the park. But now I am beginning to think I should have relished the time when they would stay where I left them.
Once I could wander around the park lost in my own thoughts while the twins dozed in their buggy. Now the moment I put them down in it their little bodies go rigid in protest. They struggle to be freed from its straps and wail like air raid sirens at this forced incarceration.
Thing is I wouldn't mind letting them out if it weren't for two points. Firstly, Zach can't walk. He can stumble along, as if blind drunk, while clinging onto both my hands. But this renders me incapable of chasing after his brother or pushing the buggy, so it's not a very practical solution.
Secondly, Jonah's death wish seems to intensify outside the house. There is a shallow brook that runs along beside my local playground, to which he is magnetically drawn. He will wobble precariously on its banks as if daring me to dash over in time to save him when he falls, encumbered as I am with his slowcoach brother and laden pushchair.
Now I find myself thinking nostalgically of the ease of those pre-walking days.
There's no pleasing some mothers.