There is nothing quite like the excitement in a child’s eyes as they dart down the slide. It forces me to remember what is important in life and focus on the pure innocence that my children possess. One look at the glitter in their eye and smile on their face and all my adult woes are immediately forgotten.

Here are Jake and Ava at Suson Park in St. Louis.

This evening as the bath is filling with warm sudsy water, I popped downstairs to warm the baba’s bottles. From the kitchen I hear the lovely sound of  laughter from Jake and screams of delight from Ava.

I step from the kitchen to listen. More laughing. More screams. The sound of toddlers laughing is one of the most glorious sounds on earth!

I gather the bottles and ascend the stairs as I listen to belly laughs and screaming coming from our bedroom. I enter to see Jake flying headfirst into the soft faux fur blanket covering the bed. He lands and erupts in laughter as Ava is lifted and catapulted headfirst onto the nest of pillows.

As Darragh has been in Chicago for the past week, he is full of excitement and raring to play with the baba’s.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t see the importance of keeping things low key at bedtime.

We’ve spent 18 months trying to get the baba’s to sleep between the hours of 7 and 7. It’s now 6:45 and they are flying around the bedroom like little circus gymnasts. Unbelievable! I hear a Mummy scold flying out of my mouth and continue with my chores.

I tend to the bath and come back to the same antics I left. Although the three of them are loving their together time, I am dreading the tears that will ensue when they are too wound up for bedtime.

I issue my Mummy scolds again.
Me: “Who is the adult here?”
Darragh: “Clearly, you.”

Ugh! I’m fighting a losing battle.

I stomp downstairs to start dinner and drown out the anticipated cries.

Good Night!

Coming from a multicultural household, the question that keeps surfacing is “what accent will the baba’s have?”. Will they have the fluent and graceful American English accent of my native tongue, the Irish lilt of Darragh’s homeland or or a very proper British accent?

My theory is that they will have some mix of the three.
Time will surely tell.

Although, the use of British colloquialisms is already filtrating into their vocabulary.

Several days ago we were sitting on the couch and Ava said 2 words very clear. I looked at her with bewilderment. She then repeated the same words several times.
A light bulb went off in my head.
Me: “Oh Dear?”
Ava: “Oh Dear”
Me: “Oh Dear?”
Ava: “Oh Dear”
Me (laughing): “Oh Dear”
Ava (laughing): “Oh Dear”

I love our conversations!

I have fond childhood memories of beautiful white snow and spending snow days bundled so thick with layers that I could barely move my arms and legs and sledding down our neighborhood hills.

We eagerly introduced the baba’s to this wonderful past time at an early age.

During our trip to Verbier, we loaded the baba’s and the sled into the bubble and ascended the mountain full of excitement.

Once at the first station, we unloaded ourselves and our gear and plopped Ava & Jake into their little sled. They were full of smiles and bewilderment as Darragh pulled them around the slopes.

Just seeing the excitment in their eyes made all the sleepless nights worth it!

Nothing can restore your youth more than seeing the world from a child’s eyes.

Thank you Ava and Jake for giving me this pleasure.

We arrived at our chalet on Saturday morning with high aspirations of a nice balance between relaxation and adreniline filled fun. We were quickly introduced to the chalet staff, including our nanny for the week. She was a pretty, young English girl who was doing a gap year in Verbier. We said our hellos and agreed to see her in our room the following morning bright and early.

She arrived Sunday morning as planned and Darragh and I took off for a fun filled day of skiing. As my first day was quite stressful on the slopes and I was worried about how the baba’s were taking to the new nanny, I came down the mountain at lunchtime to see how things were progressing. I arrived in the room to find baba’s and nanny coping well. Both seemed to be hitting it off and I was at last feeling confident that this arrangement was going to work out well. I skipped off to the pub to meet Darragh and watch the Munster rugby match.

I stayed until Munster had the match wrapped up and took off for a much needed afternoon of relaxation. I arrived to the chalet to hear Ava screaming from the bottom of the stairs. I walked up the 2 flights of stairs to our room and was dismayed to still hear Ava screaming. I walked into our room to find Ava crying and trying to open the door, Jake running around throwing things about the room and the nanny asleep!!!!

I was completely stunned and shocked.

Speechless.

She was sound asleep curled up on our bed.
Our toddlers were screaming and destroying the room!

I could have envisioned her falling asleep for a second as I do find twin toddlers an exhausting experience. She was flat out and completely ignorant to Ava’s loud wails!

In a bad draw of straws, it seems we ended up with Sleepy Nanny instead of Super Nanny!