The twin business (1)

 

In April 2008 we found ourselves at a kind of dead end. We wanted to move, but to relocate to Strasbourg. Or perhaps we would buy a camper and travel for two years. Or we would make up our minds to have a baby.

The truth is that we were not clear about all this. Even when we were joking (I don’t know why I say this, because it was not a joke), our friends’ daughter played the innocent hand to help us put all these ideas in order. We did it twice, and on both occasions, having kids ranked last on the list. And guess what… it was the first one to become true.

Faced with all these uncertainties, we used them as an excuse to tell our family that we were awaiting twins. We told them that we had been tied down, and in what a way! They all bought into it. The next step was to ask them if they wanted to see the documents for our mortgage and then show them the scan instead. “Can you see the little spot?”. And some replied “… but there are two of them!”. Yes, yes… two little spots. It’s twins. Our family went crazy with delight (I suppose that half of them took for granted- we took for granted, including myself- that kids were not for us). We could hardly imagine that our “joke” about the mortgage would be ab-so-lut-ely right in the future.

We soon found out that the twin invasion is based on the twin business. Double baby trolleys, cots, beds, car seats, hammocks and so on. Besides this, every single one of these operations also requires its corresponding Master’s Degree.

It is fascinating to find out how many useless objects are sold to expecting parents. I would like to think that having twins has been a reality check for us in many things and has made us realize that we have to play down many others.