Having two babies is bloody harder than I’d ever envisaged, and today has been possibly the toughest one yet. In fact, thinking about it, all Monday’s are pretty dire. I’m still in blissful weekend mode where I wake up beside the man who helped me create my little miracles, and the man who bears most all responsibility for them at the weekends. It’s a bit of a shock-to-the-system when you hear Dexter screaming what I can only assume are toddler profanities and rattling his stair-gate like Lecter’s neighbour in Silence of the Lambs. Then there’s my beautiful newly birthed cherub in an odoriferous morning nappy laying beside me - eying up my breasts like an alcoholic who’s spotted out-of-date cast offs in ASDA’s grundon. At that very moment, you know you’re in for a crap day.

Yep, parenting two kids is tough. The midwife might as well have handed me twenty babies when she slipped my Heidi to me. All the sense of occasion was pretty much destroyed when she then whisked her away as “she’s gotta lot of poo on her, bless her… sit tight, I’ll just wipe the worst of it off”.

Even before Heidi and I were discharged, I was finding it hard work. Whipping out boobs on-demand and dealing with 3am hysteria came hurtling back like a bad dream.

And Heidi wasn’t as ‘pretty’ as I thought she would be. I remember seeing right past all the baggy and peeling skin with Dexter and thinking he was the most beautiful baby ever to be born. But Heidi looked like she’d strolled right out of a scene from the Labyrinth. Don’t get me wrong, my daughter is gorgeous (…now she’s had a few weeks to grow into herself) - but there’s definitely an altogether different appreciation of #2,3,4 babies that most of us aren’t expecting.

Fair enough, there are ways to ‘cheat’ your way through the week - like leaving the kids in PJ’s throughout the day so they look bed-ready when daddy comes through the door, or fast-forwarding the evenings so it’s acceptable to grab a glass of wine at bang on five-o-clock. But it doesn’t work as a long-term solution and all too quickly you’re rocking back and forth in the garden (behind the Little Tykes monstrosity that you thought was such a good idea until you realised your kid believes it’s an actual house he can actually sleep in) clutching a packet of cigarettes and telling yourself you won’t start again ‘properly’, just have one or two when the stress gets too much.

Then there’s the guilt.

You can see your toddler isn’t quite as thrilled as you thought he’d be so you start forgiving the odd misdemeanor as he’s obviously “acting out”. But when you give that precious inch, that toddler will sprint out of your grasp like that fella out of the Virgin ads. All of a sudden you start believing your two-year-old is capable of deception more masterful than the kid from Problem Child. I’ve definitely lost Dexter to the dark-side and he’s now fully aware that the way to rouse mummy from the sofa when she’s breastfeeding is to pull out a wire from the back of the telly, rip out her plants, or take his nappy off and pee on the floor. If mummy is waning and is looking beaten, he’ll move it up a notch and swallow lego, coins or anything else that will have us all bundled into an ambulance.

Toss in the fact that I’m still pretending to be Super-Mum and am still trying to find a few spare minutes in the evening to tick off reviews that are outstanding from 6 months ago, and it’s quickly apparent why a vein is bulging in my neck like Stressed Eric. It’s no wonder I’ve been hospitalised twice with a suspected blood clot that has turned out to be nothing more than severe acid reflux and panic attacks.

So yes, I’m back on anti-depressants and waiting patiently for them to kick in. I’m also now frantically ringing nurseries and waxing lyrical about my beautiful first-born in an attempt to disguise the fact he’s now so awful to me that I just can’t cope. Every time a nursery worker scoffs that “some ladies pop them on the waiting list at birth” I kick myself for not being so flippin organised.

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the reality of having two babies. It’s terrifying, emotional, stressful, awful and very likely to get me sectioned. As much as I love my babies, I really really do, I cannot wait for them to morph into proper little people - toilet-trained, capable of asking me where babies come from, and no longer receiving draught milk but necking it out of the bottle and then sneaking it back into the fridge… Only then might I rediscover my sanity… and start begging Craig for another.