Twin Oddities
Here's an odd thing. Being reminded of how odd twins are. That reminder, in itself, is odd.
In the UK we have an NHS which provides extremely cheap access to fertility treatment. A great number of twins are born through this process. We happened to have ours naturally, but the upshot of the process is that oddities like natural twins are lost in the noise.
British supermarkets have lots of trollies designed for twin babies. Restaurants have more than one high-chair. Many baby change facilities have a harness for safely restraining one baby whilst changing another. Twin babies are cooed over, but once they're 6-9 months, they're not particularly noteworthy. Parents of twins regularly greet each other several times an hour in the street and swap twin tips. And twin pushchairs - both longwise and widthwise - are accomodated along with wheelchairs by default.
In France they have a private health system, similar to most of the rest of Europe and vaguely on a par with the US, although access is still a lot cheaper than the US version and the baseline state-funded health insurance is significantly more generous than that in the US.
But what France obviously doesn't have is massive funding for fertility treatment like the UK does.
I'm assuming this, because I'm on holiday in France at the moment with my 9-month old twins, and we are literally stopping traffic. As in, more than one car has swerved whilst the driver gawped out the side window at us.
There are no twin trollies at French supermarkets. Asking for one at the info desk resulted in the assistant standing up to peer over the counter at the twins, as if my claim of having two babies was so improbable that it demanded verification.
We have not seen any other twins. At all. We've been here in Normandy for a week now.
The idea that a visitor might wish to take a twin pushchair to a tourist attraction is clearly something well beyond the credulity of any of the places we've visited. Mont Saint Michel and other places built more than 500 years ago, fair enough. But an aquarium and shell museum built in the last 20 years? An open-to-the-public apple farm?
We can't even get our lightweight widthwise twin pushchair through the checkout of the local supermarket, never mind get a twin trolley.
I honestly had forgotten how unusual twins were.
I haven't had this feeling since I last carted James countb around, just to add to the oddness.
In the UK we have an NHS which provides extremely cheap access to fertility treatment. A great number of twins are born through this process. We happened to have ours naturally, but the upshot of the process is that oddities like natural twins are lost in the noise.
British supermarkets have lots of trollies designed for twin babies. Restaurants have more than one high-chair. Many baby change facilities have a harness for safely restraining one baby whilst changing another. Twin babies are cooed over, but once they're 6-9 months, they're not particularly noteworthy. Parents of twins regularly greet each other several times an hour in the street and swap twin tips. And twin pushchairs - both longwise and widthwise - are accomodated along with wheelchairs by default.
In France they have a private health system, similar to most of the rest of Europe and vaguely on a par with the US, although access is still a lot cheaper than the US version and the baseline state-funded health insurance is significantly more generous than that in the US.
But what France obviously doesn't have is massive funding for fertility treatment like the UK does.
I'm assuming this, because I'm on holiday in France at the moment with my 9-month old twins, and we are literally stopping traffic. As in, more than one car has swerved whilst the driver gawped out the side window at us.
There are no twin trollies at French supermarkets. Asking for one at the info desk resulted in the assistant standing up to peer over the counter at the twins, as if my claim of having two babies was so improbable that it demanded verification.
We have not seen any other twins. At all. We've been here in Normandy for a week now.
The idea that a visitor might wish to take a twin pushchair to a tourist attraction is clearly something well beyond the credulity of any of the places we've visited. Mont Saint Michel and other places built more than 500 years ago, fair enough. But an aquarium and shell museum built in the last 20 years? An open-to-the-public apple farm?
We can't even get our lightweight widthwise twin pushchair through the checkout of the local supermarket, never mind get a twin trolley.
I honestly had forgotten how unusual twins were.
I haven't had this feeling since I last carted James countb around, just to add to the oddness.