Former TOWIE star Frankie Essex gave birth to her twins, whom she shares with boyfriend Luke Love, last May. She has since shared updates while settling into life with babies Logan and Luella.
In her exclusive column for OK!, Frankie has discussed a range of topics related to motherhood – from her first social outing with the twins and a blackout at her home when they were just a few days old, to “feeling more human again” as the babies dropped their dreaded 2am feed.
This week she opens up about the bittersweet feelings she has as the Christmas season approaches, and how it's that time of the year when children always manage to fall ill with colds and snotty noses – and the rather gross way she's been solving this.
Christmas is a rather bittersweet time for me
Normally I love Christmas for other people, but for myself, I always end up thinking about my mum and it feels like quite a sad time of year. Obviously now with the babies here, they do take my mind off it a bit, but it's still just a very bittersweet time.
And I do love the build-up to Christmas but I can get a bit choked up sometimes and just wish she was still here. But I have to put a brave face on for the twins, and they're still going to have the best day ever.
It's already so hectic and it's not even December yet
We went into London twice in the last week for Christmas events, the first was the LEGO Shop's Christmas Grand Opening, and then on another day we went to an event for WarChild, which we followed with the Christmas opening at Hamleys.
I got some Christmas shopping done at those and found the perfect Lego Advent Calendar. It was the Home Alone house and every day you open a bag and build a part of it until it's finished on day 25, so we bought that and I'm thinking about making it a tradition to build every year.
Home Alone is one of my all-time favourite films and Luke loves it so we just had to get it. I remember as a child, when the film first came out, my dad just watching it on repeat and laughing his head off, so it was just a huge part of childhood – and now it can be for the twins too.
Logan's scared of Santa
We visited Santa at Hamleys and Logan literally crawled up my arm as fast as he could, but Luella just stood there looking at him in amazement for ages just trying to figure him out. She did finally go near him and touched his hand.
I've been trying to put Santa films on and have been reading them Santa-themed Christmas books because I don't want them to be scared of this big red and white man, especially when we're going to see him again in December.
I'm been the 'snot-sucking mum' recently
It's that time of year when children get ill so easily, especially when they're young, both Logan and Luella have been suffering from colds and snotty noses recently. They're so small but somehow have so much snot, I'm constantly wiping their noses.
The other day I had to actually suck the snot out of Louelle's nose with my mouth, which was so disgusting. I have this snot sucker contraption but it just doesn't do the job, it's much easier and quicker to just put my mouth on her nose and suck it out.
So I've basically been the snot-sucking mum for the past week, which has been horrendous.
The twins really love their great-grandma
My nan, my mum's mum, comes over to visit which is so nice at the twins love her so much. Of everyone who we see regularly or who comes to visit they're always so excited to see her.
And it's so nice for them to have that relationship with their great-grandma, and it's great for her too, and it helps me out quite a bit because she'll sit with Luke and Luella in their playroom while I get some cleaning done around the house.
It's just annoying cause she has to leave earlier now because it just gets dark so soon, in the summer she would stay till about 6pm but now she has to say goodbye around 4pm.
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