January 2012-Close encounters of the third trimester kind.... Too much nesting not enough resting!

[fishandlilacs]

Here we go ladies. A shiney new thread.

I watched him this morning, whisk the water with his paw and then drink it. When it went still, he dabbed his paw in again! He's a funny cat.

I understand from one of my Pregnancy and Birth magazines (Mother and Baby I think) that the UK get good maternity leave and pay compared with many other countries. I do believe that there are some countries that are better than ours but I think they pay more in taxes. Also, childcare funding is far better in those countries too.

Makescakes Cat (Rascal - aptly named!) will eat anything we eat - meat (of course) especially raw bacon, tescos ready salted chip stick crisps (?), milk (especially when cereal has been in it), cream of any description, cheese and he's partial to a bit of mouse and rabbit! We thought he was starving the other day as he brought a rabbit into the house and decided to eat it's head behind the TV! Normally he brings rabbits in, meows a bit and then leaves them to die of shock - the other day was the first time he ate one. We hadn't realised until DH walked past the sitting room and heard crunching noises!

We've tried the mixing with meat and mixing with warm water theories but still he won't touch it. He walks away but then half an hour later begins to annoy us. yesterday I did put him in the kitchen and shut the door ... but I felt soooo guilty after that I gave him some whiskers!

moobee, fish and redhead My DH is also a physicist, so we should definitely start some kind of club. He's a medical physicist now, but his first degree was in physics at Manchester (with the now famous but actually really annoying Brian Cox). And whoa CERN? My hubs is severely jealous now. We just watched the last QI (which was called Incomprehensible) with the ubiquitous Brian Cox, and he said that spellcheck called it the Large Hard-On Colluder.

makescakes, addicted, mum2be79 and greenlady - I did loads of research on maternity allowance (which I'm allowed to get, even though I can't get SMP due to unemployment), but you have to work 26 weeks (6 months) out of the previous 52 before baby's due date. However, a nice caveat is that you can work one day per week and actually count the whole week.

So, even if I only temped or walked dogs or babysat for one day a week for 26 weeks, it counts toward Maternity Allowance (which is 120-ish per week for some number of weeks). Unfortunately, I've only worked about 14 out of the 26, so unless I get a miraculous dog-walking gig one day a week until baby is due, I probably won't qualify.

I hope that helps some of the confusion re: Allowance vs. SMP.

MrsA - you don't actually have to have earnt during those 26 weeks - just have been registered self employed and paying NI class 2. It was one of the points addicted and I were at odds about, but we've agreed that's the right of it now!

Mum2be - maybe he prefers flowing water? Some animals do. Does he drink from running taps?

Perhaps u n eed one of these: pet fountain

Il get 90% of my weekly wage for the entire time I'm off on mat leave. I'm only really losing my petrol money but as I won't need to be driving everyday its not a huge issue Fx

How long does it take to do a urine check at the doctors surgery?! Theyv had dd's sample for hours now and I'm a bit worried as I don't think its the right colour. I'm only comparing to the samples I take to the mw which are a lot lighter and always ok . Stressed nanny here, can you tell

I'm feeling rather yukty today, very of those still in pjammas!

my cat prefers puddles and outside water

He has whiskas and iams - but to be fair he'll eat pretty much anything. He's a rescue cat and tbh in my experience rescue cats will wolf down anything you give them.

I have had to do the conversion before though.I had a cat with kidney and teeth issues so they had to have a special diet. We did it gradually over a few weeks - reducing one and increasing the new one and using the new one as "treats" for a few days. However, we did have to play around with flavours & brands for a bit as the first couple were rejected.

shonno they usually just dip one of those sticks in to check for infection so about 2 mins... unless they have sent it off for a proper analysis in which case a couple of days.

That's what I thought parsley they said it was staying with them. Iv called them and apparently a doctor is going to call .. not in the mood to wait ..

A nice article to get the Xmas taste buds going here

Parsley - you know how to get the salivary glands going! The bit of cardboard in the bottom of the tin is fascinating - if I actually get round to making one, I'll give it a go (obviously after I've barrel soaked my fruit...)

MrsA Brian Cox's teeth freak me out - they're too big and white and scary.

shonno I hope DD's ok. Pee's usually a lot darker if you're dehydrated, but it sounds like she's drinking for Britain.

makescakes and parsley

I will definitely mention the running water fountain to DH and DH did say about putting the iams in a treat box so I will definitely try that!

I got dressed at midday today to then do some errands. Since I hadn't seen my 'little garden' in many weeks, I thought I'd take a look in the mirror to check 'if everything was okay' as I intend to defuzz tonight - I know TMI! What a bloody shock I got! STRETCH MARKS ARE APPEARING. Just four of them, very low down (will be well hidden by bikini bottoms in the future) BUT STILL

I've been using Palmers Cocoa Butter (albeit, not everyday) so I am increasing the amount, frequency and intensity of butter rubbing!

Funnily enough, I got a letter from the council today detailing my maternity allowance.
4 weeks full pay
2 weeks 9/10th of full pay
12 weeks SMP + 50% of full pay
21 weeks at SMP which is £128.73

Although I am going back to work on 16th July which I think is after 32 weeks so I'm back on full pay for the summer holidays. I can't believe there is so much variation in maternity pay depending on whether you are an employee or self employed.

Oh and by the way - sorry mrsamerican I forgot to say HELLOOO!!!!

[hshock] I haven't been cocoa buttering that far down - will have to rush home and check now...

Re maternity. I get 12 weeks at full pay and the rest - say another 12 weeks - at SMP.

Mum2be - OMG! I'm Bio-oiling twice a day and still have a few little stretch-mark dots but have not thought to grease my lady bits - what a terrifying thought!

Right - just need DH to put socks on me (the suckiest part of PGP is that I can;t do this for myself!) and then off for a funtastic weekend with the chavs in-laws. Yay.

Will try and check in on the phone, but if I'm not back by Sunday evening please send out the search parties as I may have thrown myself off something high...

Evening all, I sparked a useful debate there didn't I-thanks so much for all the advice on the MA.

missA my hubby isn't a physicist, he's an automotive engineeing project manager and part time author (recently published-I can PM you the link if you want to his book on amazon, think a couple on here have already purchased it thank you kindly :)) and he's just a clever old stick who happens to enjoy learning about physics, when he accidently said higgs-boson instead of braxton hicks he was whacked out on tramadol for a bad back. TBH it was one the least mad things he had said in the 4 days he was taking that drug for. :)

I hear you on the pain ladies-the rib pain is supposedly round ligament pain, but I also get it low down too. My back has been really good this couple of days, counting blessings here, because although the rib has been bad the back is ok. Makes such a difference being off work. I think I might actually cry on monday when I have to take dd back to school, we have had the most perfect week. We have just carved a pumpkin, (part from me having a minor diva strop at dh as he got it wrong and we ended up changing the design) the flesh is in a pasta bake for dinner tonight and I have roasted the seeds in oil, honey and ground mixed spice-they are delish!

So tired tonight though.

Cakes I've been getting DH to put my socks on too! I don't mind it though as I always feel like the princess getting the glass slipper put on. Haven't told him that of course.

There was an interesting thread on the preg board a while back. Someone asked if being older whilst pregnant decreased the chances of stretching. While it wasn't a proper factual survey, it did seem to be that age played a part in it. I have stretch marks from my teenage sprouting years but didnt get any on the last pregnancy and was 32 at the time. Fingers crossed that they stay away this time too.

cakes and scrambled my dh has been putting my socks on too. The other day my dh had gone to work, my Dad was over and I had to ask my Dad to do it for me-he took the opportunity to play "this little piggy" silly old bugger-i'm nearly 40 pregnant with his 2nd grandchild and I am sporting a rather beautiful pedicure with deep copper red polish-some how this little piggy just doesn't go with all of the above but i still loved it-felt like his little girl again!

I'm lucky enough one of my BFF's is a ex beauty therapist-she comes and does my feet when she gets time, god love her.

Super tired tonight. Off to brother's for the weekend tomorrow. Should be nice.

Apologies if I've missed anything important.

mum2be re: cats, catfood and water.
Water: some cats will not drink water that's near their food. So, if it is, then move it. Mine have a water bowl upstairs but now down, as they never drink from downstairs. They also now have a glass of water by the bed too as the critters were just drinking mine and was unseay about this during pg.

Re: food. If there are digestive or teeth issues, please consider ditching 'conventional' foods all togther. Re: whiskas/Iams, consider using a better quality food that, in my experience, cats eat a lot less of, making it actualyl more cost effective than whiskas etc. A lot of vets (including mine) will insist that eating things like Hill's Oral Care is good for toothcare, but that's rubbish in a lot of cases - half a dozen of the 'oral care' bics a day will do the job. There's no ned to feed them this exclusively. Cats weren't built to eat cereals as a siginificant part of their diets, so so give them it as a fairly large proportion of their food is madness IMHO.

My boys get fed on Butcher's Classic, Encore (though this isn't a complete food, so should only make a small proportion of their diet), Purina One "Natural Balance" wet and these HiLife Pouches. Whilst the purina and hilife does have some crap in it, there's a lot less than whiskas/felix etc. There are many, wet foods (Bozita, Aminomda Carney, Almo Nature) that are good too. My boys just won't eat fish...little weirdos. Because of the quality fo the food, they eat a lot less...though they do have dry down too.
As for dry, I feed Orijen, though Acana is well recieved too. They look expensive, but again, because of the quality of the food, the boys eat much, much less of it.

Mine are currently loving the Classic, which is excellent as it's usually cheaper than whiskas/felix etc anyway. Some pets at hime even stock the Classic pouches for convenience! Just have to put about 1/4 tin down at a time to keep it fresh.

As you can tell, I have fairly strong views about this. For most cats, Whiskas etc is fine. But, if they are prone to rashes/allergies/bad teeth or breath/vommiting/eating a lot/erratic toileting then considering changing to a higher quality diet!

I can also highly recommend Catchat for friendly advice re: food. They're a great bunch! If a little moggy-mental.

Sorry the post's so long...but, well, it might be of use?!

just to add to the debate our vet said not to feed the cat ANY wet food at all because it rotted their teeth. So ours is on kitten biscuits. She is very lively and glossy so it seems to be ok....although she often steals food.

you'll all be pleased to know I think we've managed to rescue our painted lounge nightmare, although the paint I got is a lot more YELLOW than i thought.... worried about having a primary colours style lounge because we've already got a bright red ikea sofa!!

So dd ate her first proper sized meal today. Yeah! Apparently her urine was dark because she hasn't been eating all week. The gp 'suspects' she had a viral infection but as she seems to over the worst their quite happy to leave her.

Nice relaxing evening on the couch is in order me thinks.
Hope everyone is well and surviving the battle of the stretchmarks x

sigh I'm so fed up with vets and stupid advice - cats are not dogs basically. It's the same with humans. Feed a kid a high carb diet and don't clean their teeth and the same thing will happen, they'll have bad teeth. Only it's not overly practical to clean a cat's teeth, so eliminating the carbs from their diet that are causing a lot of the problems helps considerably. Cats would have died out millions of years ago if having wet food was bad...what do vets think mouse is made from???
Wet food is fine as long as it's a good quality wet food.
I'm not against any food given to cats, just be aware that foods containing cereals/carbs aren't ideal. Cats are obliged carnivores that cope with the little seed/grass/berry/whatever they find in their preys tummies. It's only very recently that pet food manufacturers have started adding fluff to foods in the hope that we're attracted to it as humans (and lower the costs for the manufacturers).
Also, if feeding exclusively dry (despite Iams etc and many vets claims) cats on the whole DO NOT drink anywhere near enough water to compensate for the lacking water in their food. If your cats a good drinker, great, but an awful lot aren't.
BUT as I've said, there are many cats that thrive on a biscuit diet and even diets that are less than healthy, but, well it doesn't work for others. It def. didn't work for our boys (one went from having gingivitis but essentially ok but put on hill's oral care. 6 months later, he's then needing 4 teeth out. Since his diet change to 'crap free' he's managed 18months without needing teeth out. His bro has had teeth out this year, but well, I'm beginning to think they have a specific issue Dr Addie).
I dunno. It's not easy. All I know is my boys seem healthier and happier for being on a relatively 'crap' free diet. That and I'm spending a lot less on food as they're eating less to get the nutrition they need.
Anyway, rant over...apologies.

shonno So glad to hear DD's getting her appetite back.

morning all, please ignore my self-indulgant pfb post but...

MY BABY IS 1 TODAY!!! how the hell did that happen!

as you were ladies

Yay happy birthday baby addicted.

Happy 1st birthday baby addicted