Graduated Elderberry Pavlovas - Thread 7

[Cavort]

Newly diffed right through to new Mums. A thread for the over 30's expecting their first baby.

Yes, same experience Alex. Mt friend from NCT is actually in the class after mine annoyingly, so I'm actually doing it on my own, so it's fine. Met some nice mums actually, they all keep laughing at Miles for falling asleep in the pool! there are classes soon in Stratford on a Saturday. I didn't choose those as we're away so often at the weekend and you pay for the course, not per lesson, so we'd lose too much money. I think DP is going to take a half day one Thursday though so he can take him. As the lessons are on the isle of dogs my brother, who works in the wharf, is going to come to watch Miles one day too. Bless my bro, despite having two of his own he seems as besotted with Miles as I am with my niece and nephew

Oh, and I still have the pee stick from my BFP . Does that make me weird?!

Seem to be using the word actually a lot today sorry

I have the pic of the pee stick I sent to DH in my phone.

By the way, people who already have baby's room decorated, do you mind posting pictures? We're thinking about it, but I have a total first world problem - the room is too big. I'm sure it will be filled with plastic tat toys in 2 seconds, but if we just have the cot and changing table there, it will look ridiculously empty. So looking for some additional ideas.

I have 2 BFP sticks (as I didn't believe the first one) and I still have them. I have a box for Elodie's sentimental things like the BFP sticks, scan pictures, birth summary, hospital bracelets, first babygrow (which now looks ridiculously tiny and has dried blood still on it ).

When I fell pregnant, my LMP date was 22nd September, so it's now pretty much a full year since my official start of pregnancy. Despite thinking pregnancy dragged, this whole year has flown by in hindsight. It's a strange thought that my little pudding currently sleeping in my arms didn't exist this time last year.

Janey they're giving us a free taster lesson in a few weeks and then we have a place reserved from the end of October. I'm looking forward to it as Elodie loves her bath so I can't wait to see her in a bigger pool. They are expensive but I guess has to cover the pool hire so I don't really mind and as you say, it's a higher temperature pool with a max of 6 babies per class. I am not particularly looking forward to getting back into my costume though with my still wobbly belly.

Well actually janey... I think I might still have my pee stick somewhere (with lid on in my defence!) but worryingly I now can't remember for the life of me where I've kept it!! We must both be weird!

I agree on Saturday water baby classes, bit risky as you're more likely to book something in or go away. Plus during the week gives you something nice to do while DH is at work. Like the idea of him doing a half day to watch Miles, might do that with my DH when the time comes - or if not, baby could show off his new skills when we go on holiday in the summer! Or maybe you can just go to a local pool with the baby and DH on the weekend too and all go in together??

hazle no nursery yet or baby stuff, but hopefully it will be ready before the baby comes!

Hmm I didn't photograph any of the pee sticks (first two might have been wrong ) and I chucked em out. Did I do wrong?

What you need Hazle is a giant stuffed giraffe. Disclaimer, this may just be what I want, saw one when I was pregnant and it was lovely and hugely expensive but we don't have room. Unfortunately our baby room is probably going to be the attic. You know, the one that still doesn't have a bloody floor [he has to die] so a photograph wouldn't be hugely helpful to you.

When I say stuffed I mean a stuffed you, a actual stuffed giraffe would be a bit odd and a bit TOO big.

Argh stuffed TOY stupid bloody phone I give up

Cross post but glad cavort's a weird pee stick hoarder too. I'll have to find mine so I can do a proper memory box though as that sounds better than it floating around the house somewhere!!

It doesn't have a floor yet purple?! Poor you, right I'll stop moaning about my building work on here as really feel for you that yours still isn't finished! Is it affecting the downstairs/living areas at all?

I have put some nursery pictures up but I don't think you'll get much inspiration from it as it's quite plain. We want to move house next year and didn't want to put off potential buyers with a proper nursery, so we just bought wall stickers which peel off without damaging the paint. We have also just moved the cot into our room for a few months so there's only a set of drawers, changing table and rocking chair in there (there is also a fitted wardrobe) and it's not the biggest room. The cot is usually where the rocking chair is.

It's mostly upstairs but the lounge is full of boxes that used to live in the attic and I can't decorate the hallway or anything while he's still got to lug big bits of wood upstairs so the whole house is a tip. I honestly want to throttle him. The front garden is piled up with heaps of crap waiting for a skip, its chaos. I am rapidly losing any sense of humour and starting to feel actually depressed about it.

It looks lovely Cavort!

Thanks Purple. I am glad we went with the stickers rather than wallpaper as I think they look really good (and a million times easier than wallpaper). And the drawers are cheap from IKEA and we just bought some different children's handles from B&Q which I think makes them look more expensive.

How frustrating that you are still waiting for your loft conversion a it's stopping you from sorting the rest of the house. I would be just like you and would want to kill him. I have a list of jobs which DH has been ignoring hasn't had time to do yet but not a patch on your situation.

Oh Im on my phone so cant check the pics, put a pic of ours up a while ago. I wouldnt qorry about it being too empty, maybe a rug or toy box could fill some space?

Looks nice cavort, did you get those stickers off amazon? Think I've been looking at those. I'm not spending a fortune on my nursery at all because the baby will move from the box room into a bigger room at 2 years old (or before) so the nursery room is literally just for a while - so I want it to look nice but without going mad.

purple I can understand how that gets depressing especially when you spend so much time in the house with a baby. Is he on the case but just going slowly? I've been staying at my mum's this week to avoid plaster dust so have stopped keeping an eye on the project and am really hoping it's all going ok while I'm not there as I was the one to spot a major mistake the builders made last week, luckily in time to rethink and solve the issue (hopefully!)

So I've tried uploading pics but it seems to write over them all? Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? As a result I think I've put up a pic of one corner of the nursery.

We hardly spent any money apart from the furniture, which we needed. Wallpapered just one wall and the builders painted the ceiling after one of our leaks - result!

Sun has finally come out here. What's annoying is that we nearly came next week, but didn't as we have to be back for the wedding with the awful bridesmaid dress (fat pig that I am). Been raining all this week. Sun forecast for all of next and 27 degrees every single bloody day

Right, I need to rant at someone and being alone with a baby and a dog i'm afraid you lot are going to get it!

I was just walking through the park with Elodie and the dog (park as in path through woodland, not a children's park) and a woman was walking through with her two young children after collecting them from school. Her daughter had a cake in one hand and a packet of crisps in the other so the dog (off his lead as is permitted in this park) went up to her to have a sniff at the food and the mother went mental at me, screaming how her daughter hated dogs and I should keep mine on a lead to stop him attacking her kids! Just to be clear, my dog didn't touch her daughter, growl at her, bite her, try to get her food or do anything threatening whatsoever - he is just a friendly greedy dog who had spotted a cake. Now, I kind of get her issue (although don't agree with it), but this park is a public space where dogs are encouraged and is always full of dogs, so if she has a dog-phobic family doesn't she need to take them another route home from school? During our brief exchange she said she shouldn't have to go a different way and I said well tough then because my friendly dog will continue to use this park off his lead. She then said she was going to report me, and I said what for? You want to report my non-threatening, friendly dog for coming withing 3 feet of your cake-eating child? Go on then, fill your boots....

I had to use all my will power to stop myself from telling her that her fat daughter clearly ate too much cake already and my dog would do her a favour if he stole it.

Aaaand relaaaaax......

The silver lining in all of this is that you really made me laugh cavort!

I wish you had said that cavort! You should have said you were reporting her for over feeding her porky little girl!

Agreed that it's not your fault if her kid is scared of dogs. Yes you'd be out of order if your dog was aggressive or out of control. As it is she's a twat in the wrong...

Cavort, YANBU, I think it's pretty ridiculous when people who are scared of dogs/can't read doggy body language expect dogs to somehow disappear, it's like being scared of cars and therefore expecting a car-free world. Dogs are a reality in the world and it is your job to learn how to respond to them appropriately and safely. I remember getting similarly angry with a man who armed his shrieking children to hit my dog with sticks once - this being a border collie I had trained to stop and drop at a distance, and who was totally minding her own business - so arguably better trained than his out of control children.

Cavort I totally understand my dogs just the same, she is friendly and loves to meet new people and dogs, she is great with toddlers (although she is a hound and she WOULD have stollen the cake!!)

We take her to the boot fair and she is always on lead but I hate it when people grab their kids and pull them away when they walk up to the dog and she snifs them, they always say 'oh my little darling is scared of dogs' really, how come said kid walked up to my dog then? Thats your fear not theirs!

Also everyone knows a dog off lead is a friendly dog, wish you had told her to do one, snatched the cake and fed it to the dog!

I would like to think I am quite a conscientious dog owner and would have probably put him on the lead if I had realised it was school kicking out time as I wouldn't like to think of young children being scared by him as he's quite big, but I just think this woman's reaction was totally disproportionate to the non-threatening situation she found herself in. If she walks that way daily then she must scream at dog owners on a regular basis as this particular park really is full of nice friendly dogs off leads. I wish I had replied that my dog is equally scared of her children so she should also keep them on leads.

Alex I spotted the stickers on the John Lewis website (nearly £60 for the tree and branch) and then Googled and found them on Amazon, £20 for both. They are from the Scroll Tree range.

God I hate people like that, I would have ended up being rude. You can imagine the reaction we get with a GSD and a wolf, all sorts of moronic people telling us they must be vicious because 'all German shepherds are'. Idiots.