Aspiring to Affording April Amusements

[mammymammyIRL]

Any other suggestions?

Hope he sleeps soundly em "muh-meee" is very cute too, but when chanted incessantly from the cot at silly o'clock, less so!

Well I dug a pit in the garden. We uneathed a monumental piece of concrete, a huge rock, and water is about 70cm down, that'ull be why the garden is so boggy then

Decided to just dig the hole for the polytunnel. Lots of exercise vs £50 digger hire. About 30cm good top soil then clay and stones. It's going to be a bugger of a job.

Lovely roast pork for tea (lidl shoulder joint, fatty, but plenty of meat, the chucks will love the fat), and I started shaving 3" of winter hair off my startlingly fat spaniel. It takes me about 3 days to give him a full clip, as he is rather unwilling. He needs to run much further, and eat a lot less!

Well done Em. That's the spirit.

I've got my double gp appointment here this morning. Done my avocado test. Haven't been able to eat for 36 hours, so I'm all set as the perfect laboratory animal on which he can experiment as he likes. Hope he has some good ideas. If you could wish me luck I'd be most grateful.

Good luck sunny

Work today

Have you tried probiotics sunny? I used them with great success when I had campylobacter food poisoning which segued into IBS and the flucoxacillin destroyed all my gut bacteria.

Shopping fail. Clicked on chicken and sausage but somehow didn’t add to trolley so now I have to go to aldi.

The singing started again at 4am. Lalalalalala. 😪 I have a snotty baby. A snotbag of a baby.

He slept until 2 then woke up and wouldn’t settle in his cot. So I popped him on top of the duvet with me. He nodded off there until 4ish when he started singing.

He’s been drifting in and out of sleep from around 5. Dh has taken him for a bit now.

Nursery today - it’s just a cold so I’m still going to take him (he’s only there from 930 to 1) and all the other kids have colds.

Good luck with the gp Sunny.

I am usually pretty frugal Fluffy, but finding it harder to keep track now DC are older and more independent.

Work today so should be a NSD unless I need petrol.

He's probably caught the cold from nursery. They get all sorts in the first few weeks of anywhere new. He will be fine.

Sorry, have name changed from ss.

No doubt life he’s fine ish in himself. He’s eating and wants his milk and I’ve given him a bit of water. He’s smiley. But just a snotbag. No temperature which is good.

One red cheek and super dribbly so I also suspect teething. Am going to give him some calpol before nursery (and will let them know) and just see how we go.

I am exhausted.

Dh has done breakfast with him and is off to work early (thanks...!). And will be home late (I knew this already but doesn’t make it any easier).

I’m orobably going to take him to dparents after nursery grab some lunch and leave him with them playing while I sneak off to my old room and have a nap!

It's a good thought, but I can't manage probiotics either Fluffy. I can't even drink tap water. Hence the investigations.

Eugh. Getting up was hard this morning. Had to wake both dc at 7, they weren't impressed.

Ds has swimming later (£25) but that's my only planned spend. Will keep away from M&S food.

Getting up was fine (we’ve been up at 6 at the latest all through the holidays) but getting ready quickly seems to be a forgotten art! Am shovelling Wheetabix down dd and trying to update DS’s home-school book. Should have done that last night..

Netty - midlands?

We're all ready! The dc were so good they're now sitting watching the iPad until it's time to go. I'm impressed, I won't have to shout this morning

All ready here too. But ds refused sleep until 0045! I think it will be a different story tonight. Even found the contents of the pe kits.

We're going to b&q for a mooch, and I need a biorb filter kit for the goldfish (I've been rinsing it out, but it goes green almost immediatley now, so the filter medium is done), and rubber gloves. Coffee might be involved too.

We have an inset day so ds is at home, bored and cheesed off. I think he will be glad to see his friends again.

Sunny good luck

Em do you have one of those hooter pooters to suck the snot out? Minging but effective! Also saline nose drops. Godsend

Ds has gone off to school as usual he stayed in bed longer than he even would on a weekend but got up and dressed before I even had to ask. Bless him. He knows I’m off to speak to school today re the family shit that’s going on and I think he’s keen to be able to talk to his teacher whom he loves about it

Somewhat of a hangover and a very very tender tum from all the chillies in my dinner last night but concert was good and it was good to be out. Some of the emotional songs got to me a bit hence the hangover.

I’m going to revisit my budget again to add in all those annual expenses if I have to take on everything solo to make sure ds and I have enough to survive. I’m pretty sure I will lose my family allowance as my work travel will get classed as a taxable benefit and I think that might take me over the threshold so I need to look into that. £82 is a lot to lose when you’ve also lost 50% of your household income overnight. I don’t know when dh will stop putting money in the joint account but even pursuing him through court would only provide temporary money as I am certain he will lose his job. Dick head.

I’m going to go to the charity shop again with another bag of ds’s clothes that are too small. Also want to drop all my old glasses into a vision aid donation box

Good luck sunny

I may need to go to Boots today, need a few supplies for weaning. Eep. I might pick up saline drops to keep for when she next gets snotty, good shout.

I am tangry. That’s hangry, but for tiredness not hunger.

I didn’t finish the meal plan. I’d scribbled a few ideas down when R lunged at the paper and shoved it in her mouth 😂😂😂

wolf no I may get one though.

cag ds is a massive fan of sweet potato and Ella’s kitchen melty puffs - strawberry and banana flavoured “wotsits”. They’re quite tasty!

Gp was lovely and I have blood tests booked for later. Phew! Job done.

I quite liked Organix snacks myself when the other two were little em 😳😀 sweet potato definitely needs to go on the list for things to try this week. I’m so excited! In fact I only eat sweet potato now because I decided to cook and mash some for DD when she was weaning as I knew it was super healthy. I’d always thought I hated it myself but decided to try some and now I adore it. With those hot wraps DH made was the SP in the wraps or on the side? I’m trying to envisage it but it sounds yum. I just had chorizo with scrambled egg and veg (too much mushroom for my liking but hey ho)

Re DS he really could be a lot worse. He eats a decent amount of fruit (probably too much TBF) and a few types of veg, but apart from pasta won’t eat anything with sauce etc. He would live on macaroni cheese or tomato pasta, and cheese in general. Thankfully he doesn’t get upset at “bad” things on his plate etc he just won’t eat it. I think I need to really think about exactly what he eats, as I said it’s not the worst it could be, but it is deathly dull trying to think of meals each week especially as he won’t eat most decent sources of protein.

Nocuts just catching up on the thread and wanted to say well done for the qualification, awesome! ⭐️💐

DD is much better and I feel like we hit the jackpot as she will now eat most meat happily, and she’s loved most veg for a long time (pretty much anything we have at home but cauliflower and sweet potato, her favourites are asparagus and courgette). The only issue is not having mushy stuff or mixed up things, but I think she’s a quite good eater for an autistic ten year old really.

cag so what I do meal planning wise is do 3 days where ds will eat a simplified version of our tea, and the other days just give him the boring repeats of allowed teas. Once you have room to prep and store, you could make pots up for ds, so four nights a week he has a pasta and sauce while the rest of you have something else? It works for us. But ds still screams and refuses all tea if an unallowed food is present. It's wearing.

If I allowed myself to be honest he has asd traits. The food stands out a mile, it's more than fussy. And he self soothes by running through the house in a specific repetative way making a set series of "boy noises"?? Like gun noises and squeaks. He is a sociable chap though, and is middle of his class, doing as expected, so I'm watching it rather than acting on it just now.

B&Q was just £8 for me, turbo screws. Dp bought me some plastic pipe to make a hoop for a size guide, a good gift! £5.50 in the pet shop, and £17 in tescos, but forgot the rubber gloves. Brain like sieve.

Cag I’m amazed at your dd’s eating, it gives me hope! As for DS, do we have the same son? That is almost exactly the same as my DS - he would live on pasta (and mostly does). Cheese is his main source of protein, though he also likes seeds and nuts. I know so many ASD kids that are much worse though - e.g. beige food only. So I am very glad we are where we are!

I totally get your concern about weaning - it does take a lot of organisation if you have older kids who won’t eat a wide range as you then have to make different stuff at least some of the time. We don’t eat with the kids either as DH isn’t home till 7pm so I end up cooking 3 meals quite often - shortcuts are therefore required! As far as possible dd eats what DH and I do, though often she has it the next day as we eat later. So today she’s having a bit of gammon (though that’s the first time as I generally steer clear of food with nitrates / high salt for her) and broccoli and some dauphinoise potatoes. So our Sunday dinner! I just make all our food without added salt. If our food isn’t suitable I either feed her the same pasta as DS (I have lots of frozen portions of hm tomato sauce, Bolognaise, cheese sauce, pumpkin sauce etc) or I give her one of the fancy chunky weaning pouches. Or I sling her a bit of salmon and veg and oven bake some sweet potato ‘fries’ - a sweet potato slices up and cooks much quicker than potato. I also have some extra hm frozen dishes for her - cottage pie, various soups - so those are options. Takes a bit of freezer space although I have loads of small cheap pots I got from Tesco and so it’s quite efficient for space. Food is a big deal in our house, I do spend a lot of time cooking!

On Saturday I made some chicken liver pate for dd (to avoid the salt in shop-bought) and she seemed to like it. I struggle a bit for lunch options that aren’t bread /cheese/houmous so was trying to get creative. I must try wraps /quesadillas again, I think she’d go for that. Any other lunchtime ideas welcome, I am in a rut!

Wolf I’m glad you managed to let your hair down yesterday, you must have needed it!

Glad Gp was helpful Sunny

I’ve just spent £17 in Boots on hay fever stuff. I’ve taken a tablet and put the eye drops in and I am a new woman! 👌🏻

Morning all
Dc not going to school today as we woke at my parents, ds didn't wake until 8.35 which is very rare.
€10.20 on two burgers and chips for me and my sis after our horrid ten mile extremely hilly road race yesterday
I committed the mortal sin of withdrawing €40 cash from my cc yesterday and then db repaid me €105 last night, gutted I didn't just borrow from joint account.

Big grocery bill this week due to buying cake ingredients for dd birthday cake, but had €15 off €155 spend code

Wreck house sitting sounds like a nice way of having a free holiday

Em had your dh suggestions on what ye would cut back on electricity? Food? fuel? Savings?

Our gp's never rush you but there are delays not huge ones like at my last gp, but like tayto says we pay for it

My df's chocks are no more, there was a nighttime visitor

Seacow sounds like a lovely visit with your df, emotionally charged though it was.

Em goading you with MIL comments

Nocuts I've contacts subscription with spec savers, I get 20 pairs per month to make it cheaper and so I wear glasses a bit too.

Creme your ds's dad is being a pr*ck

Fluffy my H seems to think changing his behaviour now will change my mind but unfortunately too little too late. Ems dh is only on a temporary blip

Wreck well done on the eBay bargains

Adjustable waists here for dd or she loses her trousers she has no arse at all

Cag you're not waffling about move, it's a big deal and coming so close for you guys

Lonely you are amazing with the amount of physical work you do both indoors and outdoors

Welcome nettyknickers

€14.95 in petrol station dc had €5 of this from their uncle & we bought a sticker book, lucky bag, sweets, a breakfast roll for me and plain roll for ds's breakfast.

Wolf glad you got your night out & a break from all that's going on with your life currently.

Good news sunny
Lonely my ds is incredibly fussy with food. I wonder sometimes if there's more to it but I've not investigated. I try not to make an issue with food as I was forced to eat a few foods when I was young, was incredibly fussy until I went to college and at 35 physically balk at certain foods and would like to avoid this with dc.
They'd both live happily on dairy only

That sounds very much like stimming lonely bless him. I think it’s only a problem if it’s a problem though, I forget how old he is but yes a lot of friends just observe when younger - it can be so difficult even getting an appt that maybe it’s not worth the stress!

Well we’ve come up with a plan. Lost track of the amount of times DH asked incredulously if Cagletini is actually allowed XYZ. 😂 Decided that for the first week we will just offer lunch, I’m a bit too overwhelmed to consider going straight to 3 meals. So at lunch the Caglets generally fend for themselves anyway so not a problem if DS doesn’t want what we are having (which he won’t for the most part). We don’t normally have hot lunches - I’ve tried doing this so we can have cold stuff in the evenings but they are always ravenous after their clubs. TBH long term I’d be happy with them having two hot meals, probably ends up healthier with more veg etc, but it’s a faff. Just need to get through until we move (oops there I go again 😂😳)

So baby’s first meal plan :o
Wednesday: roast chicken carrot and broccoli (we will have gravy etc)
Thursday: salmon with cucumber (will add some kind of carb for us)
Friday: cheesy omelette with courgette (I’ll add ham)
Saturday: pork chops sweet potato and green beans
Sunday: avocado on toast (hipster/millennial baby 🤓) with baby corn
Monday: creamy tomato veg pasta and asparagus (I really really need to make sure we have a splash mat by this point...)

Now to plan dinners too [sigh]

Shopping is very expensive this week! As we also need laundry stuff and nappies plus I’ve got a free flow cup for water, and Milton wipes for the high chair tray