Tutti frutti - all booty - 10/ 10 club BOOT CAMP - all sign in and line up for parade

[FrannyandZooey]

For anyone who wants a boost to their general health. The suggested goals are:

EAT 10 PORTIONS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES EVERY DAY - if you don't usually eat much fruit and veg I would build up gradually or you could upset your digestion.

DO (AT LEAST) 10 MINUTES OF EXERCISE EVERY DAY - can be yoga, stretching or something more energetic. The plan is that the idea of doing 10 minutes is not too daunting, and having started you may well find you want to do more.

There are no restrictions on what you eat so long as you get your 10 fruit and veg as well. The focus is not on weight loss but on improving our energy levels and hopefully our general mood and well-being. Sign up below and post here to tell us how you're getting on and how you are feeling.

Basic guidance on what constitutes a portion of fruit and veg here and you can download more detailed information by following the link at the very bottom of the page

Am off to Monmouthshire today to meet up with Dh's family. It is Phase One in the 40th birthday celebrations.

Phase Three is the most terrifying end of next week, Phase Two is delightful, Phase Four is currently in development.

Aaaaagh.

Wish me luck today.

His 40th birthday celebrations I should add.

Because obviously I spend my life organising things for other people's birthdays. Not mine. Oh no.

did you read my response to your morphinne question, 100x? I probably explained badly. Good luck today.

Oh yes MrsC, you didn't explain in badly at all. I do quite see.

Oh Avi. Crikey. Thing is he said he didn't want a massive party and would rather spend the money going away with us - which we are next week for a few nights, to Venice, which is Phase Two and is the delightful bit, BUT then he started doing add-ons, like asking fourteen people for dinner the night after we get back (that's the terrifying bit) and on and on it seems to go. I wish I could fly to NZ and collapse!

Gosh, Avi - that sounds dramatic, did you confront your friend?

I have had pomegranate, mango, apple, grape, sultana and nectarine fruit salad with lots of granola and soa yoghurt.

I seem to be coming on every day again. No willpower. Addictive personality.

He 'added on' you cooking for 14 people?

What will you eat?

franny he sounds like a lovely sensitive and wise child..er is there anything more you could wish for?

teaching a child about feelings sympathy adn empathy is one of the greatest things you can do as a parent...I don't believe in hiding the good or the bad...you sound like you are pretty wondeful at building on his natural instincts

God knows. This doesn't come naturally to me AT ALL. I am not a natural. We will have marmalade bread and butter pudding made with brioche. This is all I have decided. It is delicious and will cheer me up no end.

Also they are not our friends as such - all our friend friends - are in London. This is people we've met here. Oh gawd, I don't know. I hate dinner parties. I hate the yabber yabber and the sitting about and all the endless boring conversation. I have been to some dire dinner parties here. I have been confrontational at them

We have never had one. I don't mind having friends round for supper, but not acquaintances talking about schools. Yawn. I'm going to think about it tomorrow.

Lol at you being confrontational, 100x, can't imagine it. you must come on here and menu plan. I have lots of recipe books and so does Boco. Bee saw them. I have had 8 for a dinner party. We had fillet of beef wrapped in porcini musgroons and parma ham but you would need two I expect.

now a musgroon does sound exotic

Franny - I worry about that all the time as I had a role reversal mother thing from a very young age and I am desperate to avoid the pattern. That situation, however, sounds like a very healthy exchange and your ds sounds wonderful.

Oh thank you for coming back about the Alice Miller; as you probably surmised I thought you were saying I must never read it as I am doing exactly what she says not to and would not be able to handle it. Which I think to an extent is true. Of course I sound like I am doing a great job! I edit enormously on here and only occasionally share negative stuff for fear someone will come on late at night and say "well fgs don't read Alice Miller" .

Of course it is easy to say I must be doing a fab job because ds is such a charming sensitive etc boy. But I was an extremely well behaved etc charming child and have grown up into a very very unhappy teenager and a fairly fucked up adult. I know what you are all saying but I don't think children are meant to be looking after their parents when they are 4. They should be doing what 100 said and not giving a toss because their OWN emotional needs are more important and they have rightly been taught to take care of those first.

This specific situation is a particular problem for me though, in two ways - firstly dp tends to walk off and ignore me when I am upset (he doesn't mean to be cruel exactly but he just can't handle it) so if ds does it as well it seems doubly hurtful

secondly I DON'T want ds to grow up thinking that is the right way to handle people being upset. I want him to learn how to give and receive comfort, so if he offers to 'leave me alone for a bit' I am going to say "no I would rather have cuddles", and tell him how much it has helped me when he does try to look after me, which is probably screwing him up in all sorts of ways making him think he is responsible for my emotional wellbeing. LOL the Freudian aspects are dreadful too. Yesterday he said (during a kind of story he was telling) he wanted to kill dp - dp now convinced he has full blown Oedipus complex oh dear LOL

Ooh what a lot of sharing. I am sorry you feel like world's worst mother - what rubbish that is. Can we help? By email or on another thread if you don't feel this is the right place?

100 I don't know how you manage all the parties. I would have some Victorian vapours or something and collapse on a sopha. Avi you too. I can't imagine having a very sociable dp as mine is quite retiring (thank god for my sake). I like people and parties and things but they stress me a LOT and I need to space them out and be in control of them and so on. If dp was inviting 14 people for dinner I would not cope.

100 when IS your birthday and what are they all doing about it? Did we miss it in all the palaver of everyone else's?

Oh and thank you all for being kind and especially the fruity snack joke, which I liked a lot

I am not sure you are all right, but you are kind

Hmm - I see what you're saying, Franny, but it is ok for them to see us upset sometimes. I suppose if you don't want him to feel responsible for you, next time when he says he'll leave you alone for a bit, say ok, and then beat ourself over the head with a cushion?

ourself, yourself where are my 'y's?

That was meant to be a joke

must add emoticons or

yes I just don't know

I want to encourage him to be as caring and emotionally literate (sorry crap poncey phrase but does describe what I mean) as possible, but not to learn to put my needs before his or whatever

oh dear glad i don't have to think about this any more

mine are as good as grown up and therefore more than available for leaning on and telling me that i was/am a brilliant mum

i am even able to to talk to the dds about men in a nice open way which is good i feel...and it is role reversal/two way street

apparently i did protect them when they were little..cos they didn't have a sense of me being crap from the start

so they tell me

There is a major difference Franny in your family, as opposed to mine, which is that you have an only. Ineveitably an only is much more involved in his parents life, than mine would be because it is all survival of the fittest here and endless yawning desires for More Attention and Me Me Me.

I think you handled it well. You told him what the outcome would be, how you were going to handle it. When the opportunity arises you and dp have a big hug infront of him and stand side by side on some issue with him - not necessarily confrontational - so he knows you are both as one as his parents, and I think that is comforting and re-orders things properly.

God, I must go. Don't be sad Franny. You are very honest and clear at seeing both the successes and the faults, and as such are modelling good emotional literacy.

Yes I did bring it up in the afternoon when dp and I were being friendly again - I said "you know we were cross and shouting this morning, well we have talked it over and we both feel ok now. It's ok for grown ups to have an argument if they put it right afterwards."

You are all kind and I will stop hijacking the thread quite so much now. Let's go back to bickering about titles.

Oh I am going out for lunch at friends' house. I wonder if food will be 10 / 10 ish.

oh and 100 ds is only an only because we haven't had another child yet, IYSWIM

Erm yes - I wasn't suggesting that you had 'created' a situation Franny, I meant as it stands it is different, not better or worse. Probably better, all of mine would be an only given half a chance. I know, I have asked them.

Right really am off now.

I can recommend four and five year gaps, they are very good at fetching things.