Fledglings are raucous in August - the Flylady thread

[TooStressyForMyOwnGood]

Thanks to paxillin for our August thread title .

Hello all and welcome to the August Flylady thread. We are a friendly bunch who try to roughly follow the Flylady system. How strictly you follow it is of course up to you! Every day the thread leader posts information about which zone of the house we are in and the missions for the week.

Newbies are always welcome. All information is available on the Flylady website www.flylady.net

On the website there is information for beginners. You can also sign up to the Flylady emails but we would advise caution as there are hundreds of them.

We post our achievements (ta das) and our to do lists and any other general chatter about life / flying.

There is enough information on this thread to start getting on with things but you can also trawl through the (confusing at times) website:-

Information on getting started: www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/

The launch pad is also a good starting place:www.flylady.net/c/lp.php

Fly stands for Finally Loving Yourself. The general idea is that short bursts of tidying / organisation are more achievable than marathon efforts. Flylady advises 15 minute bursts is effort but you can tweak this to fit your own circumstances.

I'm on holiday this week with intermittent internet connection so will not be on much but will keep an eye on the thread and hopefully everyone else will feel free to jump in!

With it being summer holidays it may be pretty quiet on here but missions etc will be here for those who want them.

Morning everyone,
Toostressy celeste the water fight was very very fun and we finished off with a game of cricket. However I think I overdid it as I'm only 3 days into my dosage increase and when we got home I fainted. I'm ok now but I've got a cracking bruise on my leg and I've grazed the skin off my knee and elbow.

Ta da
Dishwasher emptied
Breakfast dishes loaded
Everyone up dressed and ready (back to school prep)

To do
Vacuum upstairs
Chop firewood
Take both dd to a party
Take all kids swimming
Make bread

That's it for me today as I'm going to take it a bit easier

I'm envious of your idylic lifestyle mumodzoo village water fights, chopping wood, making bread I hope you'll ok after fainting though. Not good.

I'm also looking to get the things back in order here today after dh had weeek off work and also in prep for ds starting school next week. dh has already left for work and ds is and ready for the day. My mum is picking him up at 8 to take him out for the day. I want to try and blitz the kitchen today. The oven is looking (and smelling) dire at the mo

So by 830 we hadnt managed

My hair
Dds hair
My teeth
Any shoes

Must do better tomorrow

Yes by 29 weeks life is definitley everyone fed no one dead mode

Ta Da

Washer on
Dryer on

ta da

washed dishes and cleared sink
zoflora'd kitchen tops
made beds
tidied ds's room
zoflora'd bathroom basin
bleached loo

ds has gone off with mum for the day. I'm currently sitting down mooching around the internet for ten mins, just basically enjoying the empty house and peace and quiet will get on with the kitchen in a bit. Will set myself a deadline of 10am

Ta Da

Washer on
Dryer on
Living room furniture pulled out
All stuff from under furniture away
Skirting boards wiped
Floor swept
Floor mopped

So. Hot.

I fucking hate mornings.

einstein

Thanks all last night was much better for DD so that really helped and I feel a bit more human this morning.

Sort of 'failed' that glucose test though in that I'm not into gestational diabetes territory, but my sugars are slightly raised so they're going to keep an eye on it. Which means more appointments, a testing kit thingy and possibly even more scans!

Definitely agree that crap bedtimes aren't reserved solely for SN families by the way :o (and don't worry stressy I know you weren't minimising ) it's so wearing isn't it?! I'm just lucky really that DS is an excellent sleeper so only one difficult one to deal with (until Cagletini arrives anyway...).

Despite frequent visits to the Golden Arches (and I use the drive through as a cafe frequently just for drinks!) DD has never actually eaten a burger there! Usually chicken, although you can get fish fingers in the Happy Meal and she's had those as well. I was also thrilled when she was keen to eat from Fast Food establishments in general as it makes it so much easier when you are out/away! It took a while for us too and she can still be suspicious (only in the last year or so would she eat a KFC, for instance )

Zoo please take it easy.

Shall we scrap it out over September I can do it but if anyone else has a burning desire to step in I'm not territorial, honest!

The funny thing is I actually feel much healthier in this pregnancy than the previous too! I was convinced I would find it tougher (I did find the first trimester awful though TBF due to increased constant nausea) as I now have the other health conditions to contend with, but it's going really well so far. The consultant told me not to 'medicalise' the pregnancy as it's all going swimmingly, I've done it all before etc.

Sympathies on the fussy eaters too, I have two of them although DD is much better in that she loves loads of different veg even like asparagus and avocado which I wouldn't touch until adulthood. But both of them get very funny about anything 'mixed up' so stuff like casseroles and soups etc are mostly left, and they don't like most types of potato, proper meat is virtually a non starter other than chicken skin and sometimes wings :o, they aren't even reliable with oven stuff really and DD only eats one type of frozen pizza because the rest are 'wrong', I've only just found a type of rice they both eat. It's exhausting (and I know they could be a lot worse) and SO BLOODY BORING!!!

I wrote down our schedule last night and tried to think of a five day meal plan that we can just repeat every week in term time (possibly making an exception if DH is home in the evening as then we have time to do something different, but it'll involve planning with the diary each week). I called it "meals both kids will actually eat" and boy was it hard! I've settled with:
Spag Bol
Cauli/broccoli cheese with either chorizo or hot dogs
Fish fingers with micro chips and micro veg
Chicken wings with veg and rice
Pasta with hidden veg tomato sauce (I can sneak a little tuna into this too).

At least the cheese sauce and the two pasta sauces will come out of the freezer so there won't be as much effort required. Unfortunately there is nowhere near enough space to cook and freeze full lasagnes etc and I'd still need to cook the actual pasta but I'm really hoping that having this boring meal plan for a while will help ease the craziness. Things can maybe get a bit more interesting when we move and have a bigger freezer and hopefully a more reliable oven!

Baths will change when we move too, or a while after. Part of the conditions of my medical application to the council are that they want me to have a wet room! Because I struggle with bathing myself. So we won't even have a bath then I assume. Unfortunately DD is not keen on showers but she did get used to it when we were on holiday to her credit. It is the sensory thing of "spiky" water. I can't bloody wait to have a shower myself though. Not sure how it'll work with baby but it all depends whether the property we end up with has one already or if we have to wait for it to be adapted.

It's funny isn't it how aaaaaaall the advice about sleep is "bath book bed" but seriously it does NOT work that simply for many kids! (Not even just kids with SN either, some just find baths more stimulating than relaxing!) When we had a sleep workshop recently we had tried literally ALL the advice they gave. The reason they've suggested the bath still is because the warmth helps raise melatonin apparently (and DD does like the water hot). I think it could work if we take the hair wash out of the picture so am willing to try. It should mean we can go straight from bathroom to bed as well rather than faffing with hairdryers etc. I've noted which days might be best for hairwashes in the morning but that will be tricky because they are totally against doing anything like that in the mornings as it's not what they're used to. Sigh.

It does seem a bit pointless doing all this when I know it's all going to get messed up when baby arrives but I'm really (naively) hoping that if we get into a decent habit before we will at least have a solid base to work from... I'm right, right? Please tell me I'm right!

Do you need to hairdry Cag? My two go to bed with wet hair, so do I if I wash mine at night. DD's is almost down to her waist, I plait it if I remember, it's fine. Our biggest issue is brushing it properly

Soggy pillows

They dry again, it's never been a problem.

I couldnt sleep on a soggy pillow!

They don't feel soggy at all, it's only a very slight dampness if anything, you can't tell in the morning. We don't go to bed with dripping hair, it is squeezed out and then left for a bit to airdry while we do teeth, read whatever. I thought this was pretty normal, we have always been a non-hairdryering family, same when I was growing up.

Actually, I did used to hairdry when mine was short, for styling purposes, but it's been long again for years now and doesn't need it.

I went to bed with wet hair the other night. It was still wet in the morning when I threw it up into a bun and still wet by the time I took it out to go to bed too...

Just one more thing out of the house and then ALL of the things in the house to do. I just want to crawl into bed and sleep.

Did you not smell like a wet dog einstein?

Cag yes, we have the picky food and the shower dislike here too, although they will tolerate the shower but hair washing is a nightmare.

If I let DD go to bed with wet hair she gets a bad cold! I am disappointed to report that the old wives tale is true in her case, she does have a lot of hair though.

Cag I got a book about sleep for children out of the library during one desperate period. It clearly stated that children won't sleep if they are not tired - now while that is true, I was hoping for a little more help! But I did - eventually and grudgingly - accept that my DD just needs less sleep than others and that is still true. The plus point is that she can do lots after school and still fit homework in due to being awake more hours It was not so much fun when DH worked away and she was a toddler on the go for at least 14 hours a day though, when other people's children used to keel over and sleep by 7.00pm.

She woke up in the middle of the night last night and had trouble getting back to sleep. We were eating a custard cream each at 4.30am in her room this morning not a recommendation from the book hence the toffe latte now poor excuse but the best one I've got

Zoo hope you are still resting!

You lot have some random chats on here sometimes

Anything to avoid the housework celeste

LOL Fresh

Hope you're feeling better ofazoo.

Re. sleep: not to the same extent but I have long ago accepted that my kids just don't need huge amounts of sleep and certainly don't get hugely tired in the day either.

Ta da:-
Dentist appointment for me and DDs - all ok
Soft play
Tea eaten
Bit of school uniform sorting

To do:-
DDs watching a programme so need to run round and tidy up tea
Bath time
Evening routine

When we used to let the DCs go to bed with damp hair we ended up with mouldy pillows! :(
Ah well it'll be much quicker with just a quick dunk in the bath and no hair washing I guess

Lovely afternoon tea with friend, I am stuffed. The whole babysitting difficulty was solved by DSD who took the Caglets to the cinema. And they went to macdonalds after so although they'll probably want a little something later, no need to do dinner either!