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Original poster

How farkin busy are you really when you can't take your kids to be measured for shoes?

149 replies

OliveIsSoNotHereAndOnABreak · 31/07/2007 14:15

link here for nursery that 'helps busy parents with all chores'

ffs

they take in your dry cleaning and have hairdressers etc

sort yourselves out people, how busy can you really be?????

OP posts:
IdrisTheDragon · 31/07/2007 16:01

I think having not yet at school children helps as I don't have to get them when everyone else is. And I work part time so can go on the days I'm work. If there were only weekends available then I probably wouldn't be as keen.

bundle · 31/07/2007 16:02

do I get £39 fio?

cat64 · 31/07/2007 16:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

potoroo · 31/07/2007 16:33

Hate shopping at the best of times, let alone with DS in tow (mind you we are in a rural area, so getting shoes is a 30 min drive away).

I cut DS's hair once which was a disaster. They do it at nursery every 6 weeks and he sits there quietly with all the other children and has it done. Brilliant.

Lazycow · 31/07/2007 16:42

I'd love this service.- I hate shopping on a Saturday evn without any children in tow. As for 1 hr to fit shoes - as others have said I work so can't take ds on week days at all (leave house at 8am and am back at 7pm).

This leaves the weekend. My last expedition to find ds shoes on a Saturday took me 3 hours (if you include the time it took to get to the shops and back). I had to go to 4 different shops to find an appropriate shoe in his size and in each shop I waited at least 15-20 minutes (bloody ticket systems)to be seen to followed by 10 mins of being measured and waiting for them to look for shoes they didn't have. By the end I'd lost the will to live. I thus wasted the best part of a morning doing this. I'd be eternally grateful if my CM offered to do this for me on a quiet week day - unfortunately I think that may be above and beyond

blueshoes · 31/07/2007 16:44

Fantastic idea. Particularly the bit about one-stop drop-off/pick up, with older children being escorted and collected from school.

The incremental cost of paying nursery for this service is less than that for an aupair (if you count cost of food and lodging of ap plus the privacy implications of having someone under your roof) or the cost of parent cutting works hours or giving up job completely to do 3 pm school pick up. Prob the same cost as afterschool club club for one child?

Makes a nursery closer to services offered by nanny. Provides similar flexibility for a smaller income bracket that would not otherwise afford a nanny.

And why shouldn't weekends be for fun things?

alycat · 31/07/2007 16:49

My DD attended a nursery where they had a hairdresser. She only went 2 mornings a week to get her used to being away from me.

I went in one day to collect her, they said, "She was very good, sat still for her haircut." Me "Haircut?? HAIRCUT!!!" "Yes her name was down" "ER, NO IT WASN'T"

They had mistaken her for another child who was there full time. This other little girl and her sister had their hair done everytime the hairdresser came.

My DDs as yet uncut waist length riglets were gone! They hadn't even saved them. And the manageress said, "I hope you aren't expecting us to stick it back on Ha, Ha." Me, "No but I did expect an apology!"

The nursery was part of Bupa and I made a big fuss - I was livid. It could have been medication or anything.

EricL · 31/07/2007 17:03

Great idea. Leaves more time at the weekend for fun things.

I try to do as many chores as poss during the week so we can all just play about at the weekend and relax together.

Who wants to be going shopping and stuff like that if you dont need to?

Sod that.

Quattrocento · 31/07/2007 17:11

That's my rule. All chores MUST be done in the week, except for cooking and washing up and laundry.

MotherFunk · 31/07/2007 17:33

Message withdrawn

eleusis · 31/07/2007 18:33

All chores must be done in the week? Well, now that's a fantasy in my world.

Kif · 31/07/2007 18:43

Last three times I've bought shoes it's been an all day affair, I travel to shoe shop, I take my ticket and twidddle my thumbs for half an hour, Dd gets measured, spotty youth repeatedly dissapears into stock room bearing increasingly unsuitable shoes, Dd gets bored and distracted and sets her heart on those effing ridiculous 60 quid Elli Pelli beaded shoes, it then becomes apparent that there is in fact no suitable shoe in the shop that fots her adequately, coffee stop to settle everyone's nerves, on to another shoe shop.

And this is L-O-N-D-O-N.

Shoe shopping is inexplicably impossible - I'd pay to get help with it.

KTeePee · 31/07/2007 18:44

When dd was at nursery a hairdresser used to come in every couple of months - it never occurred to me that this was something I should prefer to do myself lol (was a lot cheaper than taking her myself, most hairdressers here won't do children's haircuts on Saturday) and it had the advantage that she never made a fuss about having her hair cut because everyone else was having theirs done (unlike my ds's )

Shoes are different though - don't know that I would trust dh to do this even......

The other thing my nursery offered was to take the babies to the HV for regular weighing (dd was a lightweight and we were keeping an eye on it)

southeastastra · 31/07/2007 18:47

i agree with the comment on the link. i remember going out to the hairdresses/buying shoes with my mum. these memories can't be bought and are precious.

NadineBaggott · 31/07/2007 18:48

Well motherhood is all about the fun AND the boring bits ain't it?

Jeez don't know how they'd have got on in MY day!

hunkermunker · 31/07/2007 18:54

DS1 loves having his feet measured. We go sometimes when he doesn't need shoes because it's a treat for him.

He quite likes having his hair cut - he gets to watch a DVD while he has it done at fab local children's hairdresser.

If you need to and can afford to, why not pay for some things to be done while you're not there?

For some children, it's not as easy as picking shoes off the shelf and buying them. I had appallingly difficult-to-fit feet - high-arched, sticky out bony bits everywhere - actually, I still find it next to impossible to buy shoes that don't rub or slip. I even got married in boots. I'm having a bugger of a time finding running shoes that fit atm, fgs. Luckily, the DSs seem to have usual chubby child feet that just slot into shoes and fit.

I quite like going to buy shoes with the boys. But I hate going for me. I wish someone else could take my feet shopping for me...!

SueW · 31/07/2007 18:58

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at OP's request.

southeastastra · 31/07/2007 19:01

problem seems to be lack of feet measuring shoe shops!

Kif · 31/07/2007 19:06

my guilty secret is that I occasionally buy dD shoes from ASDA. .

But - really - it's impossible. She has a wide foot and a penchant for pink and girly - that seems to be incompatible. I wonder if there is a market for some kind of internet biometric shoe merchant.

LittleSarah · 31/07/2007 19:15

Well I am not really that bust at all what with being a layabout student type so I take dd to hairdressers and shopping.

Don't mind hairdressers, not particularly fun but quick. Hate shoe shopping. All the waiting around, trying on so many shoes, (once none would fit dd's skinny ankles!), and then having to pay a ludicrous amount of money at the end.

But I have no choice, I don't have the need to farm her out and can't afford to anyway! No problem if others can and want to though.

FluffyMummy123 · 31/07/2007 19:16

Message withdrawn

totaleclipse · 31/07/2007 19:17

I looked after a frinds daughter last week, her shoes were so small they were crippling her, when her mum returned I said, these shoes are too small for her, she says her toes are hurting, her mum replied, well they are only her play shoes

KitsAndBits · 31/07/2007 19:19

I worked for kids allowed! I wouldnt trust them with my ironing anyways, let alone my kids

Caroline1852 · 31/07/2007 19:41

I don't mind the shopping for shoes, but I wish someone would offer a service whereby they sew on Cash's name tapes into all my sons' new school uni items..... it is tedious tedious tedious and takes forever.

MrsBadger · 31/07/2007 20:01

ah now Xenia genuinely did outsource nametapes...

ask in dry cleaners, tailors etc - it's the kind of thing the alterations lady would do for extra cash