So when the UK sleeps, we know you other MNers are out there part II

[tadjennyp]

I was looking for thumbwitch's recipe for that cake and found the old thread has disappeared so Linzer and I thought we'd resurrect it!

I miss M&S too - although I rarely bought much in there apart from undies and nightwear, it is such a nice mostly-clothes department store! They don't seem to have anything quite like it here. I must admit the clothes were a bit hit and miss, but I did get a few nice bits from them in the last few years. Didn't like much of their Per Una range, but an occasional piece seemed ok. Pricey though. (am BIG cheapskate when it comes to clothes!)

I bought a tumbledrier at the weekend. It will be delivered tomorrow, hopefully. Thanks to the continuing "off"-ness of the weather here, washing is a bit of a hit and miss affair. I did manage to take advantage of today's heat to get one load washed and dried; but tomorrow will be about 10 deg cooler and may shower, so a bit more tricky.
And because we don't have central heating, indoor airing is harder; we don't have an airing cupboard either because the water tank is outside. Some places have their washing lines under cover because of this, but we don't. So - tis a pain and only gets worse in the winter. Will be nice to have fluffy towels - when I was last in England at Dad's, I had to use his tumbledrier to dry DS's nappies before coming home - they were lovely and soft and fluffy! I should think his bum was in heaven for a few days, until he had to go back to line-dried ones again!

Mind you - I don't want him to get more comfy in his nappies - he needs to come out of them! He is resisting though - still wees wherever, when he is nappy-free, no concept of going in the potty or even the loo.
I don't have the strength of will to be be chasing after him with a cloth the whole time - but I'm going to have to, aren't I.

I was in a huge M&S at Cribbs Causeway in Bristol yesterday and they actually had a good range of clothes. However, I do find their clothes can be a little frumpy once I try them on.
I have discovered the White Stuff. I love almost everything they sell!

thumb - i wouldn't worry about trying to make ds come out of nappies (unless he's 14 or so). my experience with dd was that trying to encourage/make her do something just makes her do the opposite (wonder where she gets that stubborn streak from) & once she was ready for walking, or no nappies, or whatever, it just happened.

of course, your child & up to you, but if you just feel like you 'ought' to - meh.

stranded - i know that m&s. i would love, just once, to have the time to spend at cribbs causeway with a credit card (with magic free money), no-one else to bother me, except some lacky to follow behind & carry bags. and perhaps a 2nd one to do the lining up to pay, whilst i continue shopping.

i would allow a few other shoppers to be there, to add some ambiance, but it mustn't be too crowded, i've got used to a lack of crowds now & don't like them so much.

kickass, thank you - I do agree with you but get a sneaking suspicion that DS is just a bit lazy and doesn't want to come out of nappies because then he'll have to go to the loo himself, and I'm facilitating his laziness. DH mutters about it every now and then but he knows my response is "if you want it done so badly, YOU do it", which he is faaaaaar from prepared to take on. I would be happy to wait for DS to be ready if it wasn't for this suspicion of mnine.

DD1 was a nightmare to potty train - a combination of stubbornness and laziness, I suspect. DH finally persuaded her to ditch the nappies about a week before her fourth birthday, when he told her that only children who wore pants were allowed to help decorate the Christmas tree! Goodness knows how long she would have carried on wearing nappies otherwise. I was getting quite fed up - most of her friends had been out of nappies at 2, I'd had two DC in nappies for 1.5 years, she was the only child in her kindergarten class still in nappies, etc etc.

Sorry, that's probably not much help to you, thumb - my only advice would be to give it a go if you want to, but don't worry if it doesn't work; just try again a bit later. Looking back, I probably put too much pressure on DD1 (and felt like a failure myself in the process). DD2 decided herself that she wanted to use the potty (a month after DS was born, so not great timing but at least I didn't have to "train" her as such), whereas with DS, I encouraged him to start wearing pants (I was getting quite fed up of nappies by that stage!) and potty training worked fine, but he has quite a different personality to DD1.

DD, who is 5 in a couple of weeks, was potty trained at about 2 and a half but still had plenty of accidents in the day. Recently she's been wet in the night quite a lot, so much so that we put her back in nappies for a while. I thought it was making her lazy as she's not at all bothered that her db at 3 is completely dry at night while she is not. We stopped using nappies again a couple of nights ago and lo and behold, she wet the bed both nights. I am knackered again! I don't have any answers thumb, sorry and am too tired to think straight now!

I don't want to hear how hard potty training is! Nor do I want to think about what I'm letting myself in for with washing mountains of reusables although we did finally get our tumble drier this weekend. It's nice to have properly dry clothes rather than the slightly damp ones even after 3 days which are more typical here at this time of year.

You still sticking around Jenny? Maybe your DD's behaviour is related to the baby coming. It's not unusual for children to regress and go back to bedwetting.

Potty training DD2 and DS was easy in comparison - I just think DD1 was particularly stubborn. The only advantage to the fact that she was in nappies for so long was that she never had any accidents once she was out of them. (The other two were 2 and 2.5 and the accidents went on for ages.)

DS has also regressed and is back in nappies at night; no idea why and he doesn't seem bothered by it at all, although he's very proud of himself on those rare nights when he has a dry nappy.

Yep, still here, still in pain, need to hold off till at least Friday now so I can get my first German lesson done!

I too have a tumbledrier now! it arrived at 7:30 yesterday morning, after I got a phone call at about 6:45 (WTF?!) to tell me it would be arriving within the hour.

It's not something I've ever owned myself before but soooo necessary here - hurrah! I can now clear the backlog of laundry cos I know I can get it dry! :)

Tad - hope that the baby accommodates your German lesson

I will stop fretting about the whole nappy thing - DS is still struggling with getting his shorts off himself so I guess that needs to be worked on before I worry about anything else, hey! [doh]

Oh no, that doesn't sound good jenny - what kind of pain? (Sorry if I've missed something earlier on the thread.) Hope you manage to hold out until Friday. I've got my English lesson tomorrow (with DD1's class this week), but have just discovered - or rather, a friend of mine has recommended - a very good website for handouts, so that's saving me some time.

Have you heard of www.quia.com Linzer? (I think that's right, but didn't want to link in case it wasn't)

Congrats on the tumble drier thumb. Nice fluffy towels await!

Just low-level period pains and tightening, like you get at the beginning of labour. Perhaps I'll be in labour for days and all of a sudden I'll pop!

I've just had a quick look at Quia but it seems like you have to pay to use the site, although there is a 30-day free trial. Do you use it, jenny?

Maybe things will get going soon then, although hopefully the baby will let you teach a German lesson or two first.

bloody hell Tad

Sorry calm MNers is probably what you need right now.

Here have some tea

I love M&S shoes, they do a great non-leather collection that are actually fashionable

I used to use quia a lot Linzer, didn't realise you had to pay for it now. Have you signed up to the TES website though? You can use their forum to search for lesson ideas and activities, though admittedly you'll have to work backwards from German or French for most of them.

You still going to Vienna for those night things book club? Linzer

Night things? What night things???

I should go to bed but have stayed up too late trying to read this monster of a paper about a subject I don't understand too well and so am all fired up (mentally).

DD's just had her feed so I better go and maximise sleep.

That years away

Good luck for tomorrow everyone

(yes I know, my posts are like buses)

No I didn't mean naughty night things (dirty mind you)...though now you mention it, it all makes sense

I can't quite remember naughty night things, though there is clear evidence up front to support the idea that I may have partaken in some!

Naughty night things? Can't think what you might be talking about.

I missed last month's book club for reasons I can't quite remember now. I really should e-mail to find out about this month's meeting, but I'm a bit lacking in energy at the moment as far as going out in the evenings is concerned. Am starting to think a MN book swap club would be the easier option, if a little less sociable!

Potty training is a lot easier in a hot climate, I discovered. Less clothes to take off (and no tights!) and no carpets so much easier to clear up accidents.

However because of this I potty trained dd2 earlier than dd1 and probably before she was ready - so we did have a lot more accidents.

Hope you are feeling ok Jenny. When are you due again?

3 weeks stranded. I could go for Monday though to get the German lesson on Thursday and the baby shower my neighbour is arranging for me on Sunday out of the way!

Evening all

Brought myself some new tweezers and they only work upside down. Go figure