2014 Durham/Teesside/Tyne & Wear Cake Fest

[juneybean]

Thought I'd be premature and create this thread now.

Currently have this meet up planned:

13th Jan - Miss Tina's in Washington

tumbleweed

What we doing then? Need to sort out some meet ups. Have Durham schools broken up yet? DS's school broke up today.

most have. Mine have not, some Catholic schools have changed the holiday for religious reasons. Kids are dead on their feet though, even dd nearly fell asleep in the 5 min car journey back to the cm house after school. I am not thanking school for giving us am extra long term!

my cm is moving to Canada so I'm having fun and games trying to find a new one.

oh ffs Trip and Anita I'm very close to being very rude and strangling someone on your play it forwards group. She asked for something and asked if I can drop off. fine, she is only in the next village. But she had sent me 4 bloody messages so far demanding to know when I'll be dropping it off. Yeah love I'll just drop everything for you because I have no life or commitments. .I hate rude people. If I didn't want rid of it is pretend dd had had a change of heat.

Oh that is ridiculous!! Tell her she'll have to pick the bloody thing up herself!!!
Bad news about the CM!

Hulloooooo! This fell off my threads and I've only just got round to adding it back on.

How is everyone? Got your uniform golden? Argh about the cm Indith. Had any luck with finding a new one?

Right then. The second week of my school holidays (which is probably after all of yours have gone back to school) I am only in uni one day so on either the 22nd or the 25th April I am going to liberate my children from the childminder and take them out somewhere. Don't know where, maybe Beamish, possibly Gibside, or I might just end up in the Botanics because William keeps asking to go. I've not looked to see if their Easter activities are over the standard holidays or if there will still be stuff on. Somewhere fun anyway and hopefully not too rammed since most people will be back at school. Don't know what the rest of you are doing but I'm open to suggestion.

Beamish and Gibside are a bit far for me,but if you're going to the Botanics I'll come up with DD.

We're going to Beamish next week but it's probably Wednesday rather than Friday ... but if you were definitely going I could rearrange for Friday!

Botanics might be nice if the weather keeps nice?

I shall keep you all posted

juney how are things going?

Ooh, ooh. I was going to ask that as well!

Blahh had some family problems this month which caused AF to be a week late so I decided to wait until May so I'm calm as a cucumber -floats- only 5 weeks to wait... argh!

Deep breaths juney!

Well we have a childminder I think. Sheer dumb luck someone local is in the process of registering. Seems nice enough. I'm not 100% happy and over the moon but I don't really have a choice. She has worked in nurseries etc for 10 years and been deputy manager in the last one she was at so I'm sure she will be all fine with safety, documentation and all that.

There is/was a local nanny looking for work. Self employed and paid by the hour. Would have worked out about the same as a full time nursery place for ds2 and a CM for the big ones. She also cleans. I so wish we could go with her! But sadly it is rather more expensive than the CM alone and given that there are plenty of days when both dh and I are working from home and we only have space for one desk tucked away upstairs having the dcs cared for in the home is jsut not practical, we really need them out of the house.

But she cleans! As part of her normal duties!

Which nursery did she work in?? (PM if you like)

Pity about the nanny :(

Have sent you a PM.

The nanny sounds lovely, ideal really. It is just the fact that we are often both at home and so one is in the study upstairs and the other in the dining room so really cna't have the kids being cared for at home. Sometimes we've had mum looking after them and it has been a nightmare with one of us setting up camp on our bed or something but it jsut doesn't work, we end up having to hide from them, going for a wee or to get a cup of tea is a nightmare because you end up with ds2 hanging round your legs.

But I really wish I could employ her. I don't like having that niggling feeling in my gut when it comes to my dc's childcare. But what choice do I have?

If she's self-employed would it not work out cheaper as she'd be pay as you go (pretty much like me and my families? They tell me what hours they need me and they only pay me for those)

Just with you doing shifts and all?

No, I've done the figures. She'd be £8 per hour in the day and £10 when all 3 children are here. I'd still need her on days off when on placement as I have assignments to do then too.

Bit at her charging more for 3 children, nannies get paid by the family...

Oh dear Lord. mil and dh are going to meet up somewhere between us and her next week since dh will be off with the dcs. She doesn't want to go to brimham rocks because the dcs will want to climb . silly me thinking that was the whole point.

Indith The DCs will want to climb? You mean they will want to be children? The horror!

Sorry. I'm on my second large glass of of the evening after childless friends have gone home. At last. They only stayed one night, but it was waaaaay too long. They don't believe in extended/natural term bf, think DD is badly behaved and spoilt because we indulge her - kindly understood as she is an only. FFS. We went to the park today and took our time so she could pick daisies and dandelions and fill her pockets with interesting stones and so on, since we had nothing else to do today. We also didn't hold her reins as we don't need to (they are a threat, mainly). Apparently their DNs all walk to heel.

I cannot WAIT until they breed. I wish them totally hyperactive toddlers who only say "No!".

DD is only just 2, BTW! And she didn't sit at the table and eat a full meal whilst they were here. I think she was picking up on the tension.....

The visitors used to be our best friends. I doubt we'll see much of them in future.

Indith Could you do your assignments in the university library instead? Or at least when your DH is home? A lot of people do, and you still have unlimited internet, quiet loo visits etc.

Life changes doesn't it. Childless people don't have a clue about life with children. Don't get me wrong, I have some lovely childless friends. But I also have a lot who used to be close friends who have drifted away.

Uni library is great but at hour away, 2 hours in traffic. And it isn't just when I'm in a uni block, it is doing work when on a day off on placement and while I could go into uni it doens't really appeal on a day off between 13 hour shifts. And then there are the days I'm sleeping after nights.

I'm struggling to behave. Someone on MID has posted a picture of their new tattoo. They got Gary Barlow to sign their arm then took themselves straight off to a tattoo place to get it made a permanent fixture. Can you imagine the response a thread like that would get on here?

Classy!

I'm obviously not suggesting anything about GB (I'm really not!) but having a tattoo of ANYONE famous is dodgy ground - what if they do something you don't like?

I do wonder what people with Gary Glitter tattoos did about them.

Indith Councils are training up a lot of new childminders right now, ready for the increased 2yo free provision, so the minder you pick now doesn't have to be permanent. I know round us there's a new cohort of 10ish two or three times per year, and many have previous childcare experience