another new thread for chinese mums

[csa]

gong xi fa chai!

a new thread for a new year? (good idea yingers)

hope everyone had a good celebration this weekend. us? the closest celebration i got to was speaking to my family on new year's eve and hearing about their reunion dinner

Rojak, thanks for that info. I think I am just going to have them done separately. My DS has been constantly ill and I dont think he can handle the 3 in 1 jab.

Happy Easter Everyone and speak very soon.

Hiya

It's so quiet on here. Where is everyone?

Did you all have a nice Easter?

Anyway, just need some advice. It's my son's birthday soon, 10th June. Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions for 1st Birthday party, like food, who to invite and good tips.

Thanks in advance

Wyls

Hi Wyls. Yes it is quiet isnt it, I pop my head round the door from time to time!
How many are you inviting to the party? I am planning dd's 11th at the mo, but that is no doubt a very different sort of event!

at the moment, 25 adults and 5-8 kids.

I am only inviting close family and friends. I am planning to have a bbq but i still think 25 people is a lot of people. I just dont know how to cut it down as all i am inviting are parents, brothers and sisters and their other half and then my DS's 4 little friends and their parents and my best friend, her daughter and her husband.

I was also told that it's england's first game for the world cup.

Hi Wyls, gosh would you believe it - our LO's are nearly 1!

Know what you mean about whether or not to have a party for your DS's 1st. It will be my DD's 1st on 8th June altho we'd most probably have to have it on the weekend before. I would really prefer not to do anything too big as I think it will be too overwhelming for her but I do want to celebrate the occasion. We are also thinking of a BBQ with just immediate family but that already numbers 14 adults n 10 kids! I would like to invite some close friends too but we only have a tiny garden and the place is already bursting at the seams. What to do eh?

Re England's 1st game at the world cup, any chance of scheduling the BBQ either before/after the match - if the times fit?

Hello all, Have been very busy lately, although not sure doing what!!! Hope you have all been well. My dd1 has now started nursery every morning which is great but the fact we have to be somewhere on time each morning is actually quite stressful! After a shaky start, things are getting better.

Regarding MMR, my dd1 had it at about 14 months, and I will probably give my dd2 hers around the same time. I was anxious about it at the time though.

Did everyone have a nice easter break?

wyls - 25 adults - good luck with that! For dd1's birthday we did have a do although I have to say I was relunctant to do one as I did not see the point and in the end only did one because of nagging by my mum and MIL. Once dd1 actually acknowledged other children, a party at ages 2 and 3 made much more sense! Am undecided about what to do with dd2 when she turns 1.

hello there,
it has been v. interesting reading this thread,i am new to mumsnet and motherhood in general. i am chinese (hkg) and have a 6 mth old DD and an english DH. i been confusing my DD with my chinese/english gibberish and hoping for the best. recently moved out of london into the countryside and finding it difficult to settle in at the moment. don't suppose any of yous live in the cambs area? also do any of you have any good or bad experiences with babies and swimming? i am worried about ear / skin infections.

Hi teacakes, welcome. If i can remember correctly, CSA is from Cambridge. And I used to live in Cambrige. Why are you finding it hard?

hello there wyls,
i think it is cos we are now in a village as supposed to being in the hustle and bustle of the big smoke. (a bit of culture shock i think) also it is the first time that i have been alone with DD all day, neither of our family lives near by so feeling a bit isolated. did you ever feel like that?

Hi Teacakes
I live in London but I did find the first year hard until I got to know other parents. (btw the children are much older now and some of the Mums I met when my oldest was 2 or 3 are now among my best friends - but it did take a while...)
Are there any toddler groups or anything in your village? I must say I would have found that hard too, but maybe you can get to know people through Mumsnet? (Wasnt invented when I was in your position!)
As for swimming, I havent ever found it a problem, and all three of mine enjoyed it as babies.
Good luck!

Hi Teacakes, I understand how you are feeling. I was in a similar situation. We moved to a smaller town in Essex (yeah i am an essex girl) 2 years ago but it didnt really matter before I had my DS cos I was working in London and my social life was mainly based in London.

But after having my DS, I could hardly go up to London all the time and I decided to go to some mother and baby group and i have signed up for a few baby classes like, jo jingles, yoga and swimming so that I get out of the house and I can et to meet people.

My point is, can you do something similar? If you want to know what's going on in your area then you can check this website out. www.netmums.com/ I find it very useful.

I am back at work now but I am still in touch with a small group of girls that I get to know when i was on mat leave. And we try to meet at least once a week so I am doing ok now.

I know it's not easy to meet people and it is especially hard when they are already in their little groups but have a go and you never know.

Hope that helps and good luck.

Oh and you can always talk to us here too

teacakes - welcome to our thread, as the others have said it does take time to get to know people and life becomes a lot easier! I have to say that I still have days when i feel isolated but more because some days you just want to do something not kiddie related! Good luck!

thanks for all your encouragment, i know that it will take sometime, but on the bad days when nothing seems to be going right... well i guess we all have those days.

i have started to go to some of the babies classes around the village, the trouble is we are still a single car family so having to drive DH to station and back, which takes a bit of organisation.

question for those of you with older kids, have any of you experienced any 'racial' incidences? if so how did you handle them?

Hi Teacakes, I have them bad days all the time. It's especially hard when you dont have anyone close by to talk to.

My mum is going on holiday again next month for a month and so no help for me next month. I am really dreading it and my DH is going away for a long weekend with work in mid may and i havent had a weekend with just me and my DS yet so that should be interesting.

My problem is that i do have friends i can meet during the week but when it comes to the weekend, everyone just wants to spend it with their other half and with my mum going on holiday i really have no one to go to for 2 whole days!!! I know people do it so i shouldnt be moaning, it no big deal and i should just deal with it, well i will be checking on mumsnet that weekend looking for people to chat to.

About racial incidences, i have had a few in my life time and i am sure my son will face a few of them when he's older so it would be good to know how to deal with them.

btw, my DS started to crawl yesterday and I am so proud. It has taken him a long while and the funniest thing is that his skin is so sensitive that he's red knees from crawling. Bless. Can I get him some knee pads?

btw, my typing is so bad, it's the new laptop i got from work ... he he

after we moved into our new house, my DH went away for 2 nights for work to Paris. i was dreading it, dark nights; creaking house; etc. thought i'd have to sleep in DD's room. but it went by very quickly.

you are lucky to have your mum so close by. wish my folks live closer (my mum would be shocked to hear that from me!!)

tried a new baby group today, sods law everyone appeared to know each other from another group!

DD is only 6.5 mths old so at the rolling around stage. it must be very cute to see them crawling. there are knee pads for babies, i just googled it and lots came back.

It is sweet to see him crawling everywhere BUT he's so quick and i jsut cannot keep my eyes off him.

I will try to google for some knee pads. Nursery is going to think I am mad!!!

Are there any other classes you can go to apart from the mother group?

I just got him some knee pads from ebay. Only £4.99 so not too bad. Thanks Teacakes.

did everyone have a nice bank holiday?

Hello
Hi Teacakes
My children are 6, 10, 14 and are mixed race ( I am white and dh is Chinese) Touch wood, they have not had too much racist name calling but the older two have both had times when there has been stuff to deal with.

Luckily we are in a very multracial area of London and the primary school takes it v seriously. I have always felt it has been dealt with approproiately once the staff were made aware of what was happeneing. Ds probably wouldn't tell us now if anything happened at sec. school, but I dont think there has een anything significant.

The stuff at primary school has for ds1 and dd been at the age of about 9 or 10, with boys using their Chineseness as a way of getting at them, making 'slitty eyes' etc. Dd had a pretty bad time with 2 particular boys last year who made rude comments about dh and I(which she never did tell us fully) and threatened to poke her in the eye with a chopstick when she stood up for another friend they were attacking. Not pleasant at all, and she wa v upset for a few days. But the school came right down on them and I think all has been OK since the, tbh it was similar to them picking on another girl for being 'posh' but it adds another horrible dimension to it.

They have all had mixed groups of friends, and despite all 3 being proud of being Chinese, mainly they identify as sort of white middle class cos of me, I would say. They dont speak a lot of Chinese, or have any Chinese relatives in this country, so we live a not very Chinese life, if you see what I mean.

hi teacakes. i'm in cambs. i'm impressed wyls for remembering! which part of cambs are you in teacakes? if you want tips on where to go and things to do in cambs, let me know? there is a chinese association in cambridge which you may be interested in? i haven't actually been there but that reminds me - i was suppose to call them last week about chinese lessons for ds1.

:o about the knee pads. reminds me of a little "book" i once saw about japanese inventions. one invention was knee pads in a mop-style for babies!

something like \link{http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall95/031369.htm\this}, just with babies rather than cats

and just for the fun of it, these are \link{http://unix.rulez.org/~calver/pictures/japanese_inventions/01.html\some} of the rather funny inventions. amazing what you can find when you google!

found it!! it's called the "baby mops romper" \link{http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/play.html?pg=5#(second picture down)}

Fantastic - and you get clean floors at the same time!

I wish they would invent real hoovers for kids so I could get them to tidy up (I mean play) after they've had their dinner and it's all over the floor.

Soyabean, i must admit i have been worried about the racial thing. i experienced some incidents when i was younger and they hurt a lot (though we were in a small village in wales and my sister and i were the only non-white kids in secondary school), but i guess you cannot protect your kids from everything that hurts (though it won't stop me trying .

does your DH speak to your children in chinese or english? does it bother you if he speaks in chinese? i am keen for DD to know cantonese but don't want my DH to feel out left out.

do you visit your chinese relatives aboard often? do your children like it there? when i was younger everytime i went back to hong kong they first thing people used to ask my parents was 'do they (my sister and i) speak cantonese?' that used to frustate me no end the fact they didn't ask me directly and plus they were so nosey, i suppose that is why i want DD to know the language.

silly question but when they have to fill in forms stating ethnic origin, what do they use?

Fez, i am in the huntingdon area in a village called buckden. would like tips on where it is child friendly to go shopping. we have not managed to visit cambridge yet - what is that like? any good non-smoking cafes? it would be good to find out about the chinese assoc - never joined one before, what do they do?