TTT.....

[AtLongLast]

OTT / self-indulgent I know, but Toddler Twin Tantrums..... aaargh! Just as well they're so cute too. Ds2 was v funny today wiggling his bum singing uh, uh Bobby' in response to me dancing round the kitchen to Bobby's girl'...

Sorry to hear that, mucky. I guess it's a question of back in nappies, wait a couple of years weeks and try again?

It's the tax and NI that's the stinger with nannies. Hourly rate doesn't sound too bad from what I've briefly researched - very comparable with nursery, given that there are two of them. But tax and NI makes it very nearly 50% more than that, plus I don't think nannies can take childcare vouchers that make nursery slightly more tax efficient. It'd be about £700 a month plus the loss of tax break on vouchers more than we're already breaking our backs paying.

How do other parents cope...they don't have twins? It's the "every infection x 2 but with a few days' delay" that is the killer.

Lol, yes, we're going to wait a few decades weeks and try again. This last attempt was SO frustrating - if it was J on her own, I know we'd crack it. She gets to a certain point of success (ie. having worn pants for a couple of days) and then has a major wobble about not wanting to be a big girl. This time she started wailing for a nappy and it just feels SO mean not to let her have one because it's all tied in to how they feel about themselves and when she has an accident she's clearly mortified :( E on the other hand shows no readiness, aptitude, mortification, or otherwise and will happily just wee her pants constantly. But last time we tried just with J on her own and her anxiety level rose rapidly when she could see E was still allowed nappies and it was as though we were torturing her by forcing her to have accidents. Not sure if any of this makes sense but I am a bit perplexed at the moment re. what to do.

On a more positive note, they're now out of sleeping bags and have two little doo-bays (as they call them). I bought sweet little star duvet covers and pillowcases which they are over the moon with and just love being tucked in, it's so sweet! We have decided to go for a normal toddler bed and I'm going to be placing my order for those soon - actually quite excited about it

Re. the illness Cerub, I'd like to say it does get better (I honestly think it does) but that doesn't help you for now. I know my friend pays her nanny £400 per week and she does something like 8 - 6 for 5 days (plus the tax and NI of course) but she has been a godsend and my friend gets home to a tidy house which for her is a godsend because she's a slattern like me What about a nanny share, would that work at all? Or looking around at alternative nurseries? It must be so dire to have all that resentment and have to drop them off there. It sounds as though they might be particularly precious about their policies re. illness - at ours the only thing they seem to care about is fever and even then when I've dropped them off clearly under the weather they have barely asked me any questions and just scooped them up.

You noticed Cerubina . I'm sorry to hear things are still pants with nursery / illness too and that you're so stressed by it all. Not that I have anything useful to suggest. I think it gets better too but that's without having a terrier of a nursery. But even when things are OK I guess the stress is that you don't know what tomorrow might bring. I think working only 3 days made that a bit easier for me. Interesting that they're so strict but that that doesn't seem to be effective in controlling illness.

Oh dear LadyM. I think ds2 would do it here too but ds1 is mostly happy peeing his pants. They don't appear to notice what the other is doing, or relate it to themself. I'm still not really doing much except offering big boy pants when we're going to be home all morning.

I've just booked us in for camping for a couple of nights over bank hol weekend . Will be great or awful. Unfortunately have since remembered that all of our mattresses / airbeds are in Wales. Oh well. Building works plans are progressing - exciting stuff. Even dp is getting excited - so unlike him.

and Happy Birthday Tarti if you happen to look in!

... ...

How is everyone? Absolutely baking today here in London - spent the day at the lido in Hyde Park, which was fantastic fun. Sweltering though, am amazed none of us are burnt.

Met Cerub yesterday morning for a coffee, which was lovely - hope you're having a good weekend too. Shame I didn't quite get away with half-inching your sunglasses but you can't have everything

We had a lovely weekend. We're going camping next weekend and had planned on using our old 4 very close friend berth dome tent. Happened to go to a camping shop yesterday and bought a spacious 6 berth tent with space to stand/ play / use table & chairs indoors . V excited now as the thought of rain / keeping 3 littlies quiet in such an enclosed space was beginning to feel like A very Bad Idea.

Went to safari park again & took the boys on rides for first time. Ds2 had the most enormous meltdown at the ticket office at having to have the wristband ticket thing put on and spent much of the time trying to pull it off ds1 has gone to bed for 2nd night with his still on . Took them a few goes to realise the next ride might be good too so they didn't need to meltdown every time they couldn't just go straight back on the one they'd just gotten off. Funny things.

Finished one of the boys' little rucksacks today. Have a few adjustments to make due to my incompetence but I'm pretty pleased with it for a first attempt.

Well done on meeting up you two - very jealous!

Absolutely baking!!! Put the girls to bed in just nappies

Will update tomorrow

So bloody baking LVB although the girls have INSISTED on pyjamas, we compromised by saying bottoms only. Their room is roasting, poor loves. I am sitting here in a bikini, it's that bad.

No genuine paranoia please ALL - certainly not necessary!! Your weekend sounds lovely and I was nodding in sympathy/empathy at the 'meltdowns at coming off rides' phenomenon. Every single time okay well we've only ever taken them twice we have gone to something like that I have found myself staring up at the sky halfway through mouthing the words WHY DO I FRICKING BOTHER? - it really is one of those things that you think, do you know what kids? We are here entirely for you, for your benefit, because this is something you should like. If it was up to me I'd be sat by a riverside pub downing Sauvignon Blanc far too quickly for my own good. But no, we are here, at a crappy bloody fairground, because you are our children and we want to give you nice experiences. And what is happening? You are driving us AROUND THE BEND with your nonsense!

Girls have been lovely this evening, we had a barbecue at home and they ate just beautifully. This is going to sound ridiculous but today amongst the mountains of meat Eve ate bananas, grapes, and... coleslaw. I tell ye, it's a minor miracle. I tentatively think we might be making some progress. Yesterday she asked for seconds of chicken at dinner, and normally I would always just give it to her (I now realise this is probably where I have been going wrong). Nursery told me that they wouldn't give her seconds (of coleslaw, amazingly, at lunch she apparently is always desperate for more coleslaw - this child of mine who will not TOUCH a vegetable at home) until she'd eaten the other things on her plate. Which she then did. We haven't quite got as far as that but she does seem better. Trying to bribe her to eat more food in exchange for pudding doesn't work, but if you use MEAT as the bribe, that will do the trick. Odd child...

Kate - how are you doing?? Hope all well with you and that your bedtime shenanigans are diminishing.

V. Jealous of your tent ALL you are now officially a "glamper"

It is so hot I've tried to talk DP into driving to the 24 hour Asda for a fan but he won't go

In regards to meltdowns, they happen so regularly, it's actually quite depressing. Along the fighting over toys, biting, climbing on the table, hanging off my legs, throwing things, and the incessant "Mummy, Mummy, MUMMY!" that drive me quite literally nuts and consume far to much vino

Such bloody hard work isn't it!

Sorry for lack of posts recently!
So much to catch up on!
mucky Brilliant news about J's eating! I would say that Nursery have some good advice! I can totally see why you would just encourage her to eat anything if she asked for it, but its great that you can now get her to eat everything else before seconds!

ALL and LVB Ohh the joys of huge tantrums in the soaring heat - it makes it sooo much worse! I end up looking like some sweaty man because it just stresses me out, and I normally have to wrestle mine from flinging themselves at me/siblings/floor etc. Being all hot just makes everything such hard work - and mine tend to have more strops when its hot because they are so irritable!

Behaviour in our house is improving, thank the lord. We've had some changes and they've worked and we're all a bit happier. Bedtime with trips is the same, but I now sit in their room for 5 minutes and then tell them that I'm going to tidy some toys away, and then I'll be back - so I do, and come back. We basically carry on doing that (sitting for 5 mins, going off, sitting for 5 mins etc) until they fall asleep - it now takes, at most, 20 minutes. I don't want to just sit on their bed until they fall asleep because I just feel that its 'too much' and that they need to fall asleep on their own. Hard to explain, but just 'nipping' in and out makes them realize that I have other things to do, but that I'm not abandoning them IYSWIM. Its going well and having such a positive effect on them in the daytime!

Quick story - we ended up in A&E with J yesterday - concussion. Late night friday and so they were a bit silly on Sat. Long story short (even though it will end up being long!), we were sitting down outside to a roast dinner (J's favourite) and she just started the whole 'No' business'. I just said 'Thats fine J, you don't have to eat dinner if you don't want to, but you need to come and sit at the table'. She started getting sillier so we ignored her, but she clearly wanted to entertain her sisters and started prancing around, shaking her head and saying 'no' in funny voices. We tell her to calm down, she doesn't (the prancing and voices are quite funny!) and then trips and manages to fall smack bang on to the back of her head - first thing to hit the concrete. She didn't even start crying, just lay there whimpering a bit (shit shit shit) - went to pick her up and she obviously just had quite bad concussion. I asked if her head hurt and she just said 'You so fuzzy Mama'. Had to hot foot it to A&E - DH stayed with DD's, so had to drive on my own (!) whilst asking J the stupidest of questions to keep her talking! She was fine, just had nasty bruise on back of her head - she hit it so hard that she had black eyes!?

Crikey Kate that sounds terrifying! Glad she's on the mend now, but don't envy you that drive to hospital, you poor thing.

Your '5 mins sitting in, then going off' routine sounds perfectly sane to me - I'm another one big on them falling asleep themselves and it sounds as though it's doing the trick for you (and them). I'm close to getting the beds but probably going to leave it until after our hols. Last night even in cots the girls were awake until gone 9.30... don't want to delay things even further!! It's partly my fault for buying them these cute (but as it turns out, highly annoying) night lights which change colour that they can take into bed with them. Of course, they are now obsessed with them and stay awake for ages "making rainbows" with them in the dark.

I didn't even know it was possible to get black eyes from hitting the back of your head - how awful for you all Kate!

We were lucky it was ds2 having the meltdown on Sat as I can stop him fairly easily atm so we can afford to find him amusing. If I give him a few minutes to thrash then get down to his level & just repeat stop, stop, stop', he does <img loading="lazy" class="inline-flex mumsnet-emoji" alt="Hmm" src="https://www.mumsnet.com/build/assets/hmm-PR4o6B1t.png">. He sort of looks a bit sheepish as if he's thinking actually, I am being a bit of an eejit' and then calms / needs a cuddle. Unlike ds1 who cannot be spoken to / reasoned with without escalating things. Still not got ds1's fairground wristband off. Told nursery I was happy for them to remove it if necessary but they said it was fine. Bugger. I think he must have feared for it though cos he wouldn't even let the nursery girls look at it .

Good news on mealtimes LadyM! Thought of you last night when I had my biggest cooking disaster yet. Made moussaka in an attempt to expand my mince repertoire. Neither boy would touch it - a first! Until I started feeding ds2's to dd then he suddenly got interested & wolfed the lot down. Ds1 ended up having 2 corn on cobs, some carrot, broccoli & a load of garlic bread .

Ha, me neither ALL !
at 'Actually, I am being a bit of an eejit' !! I wish all my girls would take a leaf out of your DS2's book. They will all go into a full blown tantrum, and cannot be talked/bribed out of it - we have tried everything over the years, but the more we talk to them, the more angry they get.
When we went on holiday once (pre triplets), we had to have the little wristbands and 3YO DD1 was exactly the same and cherished this skanky wristband for weeks! When it finally came off, she still took it to bed! It is quite cute though :)

Speaking of cute, mucky what are these rainbow nightlights? Do I need 6? (one each for DD's and one for me!!??) I am not surprised that J and E are up until all hours, I don't blame them if they have super cool rainbow lights to amuse them!

J is absolutely fine now - me and DH were just talking about the crying. You know its a bad one when DC do that long breath in before screaming their little hearts out, but you know its pretty shit when they barely cry at all! She managed to come out pretty unscathed really, bar the black eyes!

That sounds really scary Kate. Poor old J, hope she is OK again now and has learned a lesson at the same time about listening to mummy! .

It was lovely to meet mucky last week. I can confirm that she is just as warm and friendly as you will have imagined! I think you may have inspired me to go to Ikea unfortunately as I find myself compiling a little list of things that we could do with getting, so as S&R are finally at nursery again and I'm excused from work for a few days yet, it seems almost tempting to go there

Brilliant about the breakthrough with E's eating! I'm sure children eat and generally behave very differently at home and at nursery where rules are subtly different. I got very fed up on Sunday when we took them to a cafe and i ordered tuna & sweetcorn pasta for them and they reacted as if it were rat poison in their mouths, yet i know they get pasta at nursery and eat it all up. They don't seem to like pizza either, what's wrong with them that they don't like supposed staples for children?! I would think that failure of pudding bribery is actually a blessing in disguise - aren't they supposed to be less likely to be overeaters later if they don't associate sweet things with reward/being better than savoury etc?

LVB it sounds as if you're having a very hard time with your girls behaving badly at the moment. Do you get a chance to offload them on anyone like family or a crèche so you get a break from the madness? I know they don't go to nursery yet, so it must be hugely wearing for you if you don't get a break. What's their sleeping like, do they still nap at least once in the day?

Your boys sound like such characters, ALL, I love the attachment to the wristband and wariness over anyone looking too closely at it! Maybe that's easier to say from afar. We have a little insight into tantrums from S but I really don't know how I'll manage with public meltdowns. So you're camping on a bank holiday weekend? Good move to get a bigger tent - sounds like guaranteed rain! Are you compounding your chances by going to Wales?

Thank God my two are clear of gloop again. They are being very sweet at the moment (new words appearing all the time -"moo" and "door" for S, "pica" (speaker) and "bithy" (Miffy) for R) - a random assortment for sure!). S seems completely over his pooing problems thanks to a few weeks of lactulose but is quite physical, lots of slapping and grabbing of me and R. I can't wait til they both stop pulling my hair. R looks so so close to walking now and is finally growing hair at the back of her head now that she changes sleeping position during the night! She might stop looking like Morrissey now...

Good to hear you're free of the gloop Cerub - although in true Olympic spirit, we have picked up the baton from you chez nous... woke up this morning to J upright in her cot with her eyes stuck together, shouting "I can't see Mummy!". She hasn't had it for ages - must have been some pesky kid at nursery passing it on Bless her though, following the chat we had about it I remembered you'd said you could get anti-b drops over the counter from age 2, so went to get some this afternoon. Was dreading giving them to her but in true Juliet fashion she insisted "I want to do it all mySELF" and very uncomplainingly went ahead and did it. Success. Hope she's a bit less gloopy in the morning - how long do you reckon it should take with appropriate treatment to clear up?

Ahh ALL it's so nice to hear your anecdotes about the boys because they are always slightly different but reassuringly familiar-sounding Can I ask what the modern family sleeps on when they go camping these days? Do you take air-beds? I think that's what we used to sleep on in the 'good old days' when we went as a family. I'm trying to pluck up the courage to do something similar - a friend has recently bought an old VW Camper and keeps saying we should go and meet up - her daughter is 5 though, and I think trying to get two 2.8 yr olds to sleep in one might be slightly different!

Kate - the night lights are from Ikea and are very sweet - my friend in Brighton had them for her toddler and nonchalantly referred to them as 'bimbles' in their house. As soon as E heard the word of course she just assumed that was what it was called, so now (much to the amusement of my friend who laughs to think of her made-up word being echoed elsewhere) E and J both can he heard bleating for their bimbles at bedtime, because they want to tell their bimble a story. "WHERE'S MY BIMBLE?!" "NOOOOO! THAT'S MYYYYYY BIMBLE!!" ad infinitum.......

Anyhoo, this is J's bimble and this is www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40150993/ E's one. They are cordless and really soft to touch, and slowly glow different colours. Crikey, I'll be getting one next. Actually I'll probably just stick to the vino...

Ohhh mucky they are sooooo cute ! I think we all need Bimbles!
I feel like I should carry on the tradition, and introduce them as 'Bimbles' to Dtrips too!

I know that the Bimble-obsession probably isn't so cute and funny anymore for you, but reading about the 'bimble bleating' is really quite adorable for me.

:) no no, they are still cute Kate, honest...

We're still Gloopville here. Juliet's early fascination with administering medicine herself was short-lived, let's just leave it there shall we? Every 2 hours for 48 hours says the bottle. Fat chance!

I've decided to get an old chair re-upholstered, which has become my new pointless obsession. Off to look at thousands hundreds of fabrics accompanied by a glass of wine. Still gibbering slightly at the crap dinner we had tonight - previous tactics didn't work at all on Eve and she was a complete refusenik for anything other than meat, even eschewing pudding rather than cave in - I'm not even talking about trying to force the green stuff down her, it was just sauteed new potatoes!

tarti - I see from FB you are back; loved the holiday pics. Sooooo... how was it???!!

PS: Cerub - after we met I then started looking on Pinterest for walls of photo frames for more inspiration. And then today I came across this amusing website - Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table which has had me in fits all day. Please someone else tell me they think it's funny!

Ha, I thought it was funny that I kept thinking stuff was cool then remembering it was a piss take - oops!

Loving the Bimbles too. Look like they could be useful or total pain in the bums for camping?

As for sleeping arrangements for the modern camping family. We have 2 double airbeds, a double self-inflating mattress and 2 single army surplus camp beds. All in Wales unfortunately since we use them when staying at our Country Residence . So I've borrowed an airbed from a friend & we'll use that together with the single self-inflating mattress and roll mats we have here. Somehow... I think the self-inflating ones are great but they take up a surprising amount of space!

Not Wales tho (but are going there on the way back . Off to Oxford to see my bro. Had been studiously ignoring weather in the hope it might be ok but have now checked & yup, seems our tent might get a proper test. Bro doesn't have room to have us but at least we can squeeze into his house for a cuppa if it gets bad.

Wristband lives another day. Nursery girl got to look at it yesterday & suggested to ds1 they take it off. Apparently he took her hand & calmly removed it whilst growling `leave it'. Yikes. Luckily they laughed...

Yes that's why I was laughing so much ALL you can't help thinking "ooh that's a novel idea" but then can you imagine having a feature wall of decorative birds nests on varying cake stands?

Sorry hadn't read whole message as am on phone. Guffawing at the wristband update.... will keep fingers crossed the weather is bearable!

Hi lovelies, just marking place will be back later to catch up, we're in N Yorkshire with awful signal x x blows kisses to all

Oh so quiet....

My mother arrives today on her way home from Australia, and is staying for a couple of days. Could be a bit trying diet-wise as I've just embarked on a 30 day paleo no dairy/wine/grain/sugar/sweeteners extravaganza. Went to bed at 8.45 last night as I was utterly exhausted and had a terrible headache.

Hope everyone's having a lovely BH weekend. I've been v down recently and have had some fruitful talks for the time being with DH about the division of labour at home (which previously didn't have much in the way of 'division' about it, despite him being at home at the moment) and hopefully he's heading to the airport with the girls in the car so I can have time to tidy the house. It was starting to become a real issue that he seemed to resent ever having the girls on his own other than for clear-cut "super dad" activity like occasionally taking them to the playground. They seem to have really moved up a gear with their activity level and really do need to be out of the house by about 10am otherwise they start fighting and getting too boisterous.

Hello. Quiet day here, S has picked up another cold and seems a bit poorly with it. Everything crossed that it doesn't transmogrify into another bout of conjunctivitis! My nerves really couldn't stand it...

Sorry to hear you've been feeling a bit low mucky and hope you have managed to agree a more equal split. Although was it a win to get the job of cleaning while H went to the airport?! It's so hard to get an equal division of labour, even with more modern types of men than our dads. Must be even more so when you don't have a job, but then must get more aggravating still when neither does he and you're still doing it all! Do you still have that niggle about him going out & getting a babysitter when you have a rare night off, or was that tackled as part of the same chat?

Love the idea of DS telling a nursery worker to 'leave it', ALL. Somehow I can only hear it said in a Phil Mitchell-style growl, vaguely threatening. Hope the camping has been good.

Had a family party at my parents' on Saturday with my wonderful (not) sister plus various uncles/aunts. S&R were not exactly in winning moods - needed carrying and mollifying all day long. I have one extremely sore bicep from lugging S and to be honest found him a bit hard to deal with. He cries such a lot, I've no idea if it's normal levels of crankiness or what but he can be such hard work. I find myself looking forward to them both walking and being a bit more independent, because this heavy but totally dependent stage is Bloody Hard Going! Luckily R is now walking as of yesterday and I've a feeling she won't look back now. So come on S...