Sept 08 - Our LO's are nearly 2, and they're hiding to do a poo (is it time for potty training, not until it stops this raining)

[ninja]

I started it!! (I'm going away to London with just DD1 tomorrow so I want to know where you all are when we get back.

3 toddler free days!!

debi Am really cross with myself about it....dh has been going to have the snip since Toby was born!!!! I cant take the pill anymore as I am now classed as a high stroke risk I have tried depo and it really didnt suit me...put 2 stone on and was chronically pissed off and I cant have a coil because I have a tilted uterus ffs!!!

It would be nice if dh would man up and get the op then we wouldnt have to use condoms - which we both dislike tbh - after all I have taken the responsibility for the 15 years we have been together!!

Thing is, I am now so paranoid I have convinced myself that I feel sick and that my boobs hurt!!!

I hope the ladies TTC on this thread wont mind us moaning about this....?

Hope your af comes soon debi

Good to hear from you swissmiss x

debi Toby is really being a monkey at mealtimes too....I am trying not to get too stressed about it as he is a good size etc but its very frustrating when you give them a plate of food you know they like and they either;

1. throw it on the floor
2. smear it in their hair
3. throw it at you

I read somewhere that chidrens taste buds change dramatically after age 2 so maybe thats is??? (becaroo clutching at straws somewhat!)

Oh yes I forgot about the throwing the fork across the room too.

Debi teatimes sound completely normal!!

Don't know if this is helpful, but with C we stay calm, if she starts acting up, throwing or screaming I now remove everything in her reach and say 'I'll speak to you when you're calmer'. If she refuses food, that's up to her and tough if she goes hungry (she soon learnt!), although i don't withhold pudding if she hasn't eaten her main meal.
If she starts to throw food etc I tell her it's not nice to waste food as it costs money and if she isn't hungry, it goes back in the fridge or in the bin, depending on what it is.

You have way more experience than me, so hope this doesn't sound preachy but do you think he likes the attention he gets? If so, can you all just ignore him and carry on eating calmly, praising DS1 for being good?

Otherwise, just ride it out and have a stiff drink after bedtime!

STILL no ovulation signs - I'll have to go and lurk on a conception thread for help.

Well tonight we had a complete turnaround. DS2 ate all his tea and his yoghurt and so got a few haribo and lots of very over the top praise.
DS1 had a complete meltdown because ds2 pushed him and after ds2 apologised I told ds1 he had to too because he'd been shouting at him. He refused and went a bit crazy. Then he had another meltdown because he had the wrong bowl.

Thanks for the advice MrsA we do try to do most of that but don't always manage. And yes you're probably right- he is getting some attention for it. We are good at making a point of praising ds1 as he's normally very good at mealtimes.

Carrie sorry you're (probably) not pg, hope you're not feeling too blue.

Mealtimes here are on the whole pretty good (T is a big fan of his food!), but occasionally he starts tipping spoonfuls on the floor/shoving everything. We generally remove everything and he calms down, but occasionally we just abandon the meal (his, not ours!) He rarely complains, so I think messing around is his attempt to tell us he's not hungry.

MrsArch the conception threads are excellent, esp if you want advice on temping/ov sticks etc.

I have got full on pregnancy hunger - I am eating for at least 9 or 10

No more news on DP's work - we sent in the appeal letter and are waiting to hear back. will update when we hear anything. We've claimed for all our benefits though, so hopefully we'll hear back on what DP will get soon and discover quite how very poor we are.

Hopefully I am really sorry to hear about what happened to your DP. I'm a HR person so if you need any other help, please just let me know. The employment issues section on MN are good for general advice.

By the sounds of it your DP will have grounds for unreasonable outcome of the disciplinary hearing, and probably that they have not followed their own internal procedures. It continues to amaze me how shoddy companies can be and think they can just get away with it .

Best of luck with the appeal.

debi you have just described my DS, its obviously just a phase! Our bowls and spoons are all in places where the DCs can reach them, so I've made it their job to set the table, they choose their own plate, cup, fork, bib, chair etc so I can't get into trouble for them having the wrong one! Similarly he's eaten mountains of breakfast, but by tea time its hard to get anything into him. Did the astonishingly healthy dinner of mashed potato, baked beans and peas today (would normally have done fish fingers but of course we still have no oven, and therefore no grill either!). Both kids troughed it, which was nice for a change. Usually after a few mouthfuls we get 'want get down!!'. Such a shame when he's normally so good with his p's&q's!

Check out you lot throwing caution to the wind with contraception!

Still convinced I'm not pg, another 6 long days to wait for AF though. At least I'm not unrealistically getting my hopes up.

mrsa all respect to your DH for effort on the SWI!

debi and MrsA I have tea-times like that with DD, she is much stroppier than DS ever was. If I'm in the right frame of mind / not in a rush then ignoring and removing everything out of her way does work.

I'm watching Question Time and I probably shouldn't, I'll have high blood pressure at this rate. Roll on 20th Oct .

I'm sulking after going on the lone parents board and seeing that some of them work full time and manage it. I can barely cope with part-time, even then mum has to help out. It's times like these I do think my children are badly behaved / demanding and that's why I struggle so much.

hopefully I wish you masses of luck with the appeal and hope that your DF's (ex)employers have to pay him a huge pile of compensation and he gets a lovely new job somewhere else.

bucket loads of love and hugs meglet you're doing a wonderful job. I bet those people working FT feel like they're doing a bad job in some way too, it'll just be different to where you feel it.

Meglet although in some ways you feel bad for not coping while working part time, just think that those women working full time also have the advantage of (ahem) not having to entertain their children too much during the day. I know that I often get bored rigid/insanely stressed quite often looking after T, and I know work would be a break from that! >

Kagey thanks for your kind offer - no doubt we'll need all the advice we can get as this progresses! I sometimes wonder if part of the problem is that because the 'HR' guy isn't formally trained, they don't know quite how badly they're going wrong, so they don't really realise the potential consequences of behaving shoddily.

In other appeal news, we found another bit of evidence to back up DP's appeal today (the company was arguing DP had released a bit of information before them, he now has the evidence to prove he didn't), so another string to the bow, or whatever the metaphor is

Thank you carrie

hopefully good point, I would hit the wine by lunchtime if I was a SAHM lone parent . Great news about the appeal evidence going well.

I feel marginally more in control today as I splurged on a gardener to sort the garden out for winter as I never get chance to touch it these days, Dad used to help me with it as he was a proper gardener. It looks lovely now, no weeds on the patio, pathway edged properly and all mown and strimmed. While it was being donw I had a good tidy up and got lots of washing put away.

NCT sale next weekend so I need to start labelling up the stuff I'm selling and make a list of the clothes I need to buy the dc's. I love the NCT sale, because it's second hand and for charity it doesn't count as spending money .

Phew, think af is coming. If it comes properly tomorrow that'll be 5 days late which is very odd for me. We had been using contraception but I was beginning to think something had gone wrong as I'm never late.

I also could not be a sahm. I'd go mad! I love my balance of working 3 days a week.

Still got fingers crossed for you Hopefully. Hopefully you'll make more positive progress soon.

debi Hope af comes soon x

meglet you are doing an amazing job, ok? x

It was my b day yesterday (38...gulp) had a lovely day, breakfast in bed, shopping with hubby, nice lamb dinner and then pub to meet up with family

Am a bit at dh actually...we are going to have to really budget now what with the CB cut and yesterday morning he told ds1 he could go on eurostar to paris next year!!!! eh? So, we now have to find the money for 4 of us to go to paris for 2 days!!! sigh.

I do wish he would discuss these things with me...

Happy birthday for yesterday becaroo.

deb Hope AF has arrived for you!

DS was a pest this morning and woke DD up at 7am, she usually sleeps for much longer than that. As a result I had 2 whingy children awake earlier than they needed to be and wanting breakfast.

Yip it's here. Took it's time and still had been wondering if it was coming properly until today. Very mean of it!

We've been given some money and have decided to spend it on 2 bathrooms. But it's too stressful! There's too many options of what to get and for fitting it the choice ranges from fitting it ourselves (mmm no, I don't think so) to getting a company in to do everything (mmm no, I don't think we can afford that) We don't know where to start.

debi for AF!
How exciting about bathrooms. We've got so stressed by the choosing things stage for the extension. At the end of months of planning, building, etc we've run out of steam for choosing the most important bits like the kitchen tiles, and the flooring. These are the bits we'll actually notice and give the finishing look, but we don't know where to start with it all and are inclined to just sack it and buy the first thing we see, not helpful because a year down the line I'll prob want to change it but we won't be able to!

Happy birthday bec :)

hopefully sounds like good progress is being made...

meglet for all that I absolutely love being a SAHM and couldn't imagine juggling it with working, I also couldn't imagine being a single parent SAH. The few ocassions DH has been away for work I've found it so hard that no one comes through the door at 5:30 with a fresh burst of enthusiasm to see the kids through bath to bedtime, and I don't know how I'd cope without someone to share the early mornings with before the days really get started. All respect to you for what you do, do not feel guitly, you are donig an awesome job and we think you're great

book marking....

there's not much for you to catch up on meg, everyone except me, you and carrie have vanished!

helloooo

We have a kitchen

We also have builders sorting out our garden

I go away tomorrow and when I come back the kitchen should pretty much be finished, woop woop!

I'm still here but not alot to say except the calm didn't last! C is currently crying whilst DP puts her to bed. Sigh.
All she wants is me but DP's working Fri, Sat & Sunday so he's giving me abreak. better go up.

Glad to hear your kitchen is finally underway Carrie.

I'm here but mainly lurking.

dd2 is being very charming at moment, and she and dd1 are lovely together. V odd eating habits though, sometimes barely seems to eat anything except tons of raisins, occasional apple, cheese and crisps whenever she can persuade me.

Having issues with ex. He let himself in my house on Sunday, once when I was out, once as I arrived back. And today when he came round to drop off something for kids as I've been ill with some vomity thing, he decided to just come in the house and refuse to leave. Was quite mad. Pleading and begging and crying about how much he loves me, begging me not to see anyone else & demanding I talk to him, and listen to how he feels. Eldest crying and me very upset... i have injunction & he just completely ignores it. Went to Family Justice centre to see if can get help through sanctuary scheme to make house safer. And need to report to police too

Splish - Sorry to hear that your ex is being an ass, you should definitely report it to the police as they will be able to do something about it.

Hopefully - I'm really sorry to hear about you DP, sounds like a complete shambles and I hope you get a good result quickly.

Debs - Congrats for not being pg! . I have had a coil for the last 18m after worrying myself sick that I was pg (6 months after DD and forgot to take my pill on time!), since then I've thought I was pg a couple of times and was definitely not happy about it, we are intending to keep DD as an only child!!

DD is having some God-awful behaviour/tantrums recently. Yesterday I started to implement the 'naughty room' (I want to call in the time-out room but when I'm seething mad I keep stumbling over the words!!), she ended up in it 3 times, first 2 were very successful, the 3rd time I shoved her in the kitchen and when I came back she was sat on the floor with a load of strawberries and raspberries, she'd raided the fridge and was having a feast!!

Today she went in the 'time out room' once, but the warnings of it was generally enough. She is excellent with her pleases and thank-yous and now she's great with her sorry mummy's too!

I went to look round a school on Fri, graded Outstanding by Ofsted. We're not in the catchment but it's a Catholic school and they do take Catholics from outside the catchment so we're not completely out of the running. Unfortunately I live right on the doorstep of a primary school but it's been graded unsatisfactory for years so I will do everything that's needed to make sure DD doesn't have to go there. We have a prospectus from a private school - when we find £9,000 a year going spare we can send her there

splish so :( to hear about your ex. I know this sounds very simplistic but is changing the locks a viable short term solution?

DS has been in such an odd mood today, he's been like this a lot lately, but today it was all day which is very wearing, and I was only my own with the DCs from waking right thru til bedtime. He just flips out and screams, its all over things he does/doesn't want and what's most irritating is that he has the words to talk to me, but when they're in that mood they won't talk! DD used to be exactly the same, thankfully she now understands when I say "mummy doesn't speak whinge" and chooses to talk properly! He's barely eaten for the last few days, due to back molars I think, then ate loads at every meal today so maybe part of the problem is hunger as he's now catching up. It certainly made the nursery run very trying as he was in such a grump. Whatever it is, I hope they both behave perfectly on the 7 hour journey to my parents tomorrow. I can't pass snacks to them in the back of the car, but I've bought plenty for me

Once DS fell asleep tonight I snuck in and picked him up for a cuddle so I feel like we've kissed and made up after the day we've had!

AF due tomorrow too. Know its coming, hope it hurries up so we can crack on with next month

Am officially the worst mum in the world

Tonight C was being especially toddlerish - screaming and trying to get out of her chair and throwing food. joy.
trying to keep my temper I wiped her down and pulled her bib off - the velcro on them is knackered - I am ashamed to say I pulled the bib off quite quickly and hard and instead of the velcro giving way easily, it resisted and left a red mark on C's neck .

I am so ashamed of myself - my fault and I let my temper get the better of me. I picked her up and cuddled and apologised but I now feel incredibly guilty.
Why am I even TTC No 2 when I can't look after No 1 properly?