FESH spa and creche: Is anyone thinking of the children yet?

[SkiHorseWonAWean]

New Fred. Apologies for dullness of title - we need curly for witticisms.

ski it's getting my huge ass back in the saddle that is my motivation. Baybee cannot arrive as hossie bag not packed. Tis the way it works.

FP that is mad but just think of the exercise! Did you have to do the return trip to pick her up again? That would be 12 miles there and back twice!!

No okes it wasn't quite as mad as all that! MrP promised on pain of death to be back in time to collect her so all was well.

And by the way, when MrP said to me last night 'Just think how much good the exercise did you!' I nearly threw my glass at him.

I spent this morning at a 'soft play'* barn with another MN friend (yeah, I know, socialising with a non-ESH). She has a 2 yr old and a 3 yr old and promised to help me with the 'how to feel confident with two kids' project. It was great actually! I think I'm getting there slowly.

*I did not know what a play barn was or that these places even existed until quite recently. That's what you get for 20 years of ignoring everything parenting-related in the world.

tingly not hurty just tingly - i think i just have sensitive nips - i hated having them erm paid attention to pre preggo any way. seems to be easing now.

scuse no caps one handed as artie guzzling (as usual).

still not aleeping well though, also seems to hate being swaddled, weird child.

Ski Dutch bureaucracy takes the biscuit! I hope you can unravel it sooner rather than later.

FP I know what you mean about the getting 2 kids out of the house. I'm OK once I set foot out of the door, but I swear 2 kids = 4 times the work in getting ready. You feed one, wash and dress him, put him down, feed the other one get her dressed, quick dash outside to throw breakfast buckets at horses and ignore the fact you seem to have 3 stray chickens going AWOL, get back in to discover baby wants more milk, older child has taken off her clothes, then baby poos and needs clean nappy. In the meantime, recently potty trained older child is refusing to go to the loo without you and is under the bed grunting. The poo in the baby's nappy is squidging up his back. You have been an hour already getting ready, and still haven't got yourself out of a dressing gown. Eventually make it to playschool with DD in time to drop her off, realising that I look like a bag lady with a tiny bit of puke down her back because DS drinks too much milk too quickly. Phew!

As for playbarns - I discovered that they are NOT a good place to take a toddler if you have 5 stitches in your knee! Otherwise - very fab places, and I WILL push other children out of the way to get to the slides myself

Anyway - a quick update on DS. I will be a dried out withered little husk by the time he has finished with me! He is just nudging 10lbs at only 2 weeks old! And the weight is dropping off me way faster than it did with DD. Having said that, I don't seem to have any time in my life for anything other than feeding him atm. And being a typical bloke he doesn't seem to be interested in a normal feed and then relax. Oh, no. He likes to rub his face slowly across my nips once he has had his fill, before falling asleep with his face squidged in my bosom. Nice.

Silver the camera is a very old Canon EOS digital, only 6MP but with a good lense. I had it on the pint and shoot setting, and just hung some black fleece from the mantlepiece and used a spotlight for extra lighting. The trick is in the editing afterwards - I enhanced both the shadows and the highlights before turning them black and white. Enhancing the shadows blackens everything in the background, and enhancing the highlights brightens the faces and hands. I used a mix of Picasa and Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Sorry - photo info is for Okie

cossie So we have something bizarre in common! Erm, let's not discuss that in public when we meet on Friday.

Glad the discomfort seems to be going away. Have you tried swaddling arms in and out? Some prefer one or the other.

box Yes, you've described it exactly. If I'm on my own I can't manage a shower at all, let alone wash my hair. I'm even considering having a shower at night instead, an idea which I would have previously found repulsive. (But I realise now not as repulsive as not having a shower at all.)

Me love the slides too. I will not be happy when my assistance is no longer required welcome.

We have our first post natal group tomorrow. I'm hoping there will be at least one ESH!

fp there will be an ESH lurking! Just need to lure her out with code words such as "gin" !!

Anyone boiling to death last night or was it just me!? soooooooooo hot!!

I woke up very hot silver. But I'm guessing you were hotter. You on ML now? Hope you're still in your PJs/dressing gown.

swaddling somehow seemed to work last night - he went from 9.45 till 1 and about 1.45 till 5. I feel human again!!!! yay!!

FP erm yes, lets not discuss nipple likes and dislikes in public! When ski rots and I met up we were discussing leaky boobs quite loudly and the boys in the booth next to us were listening in, it was most entertaining.

Yay for sleeping baybees cossie! How are you doing anyway? Are you getting out to meet TGO for lunch like you were planning to?

Where is carrots? Is she MIA?

curly I think you need to round up the Midlands ESHes.

Can I have some of Vag's brie since she clearly is not in any rush for it?

It was boiling in my house too - really airless and sweaty. slept like the undead. Dog up and about at 4.30am and wanting to go out. Not happy with mr moo for neglecting to make sure he went to the loo before bed. I mean it's not hard is it.

Happy Mat Leave silver!

Had last hippo sesh last night, feel all positive and excited I have to say... has been well worth it even if we don't get the birth we'd 100% like.

was thinking that ski. wonder how many Midlanders we have?

Well I know lyra wanted to meet with others and I think there are some new (to us) members of PESH who are Midlands...

okie Knock yourself out, VAG clearly can't be arsed - probably not even packed her hozzie bag yet.

casp As of end Dec I'll be a Midlander!

ooooh it's all going ahead then, fanny? can you say whereabouts yet? Or is it a secret?

you know we can private message on here now...

Gals - is iz now officially free!! ML starts now!!!

casp I messaged you! No secret though... well only to us since we have no idea where we're actually going to be living yet.

Congrats silver. Relax and eat cheese.

I'm here ski, just managing to catch up but not post. WE EXCHANGED TODAY!!!! Hurrah!!!

Just have 3 weeks to move now - hope to get keys to new house on Monday and move over a few weeks. We don't complete for a month but we're going on hols for the last week.

Life is manic. Comma's christening on Sat and that's a nightmare but nearly there. M BD Sunday and while F&F are around I'm having a partee, then next w/e it's LC's birthday and like an idiot I'm "doing it myself" in the good ol' traditional party style (pass the parcel n everything) in the local community centre rather than just sending them all to a soft play centre which is the modern norm. Incredible how much work is involved in that.

Then moving - then holiday.

On top of which I'm kind of back to work in a not-going-to-office way, and I'm doing a load of stuff trying to set up a donor milk collection thing locally (which mostly involves doing a load of promotion about BM donation - radio n stuff), and co-editing the local NCT magazine.

That's on top of having a velcro baby who is feeding several times a night and I'm permanently knackered .

Trying to get rid of as much stuff as poss before move hence giving away a load of preggo stuff but let down silvia in a big way as offered preggo ball then couldn't find bloody pump (grr).

Also considering becoming a BF counsellor.

Am self-studying BF literature and baby raising literature and basically not stopping at all.

But happy :)

rots Hmmn, given your current and proposed levels of activity it is apparent to me that you are not SAHM material - I see no mention of daytime TV.

My lie in went out the window cos HI's alarm went off and he is the type of person who lies there til I jab him in the ribs gentle stroke his cheek to wake him up and then yell at him to get up and turn that bloody alarm off!! He is the most useless person first thing. He literally is comatosed. Be interesting to see what effect a newborn will have on him. I reckon he'll be hot footing it to his mum's for sneaky naps.

So today I am a free woman ! Plans are farrier, MW appt, walk the mutt, attempt to do something a bit domestic then I am out for dinner!

How long before your labour did your bump drop? In labour I am assuming you can't feel the baby move as you did in the last few weeks of being preggo? Not sure that makes sense.

Silver jailbait really suffered at first because he needs a lot of sleep - it took him a good month to get used to it and of course now Bear has come out the other side and will sleep more - today until 4:30 !

But no doubt he will still today complain of tiredness - we went to bed at the same time, I got up at 4:30 and have been up again for 2 hours... he is still sleeping. So there you go, he's already had 3 hours sleep MORE than me and will still complain... they have absolutely NO fucking idea how little sleep "mum" is getting. Yet we just get the fuck on with it!