Jan 2009, baby D0Gs and bumps galore.. lets make room for many more...

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here we are. am going to start a bet on who is next to get broody!

Hi

Just tried to read, but am waaay too tired.

Survived the fireworks, dd was snug as a bug in her buggy with the rain cover on. She was in her sleepsuit, with an organic cotton fleece all in one over it and her coat on top on that, plus ear defenders - and she loved the fireworks.

Ds2 was less impressed, hated the bangs and I ended up standing with my hands over his ears to muffle the sound as I daftly thought he was too old to need his ear defenders this year.

It rained the whole time, not heavily, but enough to get us all thoroughly wet through, despite being suitably togged up.

Fireworks were A LOT louder than usual this year. I think they must have changed the company they use to do it, as they usually go for the quiet package - quiet it most definitely was not.

On the plus side, the dog's hearing loss seems to have got to the stage that she is no longer noticing the fireworks, which is great as she's been a nervous wreck on bonfire night for the last 11 years!

Was extremely p'd off to get a txt from SIL at 6.00pm telling me not to put the boys in white shirts for the photo shoot tomorrow, as the background is going to be white. Great - she could have told me that before I panic bought ds1 a lovely smart white shirt today! I have now ordered yet another shirt on overnight delivery and am praying it will arrive on time. The first one will just have to go back. If it doesn't turn up, we will have to go somewhere on the way to buy him yet another one.

I don't think she gets that we just don't have smart designer clobber sitting around wating for a suitable occasion for our dcs to wear it. We simply can't afford to buy them clothes that might never get worn before they grow out of it. Honestly, she lives in a different world to us. Her little boy has a wardrobe stuffed full of designer clothes, so its just a case of grabbing something out of the wardrobe in the morning for her, whereas all three of mine needed new outfits and ds1 needed new footwear as well! Add it all up and we will have spent in excess of £100 on MILs birthday (despite dd's being mostly second hand off ebay and my Mum buying ds2 a new shirt) and she will have spent £25.00 (her contribution to the cost of the shoot).

And breathe .....

Anyway, at least they now all have something nice to wear for Christmas.

Right, am off to bed. Have been waiting for the fireworks to stop so we could let the dogs out for a wee before we go upstairs.

Hope everyone has nice weekends. I will try and catch up on the thread tomorrow if I get a chance.

Thanks Ladies. Sorry for the massive read... it didn't seem to take that long to type out.

DD took a big face plant today while I was making lunch and now has the biggest, fattest lip ever. We have Christmas card pictures on Sunday too. She couldn't eat her pickle at lunch and that upset her so much. Bless her. She loves her pickle at lunch. She is better now though and ate a massive bowl of pasta and is now devouring grapes. But boy, did I feel bad. I saw her slouchy sock and thought I should pull it off before she fell and then she fell! Thoughts become things; choose the good ones.

Should take my advice more to heart with all the bitching about family I've been doing lately.

Ear defenders! I have some and DS could have used them, they're pink as they were DD's but darn it he would've enjoyed the fireworks more. Assuming he kept them on and liked the feel of them I forgot DS's rain cover as he was in his all in one and I thought with light rain why bother with the rain cover? Accept it wasn't light rain in the end I should have taken an umbrella and the rain cover and ear defenders! Ahh well next year I'll be more prepared.

I have read everything but no time to comment on everything as world war 3 is taking place next door

ciao for now...

oh dog, poor sweet arlo c is more of a leg clinger, really, it takes her a long while to acclimatise to the company of groups of people, though she is okay after ten or fifteen minutes with small numbers of people. she clams right up and bears no obvious relationship to the small tantrummer she is at home... i am sorry you are having a tough time with j: it'll pass, it'll pass. hope the ranitidine helps.

tea, hope the war is over!

moose, hope the dogs and small ones have all made it through the fireworks unscathed

lenni, no known donor this time, too old to spend time looking for one. have some misgivings about it, but on balance we think positives will outweigh negatives, so if my hormones look okay, we are breaking into the savings and off to the clinic....

okay, dp and c have arrived home. back later

back again - dp and c both napping (c woke up at 6 this morning ). yes, lenni, we are slightly bricking it about the budget and the fallout from it (it may not be passed, precipitating a general election): it's not likely dp will lose her job unless the state actually goes bust, but our income will probably take a direct hit. waiting to find out is awful, we can't really plan anything at all. but i guess we're not likely to starve or lose our house, so not panicking or anything.

chef, hope today's going better

Bookmarking, having a bit of a hectic time at the moment, it's not often this falls off my treads!

Have had a quick read through, Stripey that's exciting news, hope your fertility tests are all good. DS is quite shy compared to DD, he's fine at home, but generally hangs off my leg in public...funnily enough he's a lot less clingy with DH.

Chef, don't blame you for ranting. i agree with Lenni, find a way to stretch the money and get yourself a studio space and daycare. Are there any other mums you could do a childminding swap with and take thier kid for a few days and they take Vi in return? Which gallery are you with in East London?

Tea, Moose, Dog and Tree fireworks all sound good. We are off to some tomorrow night, DD loves 'em so hope it doesn't rain. DS has never been, last fireworks night he ended up in emergency surgery after they found out he had swallowed a magnet during his MRI scan What a year!

Moose, sorry you are still being let down by DS1's school, if his one teacher can manage his needs well it must be infuriating that his other teacher let's him down so badly. It sounds like you are getting somewhere with referrals and support though, it's maddness that the process is so bureaucratic and slow.

Lenni, liked the look of your halloween party, especially the pumpkin cake.

Ray, mobile spa sounds heavenly, please send it this way. I tried to find one for the night before my wedding and had no luck in bloody central London! Gap in the market!

MissJ Glad Oz is going good and N was a star on the flight. Enjoy the sunshine. Rainforest sounds amazing.

Dog, sorry Joss is still hard work, hope the Doc comes up with something for his heartburn, sending him and you lots of love.

Am on the last part of my course, final essay has to be in at the start of February, but I need to get it done before maternity leave starts as it is based on an analysis of school inclusive policy...gah! DH is knee deep in a MA too, so we are like ships in the night at the moment, either working or in seperate rooms studying or marking. Joy. Am uber knackered. Think I've hit the crap part of pregnancy where its all heartburn, aches and pains and general beached whaleness. I had to get DH to put my socks on this morning, tummy seems to have doubled in size overnight.

DS has a cracker of a black eye at the moment after climbing to the top of our buggy, not surprisingly it toppled over and he landed on his face.

DD is driving me slightly insane by banging on about Christmas. We are pretty low key about it and haven't mentioned it yet but I guess they all talk about it at nursery...I can't face 8 weeks of daily conversations about Christmas...arghhhh.

Does anyone here have a Mountain Buggy? A MN lady down the road is selling one super cheap and was thinking of getting it for country terrain as we seem to be doing a lot of out of town country stuff of late and the ~Maclaren just gets stuck in mud.

Wow DOG 4 DCs and one a wee babe with reflux and you manage to organise and hold a party and cook for that many people! I am so impressed!

DCs today both seemed to be being deliberately cheeky and both misbehaving. I can never seem to find a balance, I'm either completely patient and maybe too lenient or mega draconian. Need more consistency I think, it's all slipping lately and both of them seem to be doing more cheeky things lately. Tis hard work

HKZ Lenni Yes I am getting down and dirty today on the finances. Hard too because it coming up to Christmas but I just simply can't go on like this anymore. I'm with Degreeart/Empire Gallery on Vyner Street. The girls are amazing and have many emerging artists on their rota that have gone on to amazing sales and work. With art too, it something that you need to do regularly to keep moving forward and its not just making art, but going to see and engaging art too and the scene here is a little lack lustre, with too many creating in a vacuum and not looking at the bigger picture. I've always touted how do you know where to take your art if you don't know where its been. Art is about creating and examining culture and if all one is doing is emulating what's already been done, your stagnant. I'm talking about "high" art, for lack of a better word as there is a place for it all, but don't try to tell me your abstract painting... ok, I'm digressing. I need to get back to my art criticism too.

Stripey Friends of ours are doing fertility treatments right now too. Its amazing. I'm just too fertile. lol. Maybe I should look into egg donor-ing.

The neighbour is smoking out the neighbourhood. The raccoons ran off with my garbage can, the deer have just clear cut my parsley and the damn squirrels chewed through the bird feeder rope to get the feed. Where's the .22!!! lol

afternoon

hi to all you ladies

we all had a great time @ legoland yest

Hi all.

Havent time to read up i'm afraid. just flying in. Hope all well. xxxx

Hello ladies. Better day today. Did 3 hours of work. Another couple days like that and the piece will be ready for painting. (thinking good thoughts emoticon)

Great stuff chef, I hope it develops how you want it too.

Just in from nights. Am on the ward area now, so rather missing the delivery suite drama but change is good.

HKZ - sorry to hear you are so so busy, but great to hear about huge bumps on the whole
Dog - have no idea how you do it!

Stripey - where do you go from here with the fertility stuff? Seek out a donor?

No reference yet . Get anxiety bubbles when I think of it. I wonder when the uni's will announce their fees. I get anxiety dam buster bombs when I think about that.

I'm a lightweight too now DOG. I'm with you on motivation; big pile of washing up with my name on it but I'm feeling mega tired.

Metanium is pretty hardcore stuff, it reminds me of cement but I always found that the best for my pale skinned munchkin when she had nappy rash, it acted as a great barrier. Does Mr A do it whilst sleeping? My DD has so many accidents in her knickers in the day, she's still in pull ups over night She just can't be bothered to go to the loo. I always thought potty training would be simple. Oh how wrong could I be?

Yes DD does that. Grrr

Morning

Ugh! The weather is so foul here this morning. Still haven't dried out or warmed up after the school run.

Good to hear from you Dog. Sorry its all still so hard with J. Hope the docs managed to find a way of helping him soon. Party sounds like it was fun. I am exactly the same with drinking these days, except I can only manage one glass of wine before I fall asleep AND get a stinking hangover.

Poor A with his sore bottom. They won't listen to sense at that age though will they. So frustrating. Whenever I ask dd "have you done a poo" she says "Daddy do poo" gotta love her style. If I say "no Daddy hasn't done a poo" she tries "ds1 do poo" then "ds2 do poo". I can see me having big trouble with this one as she gets older.

Sad weekend for us here, a few different people came round to say goodbye to my little old lady dog. She has gone seriously downhill over the past fortnight and we don't think she'll be here by next weekend. She decided to rally a bit with all the attention and is a bit brighter this morning, but I would be kidding myself if I thought the end wasn't really close, she's nothing but skin and bone now and is so weak she can't get off the back doorstep without falling over. Great timing, as this week is also the anniversary of when my Dad died. I tend not to commit anniversaries of deaths to memory, preferring to remember people when they were full of life, but my sister gets in a state every year and decided it would be a good idea to remind me.

Dh is taking her to the vet this evening to see if there is anything we can do to make her more comfortable. I'm not going, as I couldn't bear it if they wanted to put her to sleep there and then, so dh said he would go and say he can't go ahead without me there - to give us time to prepare ourselves.

We also have ds1's Ed Psych observation at school, followed by her meeting with his teacher and his first session with her AND its parents' evening AND ds2 is seeing the Paediatric Optician and Optometrist, so all in all a very heavy week.

Thanks Dog. I just wish they lived longer - although it sounds like your family dog had a really good innings. He must have been so well looked after to reach such a grand old age. My girl would be 14 next March. Her breed usually lives to 17/18, but she has cancer. She's still eating well, 4 small meals a day, but can only tolerate fresh chicken/fish/turkey and rice and despite having a good appetite has dropped almost all over her weight over about a two week period. Its so difficult, but I'm sure we will know when the time is right. She is still eating, aware and able to tell us if she wants to go out etc, so I don't think she's quite there yet. The waiting and not knowing when is killing me though. In some ways I wish she could just go to sleep one night and not wake up, but I know things rarely happen that way.

With regards to A, to some extent I think its boys. They love all the stinky, bottom type stuff and find it all amusing from a very young age. On the other hand, much as he really loves J, do you think it there could be a bit of jealously there, so perhaps a touch of attention seeking involved? Especially with the smirking.

aw moose, i'm sorry to hear about your dog but you will know when it is time, and she has had a good life with you all.

dog, i'd guess attention too: i'm sure it will settle down soon. his poor bum.

tree, when you say on the wards, do you mean you are the person who helps out in the middle of the night with the ceaselessly mewling ones? permanently etched in my memory will be the midwife who designated c a drama queen: i remind the small girl of this when she is having one of her toddler wig-outs... (not that i think you do this, and i certainly took her point...)

we will go for a donor at the clinic, if we get that far: still have to confirm that all is well with me, blood test this week and another about a week and a half later. not thinking too far ahead, there are lots of financial uncertainties here so that may be a factor as well.

well, having a pretty bleurgh day here - c under the weather, not really sure what's wrong, bit listless but no temperature. i've given up sugar and alcohol and caffeine so am in withdrawal ithink... dp is really tired, the free floating anxiety of living in ireland is affecting her sleep. i guess i should just slope off and sulk with my ginger tea, which is at least very nice. see you all later

dog - hi shame about toilet problems

mm - sorry to hear about dog you must be sad

had horrid weather here 2 this monring got soaked!!

sun now though