July 2009: Only &*%$ days till Christmas!

[alibobble]

hey all! Thought I'd start.

Twatting HSBC bloody irritating bloody bank - the rigmarole to transfer money from my HSBC a/c to DP's HSBC a/c you would not believe!!! Aaaaargghh!

Anyhoo, how is everyone? Glad you had a good hols Patchy. No T-or-T here in our Cul-De-Sac of the Wrinklies. But we did Halloween RhymeTime on Friday so felt like we did something.

I'd love a dog Belgrano but sadly work hours wouldn't permit. I'd agree with Patchy - get something small. Clearing up man-sized poo's when out dog walking is not fun, but will keep your hands warm in chilly weather

baby - hope things settle down soon wrt to work/life balance. I'm only just finding my feet really, 6 months in still not on top of the ironing or cleaning but it's getting better and thats with just the one child & only 3 days work a week!!
Hetty has been fine at nursery so that tearful morning seems to have been a one off, thankfully.
Hospital tomorrow - routine consultant appointment, but I can do without the arsing around to be honest. Not sure what exactly they want to discuss either - grrrrr. Hate being micro-managed. But anyway, it can't be helped. Clinic better not be running late the mood I'm in at the moment

Hi to all - best dash off & cook some tea

jetli my home now has far too many sweets after T or T. It will be me that eats them all! Hope you sorted the bank stuff.

Belgrano ahhh, we were just chatting about a dog. Not yet but in the next couple of years. DH had a dog growing up and we really want a pet. They are HARD work from what I hear to start but dogs become part of the family so nicely.

Baby how is the "real world" (ie working?). 4 children and working - that is a tough gig.

Patchy sounds like you had a good half term. Are you staying put for Christmas?

Phoenix are you getting excited for the christening? Are you hosting anything after?

Anyhow, yawn, I could use a nap but can't. Must get ready to collect DS1.

Hope everyone else ok.

Puppy - We got a Lhasa Apso puppy just before ds1 was born (I didn't know i was pg when we picked him). I had never had a dog before and had no idea how much hard work they were. We had him 2 years and after a lot of thinking we gave him to my friends parents. There were a lot of factors in our decision to give him away including, him been left alone quite a lot because as well as us working he was terrified of going in the car so it was either distress him by taking him out with us or leave him at home, he snapped at and nipped ds1 2 or 3 times. He has a much better life now i'm sure. My friends parents don't work so are with him all day and they have more time for him and he hasn't got any toddlers trying to sit on him, pull on his hair. I still get photos of him and an update of how he's doing. A dog just wasn't for us :)

Christening - We're only having close family and friends (18 invited) and they will be coming back to our house for a bite to eat and a drink. We're not having a big party :)

Dh and I are going to London for 2 nights in a few weeks. No kids :o. We're going to see Grease. I can't wait :o

Hope everyone's ok :o

Hi all. Just been skimming. phoenix we were supposed to be having becca's dedication on the 28th but it clashes with baptisms of 2 other people we know's children in church. I just wanted to do something low key but friends are all having big do's so didn't want to "compete" as it were. Talked to tony our vicar and moved the date to 20th March (!) as it's the next date that Pete's dad is available. (he's a vicar too and thus busy on a sunday to visit)

bonfire night beth not so scared this year though our celebrations have been limited to waving sparklers in the pouring rain! :)

sick bug becca has just got over her last cold and then spent last night vomiting from 10pm till 6am at regular intervals. me and Pete are like zombies today. Off to bed in a mo. Done major amounts of washing and nearly had a bear crisis. She won't sleep without her ted but he was well vommed on as was her "spare bear". She was so distressed by lack of bear that Pete dusted off the vomit from spare bear's feet, detolled it and put it in bed with her! Fortunately we are back to full capacity today so she can be sick again tonight though I hope not!

See every time I post here becca is ill with something but I think it's cos she was bf and so has had immunity last year and is getting hit this winter were as Beth went through all this much younger. Must go and sleep zzzzzzz

btw anyone a reader? Anyone else reading Steig Larsson's books? V good! On to "girl who kicked the hornet's nest (no 3) Will be sad when I finish it as there are no more :(

OH no! Pete has started being sick today and been joined by Beth... I fear there are jaws music type things going on... du da, du da... here comes the bug to get you alison!

Oh no Ali hope it passes by you and the rest of the family get well soon.

What crap weather today. It's bloody freezing. I'm off work today but not intending to go anywhere except to pick Lewis up from school. I was hoping to be having some blinds fitted today but they haven't rung to say they're coming so probably won't be now :(. I'm expecting 2 parcels from Next anyway so I've still got am excuse to stay in and keep warm :o.

hi all sorry I haven't been around! Or rather haven't posted as I am always lurking

as for 6 kids trust me even I am at that. I definately draw the line at 4.

patchy no worries about the hols - next time

Sorry for all the poorly bubbas. There is so much going around at the mo

ali I love reading just don't have time anymore :(

puppies I don't have 1. Everyone I know says it's like having another baby. I have to say though. My neighbour has got a Lhasa apso (sp?) well 2 actually. She had 1 when I had Fin and 1 when I had Alfie. I would say that if hers are anything to go by they are slightly mad but were brilliant with the kids. My kids spend a lot of time there and they seem very easy going. Fin walks around with the puppy tucked under his arm! Bless. I just can't be doing with all the mess to clear up despite the lhasas not moulting they still seem to cause havoc.

Feeling a bit about ttc as Alfie is just not giving up those feeds so keep getting bfns. I have managed to drop some of the night feeds as that is supposed to help so he now goes between 6-8 hours in a stretch, but I think I am one of those people who will have to give up bf comepletely before AF returns. I am just too much of a softy to take it off Alfie at the mo.

Hope everyone is ok and surviving this stomy weather.

Lhasa apso's are definitely mad. It's days like today I'm really glad we don't have to go out dog walking anymore. If I'm honest I don't really miss our dog now, although re-homing him was one of the hardest decisions we've made, but I know dh sometimes misses him.

:( for BFN's queenfee.

Noah still isn't saying any words although he understands everything we say to him. At what age would you worry about not talking. Lewis was a late talker too but I can't remember how old he was . He's got 2 new teeth over the last few days, finally :o, he had 4 top front and 2 bottom front and has now got 1 at the top back of each side.

Is everyone cracking on with the Christmas shopping? What are we buying the little ones? I've got Noah a ride on buzz lightyear motorbike (foot to floor push along one) and other little toys and clothes. I was completely stuck for things to get him and still don't think I've bought him as much as Lewis.

Morning all - just when we thought it was all OK, we've got crying at nursery again . It's killing me to be honest. Have tried all sorts - getting up earlier so she can have lots of cuddles before we go, and daft CD's in the car. We get to nursery early enough that I can sit & read a book for a while, or play. But all to no avail. Whenever I telephone later on, she's always fine (or so they tell me, anyway). DP might have to take her a couple of mornings to see if its the same I think. Makes me feel just wretched. I just want her to be a happy little soul.

for the BFN's QF - I took maca again after a few months of TTC and then had BFP 2 months later. From what I've read it's fine - some even say beneficial - with breastfeeding. It helps stimulate ovulation.

Ali - hope the vomming has subsided now.

Phoenix - Hetty is the same - understands plenty but not much talking at all. Only the odd word here & there. I am perservering with the sign language though in an effort to reduce the tantrums.

Hi to all the lurkers. Best go - am meant to be working

I seem to remember the hv asking if they had 20 words at 2? I personally wouldn't worry too much. Cerys had a speech disorder and couldn't put sentances together at 3. Now she never shuts up! Alfie is probably my best talker yet.
Whats maca Jetli? :( about the crying this is one of the peak ages for seperation anxiety, I am sure it will soon pass.

jetli don't worry about nursery. Becca who happily went to child minders no problem from me starting work as been a handful lately and cries as I leave which is not like her at all. She's fine afterward and I'm sure your LO is fine too. It's just hard. I've found that if I prolong the parting it's worse but if I make a clean break of kiss, bye bye see you later and leave it's over much quicker. Beth cried every time I took her to preschool (at 3!) and did the same tactic and she was soon settled and was fine. It's just hard to see cos it's your impression as you leave. Plus PG hormones won't help with feeling confident with crying child either. I found it much harder to cope with Beth's crying when I was PG with Becca though everyone is different.

sickbug finally stopped vomiting after 23hrs straight! Gah. Rest of family better after 6-10hrs but no not me! Got antisickness tablets from doc in the end cos couldn't sit up without retching. Yuck! Had pete at home an extra day and he's been most miffed about ti but I couldn't have gone to work today so how can I look after the kids? Most amusing hearing him get cross about things i get frustrated by. Nice to see I'm just human and not a horrid mummy :)

QF maybe you're not ready to give up your current littlest baby in place of another yet? That's not a judgement btw just meaning that in order to conceive the next, you have to give up the BFN and maybe it's not time for you yet?

Thanks for the words of comfort Ali - I stayede behind at nursery for a little while tonight & they said again she's always right as a bobbin within 5 minutes of me leaving & that I should telephone any time if I'm anxious - as they put it they want happy Mums as well as happy babies. So I feel a bit better about it all tonight. The next thing to try & crack is to stop Hetty falling asleep on the way home!! It's only since the clock change & so I think the dark nights are the problem... So glad you've stopped vomming BTW - that bug doesn't sound good at all.

QF - maca is a food supplement from South America. It's supposed to increase "fertility and desire" - I can't honestly say it made me particularly horny but I've conceived both times within a couple of months of taking it. I got mine from ebay (in powder form) & couldn't bear the taste so then got some capsules from an american website called iHerb here. I'm sure you can get the capsules easily in the UK as well, but ordering them from iHerb wasn't any problem to be honest. P&P was next to nothing.

QF sorry about the BFN. Your time will come I am sure. I still haven't gotten my AF since stopping bf 3 weeks ago. Some of us are just like that with BF and ovulating. On a lighter note, I bet your other half must be loving all the bonking in the meantime.

Ali ewwww re tummy bug. Don't you reckon since having children tummy bugs hit a household more?

Jetli your nursery sounds lovely. At least they actually care about your feelings too. It must put your mind at ease.

Phoenix I am going to start my shopping this week. The older DC's are "easy" to get for but what about for our babies on this thread? I have no idea what to get Tristan as he has hand me down clothes/toys. Any thoughts?

Hey to everyone else out there.
I am off to take Tristan to messy play. He definitely needs more stimulation. BTW we had our first tantrum from him. At 16months!!!!!

hoho and now I have an inner ear infection... I think I should write a book of some sort.. whoever it was said that bugs come to your house more when you have kids... I agree wholeheartedly!

Kids are in close conact with each other so more likely to pass things on I think :( Alfie seems poorly now he was sick last night and off his food but apart from that seems happy enough
Yes dh is loving it. I fin it hard to be quite so enthusiastic when I know i'm not ov yet!
I have bought real steam thomas for Alfie since he plays with Fins track all the time and may get him vtech discovery tree. Or maybe on of those ramp things where you put the car at the top and it rolls down each level. Still not decided really. Probably get him some Duplo though as he plays with that all the time.
Thanks for the info re macca jetli will look into it

Hi everyone, sorry to hear that so many of the babies are poorly. We have a sick bug going round school at the moment so am just waiting for the big kids to bring that home.

I haven't had much of a chance to post recently or even read your posts, rl seems to be taking over at the mo! We have a school quiz night on friday that i am organising so it is taking up loads of my time. Seems to be going round in circles at the moment though! Some parents don't even want to buy so much as a £1 raffle ticket, let alone come to the event, it is so frustrating. As a church aided school we have to raise thousands of extra pounds to keep the "aided" status, but the new parents just don't seem to realise how important it is. AAARGh! Anyway, I am sure it will all sort itself out, lets just hope it does so without me having a nervous breakdown first!!

Sorry for the rant, time for a glass of wine I think!!!

Hope you all ok xx

Patchy good luck with it all. Our school is the same. I have volunteered to be the Y1 rep but starting to have "what have I done" moments. We have wine tasting this Fri for our school event. Mmmmmmmm. Very much needed.

QF Click Clack Track!!! Thanks for mentioning the car with the ramping thing as that is what Tristan is now getting. Phew. I was getting frustrated trying to find something for Christmas.

Tax Credits arrrrrrrgh we have been overpaid by shitloads somehow. DH is having a freak out. DH freelances and is in and out of work so often it has gotten very confusing. They did have I made £7k in 09/10 (wasn't even temping then let alone working!) so hopefully that will make a difference to how much we were overpaid.

Right, off to do some house admin. I am in a funny mood today.

Miss/patchy: Our school CE controlled/supported so lots of fundraising here too. Am busy baking for the christmas cake sale. So far made coconut ices, peppermint creams, the start of sugar coated cookies (can freeze till cooking nearer the time) and got the ingredients for florentines and christmas cake pop cakes. If you've never heard of pop cakes check out

www.bakerella.com/red-velvet-cake-balls/ bakerella website.

Ali I wish you were at our school! Trying to get anyone to help is a nightmare. Quiz tonight so I am madly getting organised but have taken 10 minutes out to drink a cup of coffee and calm down!! Have spent the last 3 mornings after drop off at school with poor max in the buggy tryng to sell raffle tickets! Today I sold £1. Not worth it at all!

Anyway, it helps my children too so I can't complain.

Have a good weekend everyone and i will post again next week xx

Mmm Ali that website looks fab! :)

It's snot-central here at the moment, there's a never-ending stream coming from Callum's nose! Yeurgh! He doesn't appear to have a cold though, must be teeth. Lovely!

My DH is out putting the Christmas lights up around the village today (nice weather for it, pouring rain and they're messing around with electrics, good thinking) so we're on our own in the house. Bored.com

Uh-oh, I smell a dirty nappy, better go... Hope you're all well and that the poorly babies and mummies are all better soon x

hi all. heading back to the land of the living. Antibiotics helping muchly. Survived at work last 2 days. they let me sit down out hte back cos I'm still v dizzy (nothing new there!)

How is everyone?

pressy ideas thinknig of getting this for beth for christmas though sound might drive me mad.

considering happyland or aquadoodle for becca. Anyone got aqua doodle stuff? Only got little ones. Is the big mat any good?

Right better get an early night. Still catching up after illness. Speak soon x

My neice has that keyboard ali and it's still going strong 4 years later and she's 6 they all love it

fundraising The pta at my kids school consists of 2 parents, and yes one of them is meee!
We have tried everything to raise money but the parents are just not interested. To be honest there is a general air of some of the parents round here that they just can't be bothered and it's the schools problem and it's as much as they can do to get the kids there
Makes me mad. I know it's only an infant school but we are lucky if we get £500 in a year
Alfies molars are coming through so he's off his food keeps getting a temp and is not sleeping well at all. He also has loads of ecxcema patches on his chin from the dribble {sad] I couldn't understand why he kept being sick once in the evening but I think his temp just goes up.

Had my sister and her hubby and kids here for the weekend. Between us we have 7 children under 7 2 girls and 5 boys!!!! chaos but oh so lovely to spend time together

QF wow that's a lot of kids! thanks for the info on the keyboard. I really think it's what we'll go for. Doesn't have a DC output so batteries all the way but never mind. Your PTA sounds bad. We did a bingo night the other week and I'm helping organise a beetle drive in march. We get a % of the takings from the christmas fair too. People not keen to organise but pretty keen to come to stuff. School is v good and people fight to get in so I guess there's a lot of support out there.

btw have done christmas shopping for the girls. got the piano with 20% off in ELC tonight and ordered happystreet online. Hurrah!

Have spilled a glass of wine all over the computer in the process. What a waste! :)

Hello, seems like ages since i last posted. Have had awful couple of months. My dad had a brain seizure and is now unable to make new memories, work, drive you name it he cant do it anymore. Then my sister was in a bad car accident in germany, and Esme is seems to be changing from a lovely happy little girl to a very upset little girl who is missing her daddy, with him working away.

Anyway enough of the me, me, me post!

queenfee for the BFN im sure it will happen for you soon...keep bonking!

phoenix my nephew didnt utter a word, then about a fortnight after his 2nd birthday he just started talking really well. He even had his ears checked to see if there was any problem, he was just a late talker.

jetli i hope the nursery drop offs are becoming easier. im sure they cry when you drop them off to make you feel guilty all day! Bill does it but by the time ive then taken esme to her room he's stopped crying and stuffing his face!

christmas ive brought both the kids theirs now. Esme ahas got some sylvanian family furniture to put in mine and my sisters old sylvanian mansion that my mum is dusting off for me and bill is getting a doll, pushchair and happyland farm. His dad isnt too keen on the doll but it is a boy doll and a blue pushchair! I cant cope with the constant screaming and fighting over esmes doll and oushcahir! She also wants a cabbage patch doll after she saw me looking at them. They're very cheap in america but custom charges would make them extortionate so trying to track down someone in the states to post it to me as a gift!

falling over so picked up kids form n ursery and had to sign yet another accident form for Bill. So far in the last month there has only been 2 days when i ahvent had to sign one. He's really unsteady on his feet, and they now think he needs his ears looking at because he always looks drunk when he's walking despite him walking since about august. Its even worse with shoes so he doesnt wear any !

Sorry for the me post! hello to everyone i missed and will try and keep in contact abit more regularly! x