June 08 - 42 days til Christmas, and Deb is coming home!!

[KnittingisbetterthanTherapy]

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That's interesting to hear neenz, we use the TV far too much here too ...

Maybe we should set up some sort of 'up in the night' club; Caitlin went to sleep at 9.45 and woke at 2.30 and that was, pretty much, it ... no idea why, she was bright as a button this morning too. Unlike me.

I was writing Christmas cards today, one to Aberdeen Road and I so nearly wrote abdn - I blame this thread!

Sorry to hear about the sick Amber, hard enough at the best of times but when you're lugging around two big babies too ... And so sorry to hear about your friend Dewin

My big quandary here: Do I drive us all down to my mum's for Christmas? It's Lancaster - Norfolk, so there are lots of potential snowy disasters along the way. 7 hour drive at the best of times. I am so tempted to cancel. But my Grandma was 100 last week and I would love to see her; and Mum has been planning this little family reunion since last Christmas. Perhaps I should post in WWYD!

Systems I wouldn't go. It's such s shame but it is lethal out there and very slow going. Could you go in new year instead when it warms up?

Neenz - your post is quite apt as I was just about to post and ask people what their DCs do during a quiet afternoon at home.'most mornings we are out and about, but afternoons especially in the winter can be v long. We certainly have too much TV too , but I do consciously turn it off. As well as toys we sometimes do a bit of cooking together and increasingly some crafty stuff but thats limited still.

Neenz and Systems thanks - Luke is fine now. He had no apetite on Sunday (but no sick) but he's more his old self today.

TV - blimey we have it on all the time but Luke is at nursery all day and he gets none there so figure it balances out. I'm not too bothered to be honest - especially at the moment!

Dewin - sorry I didn't say anything about your friend. Let's hope and pray it's benign - what a horrid Christmas for them.

Systems - I don't know about your quandry. The weather forcasts seem to be wrong half the time. We had forcast blizzards from 3pm today and there's nothing and on Saturday they said light snow and we had 3 inches in an hour. I had to send my sister back hoem (she was half way here in the car from Cambridge). Maybe best in the NY when there's no chance of being stuck with a small child for hours on the motorway (or get a train?)

We're going to be on tv tonight (look north and tyne tees news) and ....wait for it....LIVE on Daybreak. We've had a catalogue of disasters since returning home and to top it all we're out of oil , no-one will deliver and the price has doubled. Only got 1 coal fire, and the rest you'll see....

OMG Deb that is awful! How on earth are you managing with no heating? I shall look out for you on Daybreak - ds1 and dd were on there last week with the school nativity.

My laptop has broken so I am only going to be on here very sporadically now until I can get a new one (in the sales hopefully)

Glad Luke is feeling better Amber, I don't think tv is such a terrible thing to be honest - my kids certainly see enough of it anyway!

Just asked MIL to record Look North. Sorry to hear about the disasters. PILs had the same problem with oil a few weeks ago. Did you see my post last week saying that we will be visiting PILs over NY? Would you like to meet up?

Today I discovered that pulling a toddler home from nursery on a sledge with a baby in a sling works brilliantly until the toddler climbs out, takes his wellies off and demands to be carried...We got home in the end...

Oh dear, Spider - that doesn't sound fun at all!

Deb nice to see you on here, but sorry you're having such an awful time of it - will watch out for you on daybreak.

Dewin your friend is in my prayers.

Amber glad Luke is feeling better.

Systems - 7 hours at the best of time is a long way. I don't think I would go tbh, but I'd also maybe wait and check out the weather forecasts nearer the time. As long as you don't trust the bbc weather - we had 'sunny intervals' all day yesterday apparently. Yes, we had two 2 minute sunny intervals in a day of snow blizzards

Neenz We probably have too much telly. However, he's only at home a few days per week and obviously doesn't get any telly at nursery. We'll happily sit and watch a dvd after lunch for quiet time (especially as S rarely naps now) but I don't mind a few too many episodes of something from cbeebies which is designed specifically for their age group when it's so bloody miserable outside. Especially when they're mostly less than 10 minutes per episode. He usually does get lots of reading, puzzles, playtime etc too so I don't feel too bad. S loves Octonauts at the moment - he's learning all sorts of stuff about life underwater. He wanted to go see some sharks on the reef today

We had a fab day today - went to a fantastic country park which had loads of snow, but it was a bright sunny day. By the time we left only one other family had turned up. Saw lots of animals, did some sledging, saw Santa and had a play in a huuuuuuuuuge wooden fort. S loved it.

Bit grumpy later on though - I've done all my Christmas shopping obviously but STILL managed to end up in John Lewis getting harassed this afternoon. DH is firmly to blame and I've been very snappy with him ever since

deb just saw you on TV via facebook - you look amazing - but what a nightmare about the heating!

spider fraser pulled the same trick coming back from a friend's on friday. I carried him for over a mile. Fortunately I had a 13 year old with me who pulled DS1 on the sled.

I'm full of the cold so off to bed... waves hi to everyone else...

Problem with the weather is there is snow/ice everywhere and its not forecast to get much above freezing till next week so it's just going to stick around . Even if there is no more snow it is treacherous . Not sure if my sisters will get over to my mum's for Christmas - it's going to be hard enough for us and we're only 10 mins away. Sis's are 1hr 10mins!

The thing with the telly in our house is when it's on it's on ALL the time. They have a meltdown when I turn it off. And they don't go to nursery so no time away from it. And with potty training we haven't even done playgroups so much recently. So it has been all day every day for weeks. Sybil that surprises me cos I remember you saying you limit the games console to an hour and I was so impressed! Yesterday on day 1 of no telly I thought 'I bet Sybil's kids don't watch TV all day!' But a friend on FB said last week she was doing 'no TV' and I thought 'Ponce! Nowt wrong with telly' which there isn't but i have got to a level where I know it is not good for them. And I have really enjoyed playing with them and I think they have too. They are a lot less whingy actually! We aren't doing anything too technical, just jigsaws (which they can't do at all), colouring in, and they play with their cars and toy garage. And I am teaching them letters and sounds on the VTech phonics bus (MIL was so impressed when T knew the letters on the 'postman' puzzle today!).

They enjoyed their message from Santa - T watched it over and over this morning . But i got the feeling that they didn't realise how impressive it was that Santa actually had pictures of them in his book!

Spider, poor you! I know the feeling... when we went to Centerparcs it snowed and we had a 10mins walk over to Santa with just the buggy for D and hoping the twins would walk. Well they kept falling over, getting cold and wet and then refused to walk! DH had to carry one and push the pram while I carried the other (both hysterical). Not fun at all

There's a good view of the lunar eclipse right now! Look to the north west....

AH and Neenz glad I'm not alone on hysterical toddlers refusing to co-operate. I think it vindicates my decision to get a double buggy. Yesterday I had already pushed the buggy to town and then to nursery and then back home and I had found it tough through some of the refrozen snow on the edge of the roads, hence switching to the sledge. You live and learn I guess.

Ha ha Aberdeen - I wouldn't know North West if it poked me in the eye!

We are also having travel mares. Mark's dad and wife are meant to be flying over tomorrow from Spain for Xmas. Who knows whether they'll get here in time. The wife has a daughter with schizophrenia who she is meant to be spending Xmas day with so I hope she gets here for her sake. The daughter doesn;t know us and doesn't like new people so I can;t even invite her here.

Deb - gutted I missed your Daybreak interview. I didn;t get on the pooter all day yesterday so only just saw the post. I do hope you get your heating sorted!

Wow Deb just seen your clip online, you must be freezing!! cottage looks lovely though

The consensus here seems to be we shouldn't go down too, but I think I'll have to wait and see and decide tomorrow or Thursday. It is a long old drive but since I've done it so often it doesn't intimidate me as much as it should; plus Mum is a bit scathing of the way everything here shuts down with a bit of snow (she's Norwegian), so I don't think she will be very understanding! Hmm. Will keep a close eye on RAC Roadwatch and think on.

Deb hope you're managing to keep warm. You all looked great on TV. How to you manage to have 3 children yet only 1 chin? . I have one for each child, like the tyres and multiples of stretch marks

Dewin thinking of your poor friend.

SA I wouldn't like the thought of travelling in this weather.

My girls are sleeping v badly and when it's so cold I'm particularly drippy about dealing with them. So I had both of them in my bed last night and poor DH in the attic. So by now, after having them physically attached to me for goodness knows how many hours, my well of maternal affection has dried up and I just want them to bog off .

The TV is on right now, but it's only DS2 who has a real affinity for it. DS1 gets bored after a while, and the girls wander in and out. We're going to a fancy dress party this afternoon so that will give some focus to the day.

I think T is potty trained. She's been wearing knickers for a few days with no accidents. I keep her in a nappy at night, though - she ends up in our bed so often that I'm not risking it.

We're still in Anglesey - I've never seen so much snow here! I went to stay with my parents for a couple of days and the river in their garden was frozen across - I've never seen that in my nearly 35 years.
We're still debating whether we come to London: if we do, it will be by train, but DH had a mega journey yesterday to get here, so we'll see.
Thanks for all the good wishes for my friend. She really is very ill indeed. Such an awful time for it.

TV - well, my MIL criticises, but Iestyn is a total telly addict. Mind you, it's an important source of English for him. He does play as well, but prefers telly, and wants it during mealtimes. (I've given up that fight - who cares? My MIL, but so what, when she does childcare, fine, she can impose her rules!)

I've got to go - it's snowing again, I have no food (but there wasn't any in the co-op or Asda the other day) and I need to get to Tesco, and then for my flu jab. I phoned the surgery this morning to make enquiries, and they said '2.15'. I said 'what?' and was told I can have it at 2.15 or not at all, so there's that enquiry... I just hope I don't keel over - I did in Asda on Saturday (but not out cold - which meant an entire day's recovery).

Did I mention that I can't share my scan picture because the baby looks like a goblin? It's worrying.

See Neenz, thats exactly my point about how none of us are perfect parents! I am really strict about the ganes consoles. The kids get one hour on the wii at weekends or holidays and thats it, but I don't mind the telly especially as they tend to watch documentaries. They are very into nature's deadliest 60 at the moment and I am learning things about anaconda's etc every day!

I really need to start thinking about potty training. But its cold and nearly christmas and he isn't showing any signs of wanting to do it. Then again, he is a particularly lazy little bugger so I may be waiting until secondary school if I go by his prompts.

Off to try and find Deb on facebook...

Dewin, prayers for your friend.

I let the kids watch telly during meals - it keeps them eating for longer and they are not great eaters really.

The DTs are still in nappies at night. T usually has a dry nappy in the morn but Esther is always wet. Not thinking of tackling that anytime soon. Rolf Thea seems to have got it with hardly any trouble! It took a good 3-4 weeks for my two. We have had the heating on constantly in the cold weather, but the waste pipe is still frozen and dripping out of the boiler, but not too fast so we've just put a plastic pot underneath to catch the water.

Our turkey is supposed to be delivered Christmas Eve. The guy rang today to say his truck has broken down. Likely story - I reckon he just doesn't fancy coming out on these icy roads. It's only a mile to go pick it up but I am bit miffed really.

Within 5 minutes of posting, T wet herself . She's generally been fine though. DD1 isn't dry at night and nor were the boys at that age so I'm not making any plans for getting rid of nappies at night.

I'm to collect our turkey 1st thing on Xmas eve, and I'll get everything else then, too, so if the shops haven't had their deliveries we'll be eating cheese on toast on Xmas day! I usually get it all delivered but haven't got my act together this year.

Neenz it sounds as though you have a bit more snow than us.

Rolf, My dad drove home from Manchester last night, he said the snow was not too bad up to Thornton then it got progressively worse up Formby bypass and through to Birkdale. I drove up to my mum's today and there were some really hairy patches where you still can't see the road for the snow/ice! And that is the main road!

I know a few people who had to walk home from Liverpool late on Friday night .

My friend who is expecting a baby today can't get her PILs to stay and babysit for an induction tomorrow because they are snowed in in St Helens (which is NW but not exactly Neenz and Rolf neck of the woods).

I finally met up with my friend who had the v prem baby (28 wks) back in Aug. The baby is gorgeous but v dinky, W more than 3lbs heavier and they were due about the same time. Amazingly he is fine apart from glue ear which should sort itself out. My friend is doing ok all things considered although on ADs for anxiety. Great to catch up with her though.

Dare I admit that we've barely had any snow this time round? Just a dusting at the end of last week, which is still about because it's been so cold.

We watch too much TV, especially the past month or so because we've not been getting out very much due to the weather, potty training, etc, etc. I hardly ever put 'live' TV on though, we mostly watch things on demand, much better for kids TV, just the programmes you like with no adverts or annoying presenters. We listen to quite a bit of music as well and he loves watching anything on TV with guitars in, he gets his guitar out and dances around the room, he's got all the rock star moves.

Deb- you looked great on TV, hope you aren't all too cold.

I'm feeling vaguely prepared for Christmas, I went to Tescos last night, it was lovely and quiet, so we just have to go to the farm shop on Christmas eve to get the meat.
I just hope my Mum manages to get here tomorrow.

Tip - Tescos had all their Christmas craft sets half price yesterday, I picked up some card making sets and we made a couple today to give to grandparents when we see them, I'll put the rest away for next year.

Just to completely ruin the thread, thanks for all of your prayers for my friend. Please pray for her daughter - my friend isn't going to live.