December 2009 - Still waiting for our Silent Night

[BlathIceSkate]

New thread

Hi All, I just haven't been on here as I've not really got anything interesting to say! Noah's coping very well with his little sister, he tries to kiss her lots (more than he tries to hurt her at least ) and when he went away with DH at the weekend, he asked for me and Rosa once!
Hope the house gets sorted soon, Lee and that the challenging behaviour calms down!

Hehe, just realised this thread was started last December, it'll be this Christmas by the time we need a new one!

I was thinking that the other day Kate - however at least theya are mostly better at sleeping now so perhaps we can finally have a sleep free theme!!! Don't know why I'm thinking about it now, we can probably spin it out another year at this rate!!!!!

At the rate we're going, we won't need another thread until well into next Summer!

Waving hello from windy wales!

Hi All :)
I've got friends visiting today for the next few days, so it's going to be busy! thankfully they're staying in a B&B (it's two couples who have a child each), our house definitely isn't big enough to fit them all in here!
Hope everyone's ok :)

Hope you're having a lovely time with your friends Kate.

We did have a lovely time :o It was great to see them, we don't get to see them more than once or twice a year as one of the couples lives abroad. Still, it's nice to relax today! :o

Yey for lovely times :)

This is about to drop off my active convos again. Hope everyone is well.

We're well, I'm just knackered! Hope everyone else is ok :)

I have a feeling this thread is coming to it's end

I know, I keep thinking that too! I think it is just that they all keep us too busy these days to do much posting!

Imogen's language is really developing, which I am loving. She babbles away all day and it is so nice to understand more and more of what she is saying. Today she was able to tell me her teeth hurt, and open her mouth and point at where it hurt, and when I looked I think her last back tooth on the bottom is coming through. It was nice to know that she might be a bit more prone to tears and frustration for a reason and I think it helped me make the day better for both of us!

My parents get back in a few weeks time from NZ for good which will be lovely. They live round the corner so will have babysitting on tap which is nice and of course I will get to see them loads.

This age is lovely as Imogen and her little friends seem to really 'know' each other now and are starting to play together, rather than next to each other. Very cute!

DH has been away all this week, looking forward to him getting back tomorrow. He is now only away one night between now and 2012 - woohoo!

Blathers - I want to know what you have bought Catherine for her birthday, I saw on fb you had bought something!

I have managed to do nearly all my christmas shopping, only a few bits left to decide on/buy and feeling very organised for the first time ever. Nothing for Imogen mind, well a couple of small things, thinking about maybe getting her a toy kitchen or something similar that is larger with some family contributions to help out!

Anyway, hope everyone else is well and the fireworks aren't as loud in your front rooms as they were in mine last night!!!

Funnily enough, I've got her a kitchen :)

Not a huge one as we don't have room but the mini sizzlin' kitchen from ELC with matching toaster for Alex to give her. We got the blue one in the end as the pink one was just too pink - even the cutlery and the burners on the stove were pink! At least they're silver on the blue one.

Now that's sorted, I'm onto Christmas presents. I've got her a few little things from us - Mrs potato head, a bath toy and some play doh stamper things - but I have no clue what to get her from 'Santa'

Just looked it up - looks great! I saw one on the ikea website that looked qutie good, so think I am going to have a trip to ikea with my parents when they come back and see how big it is. We could move a few bits around downstairs and I think it would fit, and they also have there a little table and chairs which a friend has which are great, and the perfect size for our house so going to look at those too. Of course once there, there may be plenty of things to go on my wish list - or simply straight in my trolley!!!!

We've got her some little bath crayons and a tube of little hairbands for her stocking so far. My mum probably will also have some 'bits' to go in there, but I probably will also get her something Thomas the Tank Engine related as she is obsessed with Thomas and Friends!!! I think we are planning on moving to a bed soon, well December time anyway, so we might take her shopping to get a duvet cover, duvet etc... so she can choose in the hope it will make the transition easier!

I have no idea though, what do they wear in bed? How do they stay warm? Do they have bare feet when they sleep? So many ridiculous questions!!! I also have to decide whether to put the stairgate on her door, or leave it so she can come and get us -although we are upstairs... it is a minefield!!! What did you do with Alex or are you planning on doing with Catherine when you get there?

Catherine still doesn't have enough hair for hair bands! I bought her a headband thing with a flower on today though as it was raising money for Children in Need and she'd loved her Witches hat (also on a band) so much. She loved it and kept it on all day. My usual rule is no hair accessories on a child with no hair but I might have to start bending that a bit :)

We moved Alex into a bed earlier than we might otherwise have done because we needed the cot for Catherine. He was about 2.5 when we took the sides off his cot bed and then a month or two later, we got him a single bed. He'd always had a sleeping bag in the cot so I was worried about him getting cold after wriggling out from under a duvet too and so he wore sleepsuits with feet and a vest underneath for quite a while so I knew he wouldn't get too chilly.

Catherine is still has the sides on her cot but we've already swapped her to the duvet as she just didn't look cosy enough in the sleeping bag any more. She's doing OK and I've only had to move her back underneath twice when I've gone to check her when we go to bed. She was doing so well with sleeping before the clock change that we were considering taking the sides off but now she's back to 6am wake ups, we're leaving them for a little longer as she'd be up and out and waking Alex up too.

When Alex had the sides off, we put a stair gate on his door to keep him out of harms way until we got up but we can't get one on Catherine's door so that's not an option this time. The stairs would be closed off but I'd be worried about her waking Alex or getting into the bathroom.

Ooo, it's all go on here :o

We've got Noah a kitchen too! The mini-sizzlin' one too as we have no space for a proper one. ILs have got him a kettle/toaster/coffee maker to go with it :) He will love it, we go to a children'c centre a lot and he's always playing with the kitchen there. For his birthday, a friend gave us a dollshouse which was her children's, it's a fisher price little people one with lots of noises. So just got to get stuff for his stocking now :) I'm not sure whether to do a stocking for Rosa this year. I wouldn't if she was DC1 but I don't know if Noah will notice that Father Christmas hasn't filled a stocking for her and question it... Perhaps I'm overthinking it

Noah's already in a bed as he had to give up the cot for Rosa. He's rubbish at staying underneath the duvet, so he's in a fleecy sleepsuit and vest at the moment. If it gets much colder, we'll put him in pyjamas underneath that though. Not sure if it will get much colder though, our house is very warm and we haven't even got the heating on very often yet. We just have a stairgate across the stairs and then close his bedroom door, for some reason he doesn't even try to get out!

That busy spell was rather short wasn't it!

I'd do a stocking for Rosa but then I did one for Catherine for her first Christmas - and she was 8 days old!!

I just put a rattle and a couple of Christmassy bibs in it so that she had 'something' too. Alex loved that they both had one

Ah, you've convinced me :o I have got a stocking for her, it matches Noah's as we were fairly sure we'd have another baby :o Just need to put their names on the top :)

I did the same with baby books :)

Our baby books were gifts so they don't match, but that's fine :)

What is everyone doing about birthday parties this year? We are going to attempt a re-run of last year, having my mum and the ILs over for a meal in the evening, it didn't happen last year as we were snowed in! Not going to do a 'proper' party as I can't think of anything worse to organise (I'm not a party person!), so am going to avoid it until he's really aware of it

I've booked the local community centre as our house is teeny and our families huge and we're going to have a Teddy Bears Picnic.

I'm actually looking forward to it :)

Hello! I am still here too...

I would definitely do a little stocking, but then I would also probably only put one 'toy' in it and then practical things that I would buy anyway.

We're not doing anything for birthday parties yet, it SW London it is just too expensive to hire anywhere I think really and I think we'll save our pennies until she will know about parties if that makes sense. Teddie Bears Picnic sounds fab though Blathers - looking forward to seeing the photos!

Imogen's birthday is on a Thursday this year and DH has the Thursday and Friday off so on her birthday we are planning on taking her somewhere just the three of use - maybe to the London Aquarium on the train, or to the Natural History or Science Museums. Then probably back here for tea and cake with my parents, my gran and DH's mum. I keep changing my mind about what cake I want to try and make for her - I am thinking a open top red bus that I can put some happyland people in! She LOVES buses (well all transport really) so I reckon she would like that, an I also think doable in terms of making square cakes, cutting them up and sticking them together and covering in red icing basically!!!!

We moved Imogen to her big bed on Sunday night! It has been OK ish - she woke up the first night about 10.30 and then took about 1.5 hours to settle, I think because when she woke up it was all strange to her. 2nd night slept though. 3rd night she fell out with a bump - I went in to check and she was just fast asleep on the floor with her teddies. I made the mistake of trying to move her back to her bed, cue 45 minutes of trauma. Last night DH was away and I was out so MIL babysitting - apparently from 7.40 until about 10/1.30 she just kept getting in and out of the bed and playing and fussing!!!!

For the first time today she is napping in her bed, so I am hoping the novelty will soon wear off and she will sleep all night and the bags will go from under her eyes!!!!!

Anyway, sorry I've posted so much!!!!!!!!

Don't apologise! It's lovely to see a nice long post :)

I think Catherine is going to love the party too. She's very into teddies at the moment so should love having everyone bring one to her party. I was thinking I might do an easy cake too and just decorate a Costco sheet cake like a picnic blanket then sit it on the table with teddies sat around it so they look like they're having a picnic. I should be able to make a fairly simple blanket from roll out icing then have fun making some party food to put on it - maybe spelling out a 2?

I keep thinking about taking the sides off Catherine's cot - but then she wakes up at 6am and I change my mind