NOV 07 Now they are three - pre-schools, potties and power struggles

[Greedygirl]

New thread in honour of our threenagers!

Charming - Dad fell ill in feb, at first we were told he had a couple of months at most, was on drips and tubes and a respirator. Then as he started to respond to the steroids far better than anticipated the diagnosis changed. He was in hospital 10 mins walk from my house, then moved to a rehab unit 5 minutes walk away so visiting was really easy for all of us, including mum who works at the hospital he was initially in. 30 miles seems a real effort now! It's 45 mins in good traffic, but he has very timetabled days now, so it's not like we can pop in when it's convenient for us either. However, it's a far better unit so I'm sure we'll have him back soonish!

Loopy - give-up isn't in my vocabulary either - stubborn Taurean! Things sound better too. Did you get out of the house?

RG - I don't have you on fb. I can pm you my fb name if you like. Sounds like a great video of your dd!

lom - sounds like your 2 are keeping you busy Hope the jobhunt is successful.

Have had a disastrous baking day. Tried gluten free cakes as I'm taking some in for my pupils who have an exam tomorrow and one is coeliac. They're ok, but not great, so made a normal batch too and they have turned out the same so I think my oven is on the blink as the recipe is usually foolproof. If I put enough icing on, I'm sure the kids won't mind!

Just re read my message. I'm not job hunting cos of the boys!

Jet - pain about the journey but glad you are happier with the unit your Dad will be in.

Charming - He's small cute and called Patch. There's some pics on my profile. Glad to hear S is doing well at pre school. It'd be great to catch up soon.

Loopy - Posted you some bf related items today. Feel free to chuck if no good. The first few weeks with P were a nightmare and still fresh in mind. Consequently, I have a strange primal urge to assist people with newborns!

KLoopy - there is no way you have been too self asborbed, you have a teeny tiny baby to look after, you don't need to apologise Dad's going to be around for a while yet we think. The initial diagnosis was a couple of months left, and that was nearly 3 months ago now! Of course, the docs still aren't entirely sure if we'll ever have the dad we knew back, it's fairly certain he won't be going back to work though.

One exam down, 2 to go for my pupils. They seemed pleased with the paper. There seems to be lots of baby news round here, 3 friends have recently become pg. One is my friend who had a miscarriage in January. But we've also had sad news from sil who had her 12 week scan last week. The baby's intestine is forming outside the body, they have to have further tests and, depending on the seriousness of the condition and any other issues which can arise, she and bil will have to decide whether to continue with the pregnancy
I have been broody lately, and am winning dh round, but I could not even contemplate trying for a baby while they are going through this, it would seem utterly insensitive.

Charm - good luck convincing DH to have another! I would love to have had another but i had no hope whatsoever in convincing DP that it would be a good idea. I also think that at 43, i'm a bit too old to be having any more fresh babies lol.

LOM - good luck with the jobhunting!

Jet - have PM'd you my name for FB. Glad your dad is on the mend now. What a relief. How sad re sil :(

Loopy - Sounds like you are well and truly sorting out your BF issues. Yay!! Yikes re the camping for 3 nights tho!!

OK so who's having food issues with their DCs?? DD is incredibly fussy with food lately and it's driving me NUTS!!! I thought i was doing the right thing with the BLW but it seems to have had the opposite effect to what i thought would happen! I thought she would eat lots of different varieties of food and all her veg, fruit etc but oooh no, she wont try anything new at dinner time and only wants her pasta twists with Heinz tomato soup as the sauce. I refuse to make THREE different dinners tho (one meat one for me, one veggie version for DP and pasta for DD!) so my thoughts are if she doesn't eat it, tough luck. What frustrates me the most tho is that she wont even TRY the food and will just refuse outright to taste it, despite numerous amounts of pleading, begging, being firm, bribery etc etc. She is good with variety at breakfast time, i.e. she'll eat various types of cereal, bagel or toast but lunch is always (and i mean ALWAYS) a cheese sandwich. Thankfully she does eat her fruit so that's one blessing but she wont touch hardly any veg.

DS on the other hand was a puree fed baby and he would eat all sorts that i put in front of him (although he is still not keen on veg, even at 20 years old).

Please tell me I am not alone in this scenario?! I am not sure what is the best course of action to take. The last thing i want is for her to develop issues with food. I have a few theories which i may try:

1. Give in and just give her the pasta every single night until she (hopefully) gets sick to the back teeth of it, even if we're having her all time favourite meal of beanburgers etc;

2. Just keep giving her meals she wont eat and gets upset about when she gets to the table because she doesnt like it and hope that one day she'll suddenly snap out of it and start eating her dinner;

3. Maybe make her food like more appealing, i.e. shaped into animals or such other stuff

4. Put her dinner in front of her and then whip it away again saying "oh no, you cant have this, it's only for big girls" and then give her the pasta slop instead.

Suggestions please?? Am getting a bit desperate now. She's not starving or wasting away as when she does eat, she eats really well but i'm just frustrated with her!!

:o

RG - William has always been a pain with food, DD was a breeze to wean and i did them exactly the same way so I don't think there's a one size fits all. It's funy actually, William loves his breakfast, like your DD, and likes a ham sandwich for lunch (sometimes cut into amusing shapes with the cookie cutters if he's refusing the offer and asking for shreddies instead) At dinner I don't make him anything different. If he doesn't eat, he goes without, and he usually gives in and eats something off his plate. We're lucky in that he likes most veg - loves parsnips and peas, but doesn't like sauces very much, so stews, casseroles and the like are out of the question for him. He will happily eat pasta with just butter on it! I try to make sure he gets some fruit as a snack, and his current fave breakfast is shredded wheat with raisins. But there ae a couple of days a week when he will avoid vitamins at all costs He doesn't really like meat, though enjoys homemade breaded chicken.
I sometimes think he fills up too much at breakfast time, meaning that he's just not that hungry come teatime. And of course, if he doessn't eat much at teatime, then he's hungry at breakfast time! Not helpful to you really, just my experience of a fussy 3 yo.

Meant to say, Loopy, I'm very impressed with your camping trip. We've only just decided that we'll risk taking the kids camping this summer, and they're 5 and 3! Thinking of doing Devon, then we can visit my bro and his gf without imposing upon them. Can you recommend any good campsites?

RG - I sympathise with your plight. Although neither of mine have been fussy eaters in terms of what they eat, they have both at different times gone off eating altogether. DS was a pain when he was about 2.5 but I have put that down to the fact that he was a premmie and very pukey from weaning until he was about 2.5. He is a great eater now.

Sara however is another matter. Like I say, it's not what she eats, it's how much and how long it takes her. She can wolf down a bowl of noodles one day and then dawdle over it the next. Have tried allsorts but nothing works because she is a stubborn little madam strong willed and assertive ;)

I have decided not to stress about it - refuse to cook her anything different but that wouldn't make any difference anyway. Also refuse to hand feed her. So if I am in a patient mood, I will play a quiz with her while she eats. So everytime she finishes a bite, I ask her a question like 'I am big and grey with a long trunk, what am I?', or 'Can you tell me 3 types of sandwich' or 'If I have a sweetie and you have a sweetie, how many sweeties altogether' etc. She loves that.

If I am not in a patient mood, I nag her and get grumpy and the whole process takes 3 times as long.

My mantra is 'It's just a phase, it's just a phase, it's just a phase...'. Repeat to self under breath when you feel like you head is about to blow off.

My friend is coming over for lunch today with her DD who is 3. Am going to serve bread rolls with bowls of grated cheese, salad, tuna etc and let the girls make their own sandwiches. Sara will love choosing her own fillings and then she will proceed to nibble sandwich veeeeeeery slowly and I will nag because I will be too busy chattign to friend to bother with a quiz. Plus I won't be able to tell her off properly because friend will realise that I am the kind of mum who says things like 'if you don't eat that sandwich in the next 5 minutes, I will throw your tinkerbell in the bin!' It's all very predictable!

Jet - I am sorry to hear about your dad's health. It sounds like you are being quite pragmatic about it and have faced the implications of him changing. FIL went through something similar. Is never easy but you sound like you are supporting him as much as physically possible. That's all he could ask for really. Thinking of you honey.

About your SIL - how awful :( Can't imagine what she is going through. It doesn't bear thinking about really. I hope she can get through the situation as best as can be expected. Can see your dilemma about not wanting to try for another just yet.

Loopy - camping with a newborn?! I am not worthy!!! And you are so right - 3 is the new 2. Well going on my circle of friends and family anyway. Also do know quite a few 4 child families so that 's not as rare as I might have thought. I think DH is coming round, so I have let him be for now as for the first time in a couple of years, I can see he is mulling it over. Plus, when I casually mentioned that pre-conception vitamins were on 3for2 at Boots, he didn't run screaming from the room. Which I see as a good sign :)

LOM - I need to arrange to come and see you soon. Will try to arrange something with you on FB. I want a patch cuddle.

Thanks everyone for your tips and tales on fussy eaters!

I have copied that Annabel Karmel recipe so will give that a go for her pasta. I dont doubt for one second that she will be fooled into believing that it's her own tomato soup-sauce but hopefully she will at least try it...... I am feeling extremely guilty today about sitting her in front of a plate of food which i knew 100% of it she would not like/eat. I think that maybe i will just put one or two unfamiliar things on her plate at a time but make sure she has something at least on her plate that she will deffo eat. Does that sound like a good idea?

I also like Loopy's suggestion of small plates so i will downsize her portions i think, although when she's hungry she will have 2 or 3 helpings of pasta! Having said that, i dont cook mounds of it - i measure it out in her bowl before i cook it and then just give her a third or half of it at a time - i would hate for you to think i am over feeding her! (i am getting a bit paranoid about her little pot belly, and here i am trying to get her to eat more!). I think i will deffo look into the I Can Cook book too. She loves helping in the kitchen and to make it herself would be fab. That said, she quite often helps me in the kitchen and then when i say "taste that, it's lovely!" she will 99.9% of the time turn her nose up and say no.

Perhaps if i just put tiny amounts on her plate she will not find it all so daunting? I never load her plate up anyway, but maybe even smaller portions of food, especially unfamiliar or green stuff will do the trick?

I do wonder what she would be like at school or if she went to a friend's house for tea and was sat at the table with unfamiliar food! She has a little friend called Eva and DD absolutely loves her. She will always copy what Eva does which i think is great because Eva is a lovely little girl. I am hoping that maybe one day Eva's mum will let Ellie come to tea just as an experiment on the food front. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when/if this happens!

Charm - like the quiz idea! lol @ the Tinkerbell in the bin threat. :o I like your strategy! Dont think it would work with DD tho, unfortunately.....

RG - Definitely go with the small portion thing. After all - if someone gave me a plate piled high with food and told me I have to eat it, I would be intimidated.

That does work well with Sara actually. By the way, my prediction for how she would be when our guests came was so off the mark. She gobbled up her sandwich like a little angel! Was so proud of her :-)

Had a nice couple of days. Went to see Evita with DH as a birthday present for moi and today spent the morning in the Trafford Centre mooching around.

Kids off for 2 weeks now - not sure if I am happy or slightly annoyed about that fact.

Off for a quick shower now and then settle down to watch the footie.

Hope you all having wonderful weekends.

Just to add my tuppence's worth re eating - Adam is a good eater on the whole but a PITA if we go anywhere different and he is distracted (LOM can attest to this) and not great at tea time either. He will eat a variety of stuff at nursery so I have recently decided - enough! And I cook a meal that we can all eat (well, most of the time) and he has to like it or lump it. If he doesn't eat most of it, including some veg then no pudding. I am like you Charming, my approach rather depends on my mood/patience. Liking some of your ideas. I also am a bit guilty of letting him snack on fruit etc. before tea sometimes and I am getting firmer with getting him to wait until tea time.

Happy camping Loopy!

Sounds fun Loopy! MILs are just the best aren't they?!

Well I am happy a proper nightmare with Adam this week, he is whingy, weepy, moany and a general PITA. He refuses to go to the loo when he clearly needs it, refuses to go to sleep when he is knackered and claims that he doesn't want to go to nursery because "i have already been there - wahhhhhhh!!" I am a HORRIBLE mother this week so probably not helping. I have put his favourite games on a shelf where he can't reach them until he stops wetting his pants. Is this really mean?! I am at the end of my tether with him, I don't know what else to do. Help!!

Loopy - wow, hats off to you for going camping AND putting up with MIL to boot!! :o

Tried the Annabel Karmel pasta sauce, which i thought tasted scrummy and not that dissimilar to the Heinz Tomato liquid sugar soup. Gave it to DD with her normal pasta but whoopsie, she spotted the herbs in it (from the stock cubes i think) and it put her right off. She did put one bit in her mouth but gagged, purely because she knew there was a teeny tiny herb in the sauce. I did actually mix the heinz with the AK sauce to give it a familiar twang and would probably have got away with it, were it not for those pesky herbs!! And all this complaining was from a girl who wolfs down Beanburgers which are made with onions (which she picks out and eats first coz she loves them), HERBS, beans, breadcrumbs etc etc. WTF is that all about?!

Now DD is under the weather and hardly touching a morsel. She didn't even want beanburgers tonight, and that is really unheard of! Hopefully she'll be better tomorrow (she's been off colour since saturday morning).

Greedy - think it's all about asserting their authority and trying to feel in control. Just be strong i reckon and stand your ground or he could end up running rings around you!

Right, off to bed! Early night beckons! :o x

DD seems to have improved greatly, thank you Loopy. I have no idea what it was/is but it just made her feel rubbish and a bit chesty too. The beanburger refusal was deffo due to illness - she NEVER refuses them normally!!

I sympathise with the meltdown syndrome. DD seems to be crying at the slightest thing these days. This morning it was because i got to the bottom of the stairs before she did. Isn't it funny how DCs legs suddenly stop working when they dont want to do something......

Cant believe DD4 is growing so quickly! You obviously have super fuelled mummy milk! :o

That was a busy half term! Lots of fun with William and quality time with DD.

Loopy - sounds like staying in the tent might have saved your sanity with regards to the in-laws! DD4 sounds like she's thriving on your gold-top milk

RG - I now have a craving for beanburgers! Are they homemade? Think it's something William might be prepared to risk! I cooked a lovely chicken stew on Monday, which he refused to eat. Then at nursery yesterday it was chicken casserole for lunch, and he ate the lot! Typical!

Charming - A belated happy birthday!

SIL lost her baby at the weekend she and BIL are understandably devastated. The in-laws are pretty upset too, I've written to them inviting them to stay so we can look after them for a bit, they've been so busy looking after Sil and BIL, I think they could do with some themselves.

That's awful news Jet :(

As for beanburgers, yes they are home made and jolly nice too, even if i do say so myself! If you want the recipe let me know and i'll whack it up on here. I normally make DD's first and then add some dried chillies to mine and DP's, just to give it some bite. DD adores them tho and eats every morsel!

Enjoy!

Beanburgers

400g tin baked beans, drained
45g cheddar, grated
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp herbs of your choice (i use parsley)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 egg, lightly beaten
100g soft brown breadcrumbs
Freshly ground black pepper

For the coating:
Dried breadcrumbs

(I think that's it!)

1. Drain the beans, put into a bowl and mash with a fork.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients, mix well and then form into patties (normally around 6-8).
3. Cover in dried breadcrumbs. Put on a plate, cover with clingfilm and chill in the fridge for about 30 mins.
4. Heat some oil in a frying pan and slowly fry them, turning now and then until golden brown.

I normally make about 3 or 4 for DD (2 for dinner and 1 or 2 for freezing) and then add some dried chillies into the rest of the mixture so that DP and I can enjoy with a spicy bite!

Once cooked, these are freezable too and you can just nuke them slowly on medium defrost to reheat.

:o

Hi ladies

Can you help me with my dilema?

My friend (who i've known probably for around 18 months) is 40 next week and a couple of weeks ago, me and a couple of other friends all chipped in and bought her a joint present, which she has already had. Does that mean that when it's her actual birthday next weekend i wont need to buy her a present or should I probably buy her another present, just as a token? I'll probably see her at some point over her birthday weekend (probably at the gym!). If we weren't so skint i would probably buy her something anyway, but money is really tight atm so..... WWYD?! If the answer is to buy her a present, WTF could i buy her that's cheap and but doesn't look nasty?!!

I wouldn't buy another present, I would give her a card. Perhaps if you meet at the gym you could buy her coffee and cake afterwards. Note I have never been to a gym, so I don't know what refreshment you can get afterwards! If you really felt you had to give her something, a nice bottle of wine on a half price offer in a supermarket! What are your friends doing? If they're not getting anything, don't bother!

Definitely going to try the beanburger recipe!