July 2009: Toddling towards 2 and a full nights sleep!

[Phoenix]

Good one QueenFee :o

I had a few mins at work so started it :o

Oh missp that's just terrible news. So glad you are all safe though. No personal experience of insurance here but my friend had a fire at the beginning of December (same lad who lost his wife to the brain tumour). I think he would say to log every single telephone call & get everyone's names each time you call them or deal with them at all, however minor the call. He struggled because the insurance company (HUGE one beginning with Av) were strapped out because of all that really bad cold weather we had & so many people had frozen pipes, so at least all that will have finished by now. He ended up negotiating with them to do most of the work himself, wrt decorating & clearing up the smoke damage. I would say from talking to my friend, that everything is negotiable (whatever the person on the other end of the phone says) if you can stand to kick up enough fuss - e.g whatever they say, you don't have to have carpets from a certain place etc. Terribly wearing though. They stayed in a hotel which the insurance paid for, but it was well into the new year before they were home. Oh gosh I hope you get sorted soon what a thing to come home to. If you were nearer you could come & stay here! If you need anything just yell

Good luck with the job Ali - sounds utterly perfect to me and have fun with the new hob. I imagine it will be a dream to clean- I had a really crappy ceramic hob before we did the kitchen, which was a bit naff to cook on but a good squirt of kitchen spray & it came up like new every time. Have gas now with cast iron pan supports and its an utter pig to get clean. Induction wasn't widely available when we did our kitchen but it seems to be the best of both worlds to me.

Have a lovely holiday Phoenix - hope the weather, pasties, cream teas & cider are all wonderful Good luck with the swimming lessons.

Just spent the weekend camping in North Yorkshire. Had a superb time but bloody hell it was cold at night. Am very much now enjoying the feel of carpet underfoot.

Hi Lillabet & lurkers

Missp thats dreadfull :( i used to work in insurance claims. I would agree everything is negotiable. Have your policy book to hand and if its not in there and in black and white then there is room for movement. Dicument everything and be as precise about things as possible.
Sorry you have to go through this x x

Pheonix thats great about the swimming

Ali the hob is very exciting so rewarding when you have saved for it - enjoy
Good luck with the job
Dh has a couple of interviews finally so heres hoping

Dyed my hair red and it all went wrong and was too red :o so have dyed it brown so just waiting to see if it works!

Good luck with the job Ali and fingers crossed for QF's DH too. this time last year my DH had just been made redundant, can't believe it was a year ago.

QF - there's no such thing as too red :o, hope the brown turns out ok.

Well too red has now gone brown purple red! Oh well will just have to try the hairdressers suggestion of vosene on dry hair apparently helps strip the colour.
Dh has been out this time since Jan but it is the third time in a year. He didn't get the job but it turns out for the best as he had his reservations about the way the co worked ( they have turned him down because he is 'too' experienced and he thinks they didn't like his searching questions... well if they have nothing to hide...)

ali good luck with the job, finger crossed here for you and enjoy your hob , I am dreaming of a new kitchen but the chances are slim .

QueenFee I'm with Phoenix on this one, there's no such thing as too red! I have a lot of grey (white) hair in amongst the black and when I can be bothered to dye it, I use a very red dye. It makes it look like I have had very expensive highlights to the point where, when I used to get it done in the hairdressers other customers used to ask how much it had cost me , used to get very when they found out it was natural and to replicate it would cost a fortune for them!! [smug]
Oh and good luck for DH on the job interviews

Quite about everyone who is getting a holiday (even if it is under cold canvas ). Had the opportunity to go to Denmark with the PiLs but just not practical for us , so somewhat miffed as it would have been great! DH says we might go away for a week in September (our anniversary) which would be nice but I am not holding my breath! .

Anyway, better go and get on with housework stuff.

Extra quick post - QF - washing your hair with washing powder (the clothes kind) will strip excess dye & tone down strong colour - use lots of conditioner afterwards

Oh & QF hope DH gets job!

MissP that is shocking news, what a thing to come home to. I hope you get it all sorted. My only experience with insurance was when our conservatory fell down. Our experience was very positive and it all went really well. I hope you manage to get it sorted before too long.

QueenFee I hope the hair dye is looking ok!

Ali good luck with the job application. Sounds perfect.

Things here are ok. DS1 is recovering from slapped cheek. Poor lad felt a bit rough with it, very achy and headaches etc but has gone back to school today. Seems strange sending him into school when he clearly looks ill, but they say once the rash comes out you are no longer contagious. It is going round the school though so hopefully 1/2 term will put an end to it.

Max is doing well, we have another dentist specialist appointment coming up in July. We had seen the initial consultant privately but the cost was going to be huge so we asked to go on the NHS, so this is what this appointment is. We have started saving for a tooth fund but the cost of the veneers alone when he is 14/15 will be £15,000. Only some of it will be covered by the NHS so we have some saving to do. Poor little chap. He will have his first op next summer when all the molars are in.

Apart from that all great, looking forward to 1/2 term next week. It is my birthday on saturday so looking forward to a lazy family day.

Hope you are all ok

x

Oh Patchy what an awful situation with operations & money for Max's teeth. Hope you have a lovely birthday

Patchy: I presume you'd need to let them know about his teeth if you got insurance? We have in through Pete's salary sacrifice but i guess it's like medical insurance? You have to let them know stuff?

Ali we don't have dental insurance, just health insurance so he isn't covered. I looked into dental insurance for him right at the very beginning (when I suspected a problem and we hadn't yet been to the dentist but you can't insure kids for dentistry until they are 16 as they are covered by the NHS. Sadly in this situation I am not sure that the NHS treatment will be as good as he can get privately. At least we know what they would do privately now and we can see if the treatment is the same on the NHS. We have started saving each month into a tooth fund! so when he needs lots done in a few years there will be a bit saved. I think this first op will tide him over until his big teeth come in, so whats that..... between age 5-10 ish (from start to finish)

Anyway we can't worry about it, at least it isn't life threatening, you have to be thankful for that.

Jetli thanks, I am looking forward to it, we may go to Hever Castle for the day which would be fun
xx

:( Patchy, poor little Max. Happy birthday for Saturday, hope you have a great day.

Ds1's swimming lessons have been a huge success. We can't believe the change in him in the water. He had 3 lessons and finished his last one by jumping in and kind of swimming (doggy paddling) unaided a bit then his teacher helped him to the opposite side. She told us she'd had doubts after his first lesson as to wether she'd get anywhere with him so she was really pleased with him too :o

Noah hasn't been in the water as much because he's been a bit snotty and unwell so we've not bothered. It's been a horrible week weather wise so been in a nice warm pool and coming out into the cold just hasn't been any good for him but he has enjoyed it the 2 days he has been in. He has got no fear of the water and has been jumping in, he even fell in yesterday while dh turned his back for a second but he was fine.

Hope everyone's ok :)

patchy that's weird as both our kids are covered by pete's policy. Maybe they threw it in on the thought that we won't claim as they are covered by NHS? If Beth's teeth are anything like Pete's we'll need the insurance as his cost a fortune to straighten.

oh dear I appear to have killed the thread.

In other exciting news we are now home to 5 baby caterpillars. Bet has been doing life cycles at school and a friend at work told me about this so we ordered one and our caterpillars arrived today. he said it was great fun watching them grow so I'm looking forward to having 5 baby butterflies to look after soon

that should have been beth btw!

Oh they do that at school and the kids love it! Be prepared for tears when they have to fly away home!

Makes a change from me killing the thread :o

Lewis has done the caterpillar thing at school too.

I'm giddy atm cos i'm going to see Take That on Friday :o. So excited!!

Oh and re teeth, last week i noticed Noah's lower fangs are coming through.

I am so jealous I really want to see take that but have no one to go with :(
Oh well...

Anyone else fed up of trying to find cheap things to do in the holidays. I think places charge a fortune! A family day out can cost me £70 and even soft play is a tenner. Weve done loads of free museums etc they are bored of the park and the woods. They have had free swimming lessons. Any suggestions?

just googled free stuff for kids and got a few sites with ideas but not really studied it in depth. Our local library does loads of stuff over half term for kids esp 5-12 age plus we have a gallery upstairs that was doing a drop in craft activity all day today.

I can't visit my local library since it was refurbed.
They have made it open plan and put the childrens section right next to the automatic doors that lead out to the road grrr
Will have a google though.

Any of your local SureStart centres doing anything QF? In the holidays, our local ones do family events so they include the older kids & not just the under-fives. Also I go to our local council website - its a bit shite to navigate , but they have a "Whats On" section and their events are usually either mega-cheap (eg. £1 a family) or totally free.

Pssst - its safe to come out now - the kids are back at school

Hope all are OK. All fine here.
Getting a bit jittery about turning 40 in a couple of weeks >

Had a pretty dull weekend - mostly ironing and sitting with the baby on my lap - she'll only sleep on someone - if she's put down she'll cat nap for 20 mins or so & then wake up grumpy. The grumpiness then builds over the day until we get frantic, enraged screaming by teatime, and then I have to reach for the arsenic

MissP - how are things? Are the insurance cracking on?

Ali - is the new hob plumbed in yet?

Phoenix - how were Take That?

Miss: new hob is here and is wonderful. Also had the dishwasher man here to tell me that my dishwasher is not broken but just needs to use less expensive tablets :) We'll see how that goes on.

Ah the blissful silence of a the house with one baby asleep and one at school :) Have a stinky cold so it's making that more bearable. Think this week is going to hit me like a freight train: school run, back to running toddlers etc. Am thinking small on the food front: sweet and sour from a jar tonight! I sense a week of fish fingers approaching :)

Take That (ie. Gary, Mark, Howard, Jason) were fantastic. Robbie was ok but I'm not his biggest fan and don't think he needed to be there. He did a good job of making it 'The Robbie Williams Show' (sorry to any Robbie fans)

Nice and peaceful here today too with Lewis back at school. He's home now and tbe fighting and arguing started as soon as he walked back through the door. I'm back at work tomorrow after having 2.5 weeks off :(. Not looking forward to it.

ha yes
I was wondering if we would all return to the thread when they went back to school.
I with you pheonix I think Take That were better without Robbie :(
Sports day today I totally tipped it down but we soldiered through to the bitter end! It was kind of on and off so we just kept thinking right lets pack up when out came the sun again! I like the fact that they are teaching the kids that a bit of rain won't hurt them but a lot of the parents were not very happy
DH is still jobless, but I may have a job in the offing can't say anymore yet till it's official... but it's my dream job! (no childcare needed !! ) ok it's not big money and only 15 hours a week which means I will be working for nothing till dh gets a job but in the long run it will hopefully pay for some house stuff we desperately need to do. I haven't been offered it but I am really the only likely candidate
Not looking forward to being interviewed though after 7 years!!!

Other news I am on the 2ww... and very impatient I am to test grrr

I am off out with the girlies friday to celebrate my 30th