March 2008 - Three is the magic number...

[GastonTheLadybird]

New thread, just for JFly!

Hope everyone is well. I finally had a cuddle with my friends' prem baby today - flown home a couple of weeks ago and just been discharged from hospital still 4 weeks from his due date! Doing really well - passed all sight and hearing checks so far and now about 5 1/2lbs so almost at an acceptable full term weight. Still less than a third of DD's weight so crazy to imagine them heading off to school together in a few years time!

In other news, I must be the only person happy to be made redundant at the moment! Big reorg at work, lots of redundancies. They offered me a 4 day a week role but I turned it down as it would be a promotion and require me to be in the office all the time and the commute is just too long now. So rather than returning to work in September, I'll be getting a redundancy cheque and the gift of time to decide what I want to do next. I feel very fortunate that it's come at the right time for us rather than the completely wrong time like it has for many of my colleagues :(

DS has gone from being a nightmare to potty train to being completely dry. Turning 3 was clearly a big deal for him - no accidents day or night since his birthday :) And I have my happy little boy back - he hated the process as much as we did, clearly.

That's all really good news, tortilla. Have you any thoughts on what you're going to do? How is the studying going.

wave at everyone else. Are all the children 3 now? They must be, yes?

I'm not here though. You haven't seen me. I am buried under a pile of law books, revising for the exams thoughtfully timetabled for tomorrow and Thursday. Not posting on Mumsnet at all.

WOW you guys still have a thread, i seem to have managed to loose track of you all!

am very impressed at all the potty training!!

ds4 was three on the 15th march and tho he is totally aware of when he needs to wee and poo he REFUSES point blank to use a potty or the toilet, he will hold it in until i put a nappy on him, little swine, i am leaving it till the summer when i dont have school runs etc to worry about and then i will just have him naked int he garden and he WILL learn to doit........

i also have a dd, now, who is 19wks and a little poppet, the boys dote on her so that is all good, tho it ishard work having 5! that is me definitel done now.

lovely to see you all still chatting and see how you are all getting on, hope that things sort themselves out with your new partner turtle? i think have the right person and i can understand your anger at your sister.

i shall now add this thread to my watch list so i dont lose it and try adn keep up to date with how you are all doing! xxx

Just had to scroll down for ages to work out who you were Tortilla, phew, I remember now! Great that you're happy about redundancy opportunity, I could do with one of those myself to give me the kick to go full time in hypno :)
4MB, congratulations! Notice much difference in baby operating instructions with a girl? :)
Turtle, not evil, just natural reactions. Are we due an update from the other side of the pond soon?
Loving having a few days off this weekend, we'll be away next weekend with 5 kids in total so it won't be relaxing...friend has promised that 2 of her 4 are up for potty training E, I think he just needs to see that using a potty is something the cool kids do.
Hope the exam takers are chilled out (if you can in this weather) :)

How is everyone?

I am back working four days and in a constant state of being utterly knackered! Hope it's just going to take some getting used to.

How would anyone feel about a summer meet up? London?

Hello.

Are you enjoying your new job? Last push to finish my course now - this time next month I should have a law degree. Just have to get through the next two weeks.

London in the summer sounds fab. Let's do it.

I am really loving it! Just don't seem to have enough hours in the day, finished off my final uni assignment for the year last night though which is good. Dreading going back in Oct and having to juggle everything all at once.

Can't believe your almost finished, you must be thrilled. Pop in and let us (me, as it stands) know your grades?

I'm going to try and keep this bumped to try and drag all the absent members back in!

Meet up:
I'm away first two weeks of Aug but fairly free otherwise, have Wednesdays off, could do weekend. I'm easy!

Nearly done, cryhavoc! Hope the exams aren't too horrific. My next OU maths course (just signed up after really enjoying this year's) is half coursework, half exam which is scary because I won't be able to be quite as blase this time round - I did nothing for weeks then crammed for the week before each assignment was due, but for an exam I'm going to need to really know my stuff. Eeek!

Not sure about jobs yet. Talking to a recruitment consultant tomorrow but only very preliminary as still employed until October and then will probably take the rest of the year off anyway. No idea what I want to do, that's the big problem.

I'm trying to wean DS off CBeebies here. It's been a slippery slope since DD was born and he now watches maybe 2.5-3 hours a day spread over 3 sessions which seems a bit too much . So trying to restrict it to watching a specific programme or a specific episode on a DVD and no more than an hour a day. I'm having to be very inventive with other activities, and surprising myself at what we come up with (this morning we have made a hot air balloon with a cereal bowl, balloon and lots of string and his toy people have toured the kitchen!) It's exhausting, this proper parenting lark, isn't it?

DD is 8 months and about to crawl any moment now (she can get into crawling position and stay there for ages, but just hasn't worked out to move her hands and knees yet!) This is where the fun really begins again, isn't it?

Oh good, I haven't missed too much since I was last in here! Is it just old age that means I can't remember everyone's nicknames now that you have real names on fbook and twitter names too? Brain can only handle so many variations :)
So, reading my last post, I got my wish about a month later, now full time on the hypno work. Hopefully links with local spas/salons will be a good source of new clients until I figure out this whole marketing lark. Very pleased with the results a friend got when I helped her prep for being in court last week over bullying from former employer. May look into doing some more of that since it ruins a lot of adult lives, let alone kids.
My mum's coming over to stay in a few hours...house still looks like a bomb's hit it. Don't really care! Am being nicely distracted by BBC version of Much Ado About Nothing with Cheri Lunghi & Robert Lindsey. Love it.
Glad exam season is mostly over for those of you doing them, I'll do my best to get to a meet up if I'm not working!

How have we gone a WHOLE month without any posts? Poor effort ladies. Updates please... How is everyone?

I know, we're dreadful. I was coming to post anyway as I saw a Due March 2012 thread and it occurred to me that it's FOUR YEARS since we all found out we were pregnant. How scary is that?

Nothing much to report here. I passed my course, am still freelancing. Ff mostly lovely with moments of sheer lunacy. Preschool have told me that she 'likes to go her own way' which is pretty much what I have observed - she's entirely unconcerned with what others are doing, and has her own (very definite) plan about what she's doing. Her best friend, who turns 4 next month, is off to school in September, and it'll be interesting to see if she gravitates more to play with girls. At the moment she is definitely one of the boys.

How are the rest of you? Dontpanic - is E off to school in Sept?

oops, I've been straying off into twitter & fb for too long. Last time I checked I'd killed the thread ;)

E is going to full time nursery in Sept, all being well now I'm fully self employed and not getting the mega salary I'd previously budgeted with...well, for now anyway ;) It's attached to an indie school though, so he has to wear uniform - just joggers/polo & sweat-shirts at that age so not too expensive yet.

I'm enjoying full time self employment, inundated with weight-reduction clients & very few others so going on a relaunch when I get back from holiday to expand my offerings to the non preggers crowd.

Oh, E is mostly potty trained. We have bitten off more than we can chew with our incentive system, as he gets Doctor Who trading cards as a reward. Now, of course, we're only missing about 9 out of 165, but he wants us to buy packs with the missing ones in. And sulks if he gets duplicates or if we try to downsize him from 2 cards to 1. Going to attempt a move towards cards only for using the toilet instead of the potty. DH won't man up though & show E how to do things properly...I'm certainly not going to get a shewee to demonstrate.

Going to Menorca next month for 2 weeks - going to be interesting. 1st proper family "holiday" so sorting out all the must haves & what we can wing it without. Still can't get E to sleep without taking milk from a sodding bottle, but don't want to make too many changes at once, so that's one for another month!

Hi all, long time no see :)

Things going well here. Just back from a long weekend in bloody glorious north Norfolk. Very cheeky mini break to celebrate DH's birthday as we are off on proper holiday of a week in France in 3 weeks time. Just ploughing through the laundry now.

Not yet sure what I want to do with my life, but tomorrow I start the career counselling my work gives as part of the redundancy package so hoping to start getting some ideas soon. Will probably take the autumn off and not plan to go back until after Christmas, and may try freelancing rather than full time to fit in with school holidays etc.

Umming and aahing about whether to send DS to preschool on the 2 days he's not at nursery so he can be with children he'll be at school with (his nursery is very small and mix of ages so only 2 others his school year) Anyone got any thoughts on how DCs manage a) 2 different types of childcare and b) being in childcare on 5 days (albeit not full time hours)? I have a thread about it in preschool education too if anyone has any specific thoughts or experience.

DS is being very amusing at the moment, and changing lots. I bought a book called My Body for him from a series of factual books he likes but realised this one was a bit too advanced for him. I put it at the back of a cupboard but he then found it and now insists we read it to him every night. It has taken him about a month to get his head round some of the ideas in there (and we paraphrase big time!) but now we get woken at 7.30 not by 'I'm hungry' but by "I need to empty my bladder" or 'My lungs are blowing up like a balloon" :) He's also just discovered how to co-ordinate his body so he has suddenly worked out how to use his scooter and how to kick a football, and he has just 'got' drawing too - so pictures now have grass at the bottom and sky at the top and bodily parts in broadly the right place rather than being completely abstract. So many changes in recent months - it's scary!

DD is 1 in 6 weeks time. No idea where that time went!

5 days and we apply for real school? Are you f*&^ing kidding me?

Fortunately we don't have to fill that form in in Sussex until October, turtle! My baby can be a baby for a teeny while longer :)

So ladies, what's happening out there in Real Life? Anyone reading this thread any more?

Passing the [hbiscuit] round...

Day before school applications deadline here in Surrey, I have remarkably done mine with plenty of notice but it made me think of you all.

How is everyone?

(Artist formerly known as GastonTheLadybird/Ewe etc)

Is there a emoticon yet?
Don't get time to come on here much at all any more, damn that real life stuff (and fbook & twitter of course).

Ed's at full time nursery now & he's really improving in leaps & bounds as far as talking incessantly about everything etc is concerned...except when I ask him what he's done all day & get 'nuthin'.
And of course, if there was a Name that Doctor Who Monster quiz, he'd beat most of the adults hands down.

Starting a swimming course with him tomorrow as we've been really slack at keeping that up & he adores being in the water.

I'm loving this whole being self employed lark...all the benefits of being a SAHM with the added benefit of adults to talk to occasionally during the day, and no child around! Now, if I could just get the hang of actually cleaning the house at the same time, it would be perfect.

Warning to anyone else thinking about it - do not combine your almost 4yo with a puppy. That way lies madness. I'm sure things will be calm again in a few months, but hell, they've turned my hair gray since November!

No idea if anyone is checking this thread any more but I wanted to wish you luck for school places which I think are out in most areas over the next few days. We heard at the end of March and got our first choice which was a huge relief. Hope you all get good news x

It's Gleek, another namechange for me so if you have lost track, Lauren B on FB. Feeling nostalgic ahead of first day at school tomorrow so reading back over some of our threads. I can't believe our babies are starting school!

Loved the photos on FB, they all look so very grown up.

So now our 'bumps' are off to school (wipes tear from eye) how is everyone getting on?

THis thread is making me broody!!

Looks like nobody checks it anymore but just in case I would like to announce (to my surprise) I'm pregnant again and due in October. Looks like the broodiness got to me subconsciously!

Just happened to see this on 'Active Convos' - many congratulations LD! Is that number 3 for you?

Yes! Was hoping to bump it enough to get attention!

Has baby 3 arrived yet littleducks?