Dec 08 - tears, tantrums, giggles and piddles - and that's just the mums!

[traceface]

Or maybe piddling whilst giggling is just me?
It's so sunny here I feel Spring has sprung - where's that daffodil emoticon gone? Had a friend round this morning for a natter and cake - muchos snot and tears but all good. Think I might go for a little bike ride now to blow the cobwebs away.
And no vag - not a chance!
rubs don't you dare spend all your time tweeting - your first loyalty is here!

Hi again, Comic Relief is too much of an emotional rollercoaster. And to add to the all the trauma I have split my Baileys on the sofa reaching for my phone to donate - still I have my priorities right; 1 - donate, 2 - drink what is left of the Baileys, 3 - leaving the mopping up til later

WG your MIL makes me so grateful for my own lovely lovely lady, my only complaints are that she spoils DD and overwhelms us with food. But your MIL, good grief, I still haven't picked up my jaw. When I started ready your post I thought she'd called you pathetic, which is rude and horrible enough, but to say that to her granddaughter. At least DH is with you, and it sounds like FIL would like to be if he had some courage as well as goodness and helpfulness in him. Has your Dad and lady friend had chance to meet the lovely G yet? Or has MIL elbowed them out of the way? I hope you feel better soon, and that you get your house back very soon

Yuck yuck Arti. I remember that medicine Summer, far more minging than the worms themselves!

How is the house taking shape Arti?

Welcome back Veg, how was the Japanese? DH and I went out to Loch Fyne for a meal recently and he ordered sashimi to start with - which surprised me, for the man who doesn't even do prawns. Afterwards he said it was yummy and did I how they would have cooked it to get it so nice - when I told him it wasn't cooked, his face was the biggest picture

Twitter - I don't even understand what you're all saying about it, let alone how I'd use it! My manager's trying to get me to go on LinkedIn, but I've run from that 3 times now without even logging on

How was today Beans?

Happy birthday to the lovely Faulty girl, I hope the party is a big hit Sybs

Is B at home with you now Spot? I hope its going well. BTW I'm not clackered, just naturally doolally

Ta ra Rubes

Olympic tickets, well we just looked at the sprint/relays and gymnastics and DP is even more tightarsed than me so we couldn't quite bring ourselves to do it. I think if the DCs were old enough to remember it it might be different. Mind you I can remember the Toronto Olympics. And for those of you not old enough to be grandmothers that was 1976.

Cross with loads of you there - PD , how did you respond?

Well done WG on entertaining MIL for the last 20 mins

Oh zj meant to say I voted for York Minster. I was lucky enough to go on a school trip when I was 10, long before the Jorvik Centre was even a twinkle in an archaeologist's eye Invis. In fact the Vikings were probably still around when I was 10.

Er, can you tell this woman wound me up this morning or what?

Well zj I would like to say I delivered some kind of pithy retort but I now know what the expression "lost for words" actually means. I just said no then she started blethering on saying no I mean you look young and everything it's just that I knew her grandma looks after her sometimes that's all. Then I just said well no I'm not her grandma I'm her mum. Stonily. Then wandered off. Which isn't really like me - normally I would have laughed it off to save her embarrassment but she didn't seem particularly embarrassed.

Oh no pd!! Either she's blind or she genuinely did think dd was looked after by her grandma most of the time??

Sybs happy birthday to dd2!

Yes yes but that doesn't change the fact that DD's grandma = DP's mum now does it?? And yes of course she was blind. That goes without saying SL but thank you for saying it anyway

PD a women somewhere in the world has just become a grandmother at 23 so your alright. She might have thought you were her ;)

Now that's more like it Vag. Love ya. Will sleep like a baby now. A very old baby.

ZJ- you make me laugh!

And as for granny/PD! I've met you and that woman is not only blind, but stupid. But I am still laughing.

And thank you for your kind words re mil. Dh said the saddest thing today: that were he not related to her, she is the sort of person he wd go out of his way toavoid. He has nothing in common with her, doesn't even like her. This is the real tragedy of the situation, I think.

Oh, and forgot to tell you mil is now becoming a stalker!

Yesterday dh said he wanted to get out for a walk, with the pram, so Parents in law said "we'll come". He managed to persuade them he wanted to go on his own, which was half the point-he needed some time alone. He went up the road, got to the end of the green, turned around and guess who was there at the other end waving at him? She's fucking CRACKERS.

Sorry must stop hogging the thread with this.

Oh Poison, Poison, Poison what a horrible moment for you but a frankly hilarious moment to read about. If it's any comfort she might have not thought you were DP'a mum, she might have thought your DP had a much younger partner and you were her mother. But actually that makes you your own mother, so is probably not cheering at all. Someone pointed out to me this week that at 32 I could not legally be a grandma (if I had a baby at 16 who had a baby at 16). So maybe she just thought you were 34.

WG, I have read your post properly now and feel so bad for you. It seems such an intractable situation. Can you minimise the length of visits with her from now on so you only have to endure short sharp doses? Or would you and DH consider cutting her out altogether?

I watched Comic Relief with DD1 last night and she wasvery struck by a clip they showed about a girl in Africa called Esther whose mum died of AIDS and who had nothing. This morning I told her I was going to throw away her toothbrush because of the worms and she said "I'd like to send it to Esther as I think she really needs it and I can't give her anything else as I don't have anything to spare." hmmmmm. Not quite the chartitable view I, or i suspect Esther, was hoping for.

That should read I could "now" legally be a granma, rather than "not" legally.

thanks ladies - having spent the last couple of months feeling constantly sick I'm glad it's coming and going in waves now - hopefully it will fade away completely soon enough!
PD that has made me chuckle. That woman is bonkers! As is your MIL WG. I think all you can do is minimise how much you see her. She sounds a bit like my grandmother - who is a particularly nasty piece of work and despite being our only remaining grandparent we haven't seen her in about 10 years and I doubt we'll ever see her again. It's sad but I take the view she brought it on herself and had many many chances. Mind you, it helps she lives in another country! Anyway I think what I was trying to say is that your girls are surrounded by loving people and it won't take long for them to see MIL for what she is. Not sure if that was helpful....
trace rubbish about the car. arti yuck yuck yuck!
Can't really remember the other stuff I was going to say - I blame
clacker-brain! So the question is, who is going to join me?

PD sorry but that is too funny.

Completely forgot to give a big congrats to Pingu. Hurrah for No.2

PD: I'm sure she was just thinking in her tiny brain that DD could only have 2 people looking after her and if one was her grandma that must be you. That or she's used to gals getting knocked up in their early teens. Which says more about her then you.

WG that's the kind of thing that drives DH mad when my mum stays! She won't even let Dad out on his own of an evening (which has led to a rather incongruous membership of CAMRA when she doesn't drink beer).

Lovely sunny day here today! Somewhat spoilt by big row this morning due to me trying to settle screamy DS2 in the night which ended up with him sleeping with us, DH ranting about leaving him to cry, DS1 coming in and complaining about being left on his own and both DSs bring told to play in their room and trying to kill each other. I think a quiet day pottering in the garden is called for. I need to give our large rugs a good scrub in the bath (why do our floors get so dirty?) and put them out to dry.

Arti: DH is concerned that, in the event of us declaring war and conscription being introduced, in a few years time he'll be too old and will be forced to join the Home Guard. I've tried pointing out that it's a bit unlikely but he's still unaccountably depressed.

Thanks for all your words of reassurance. You're right though Arti, the possibility that she thought I was old enough to be my own mum is of no comfort. My sis said the same thing, along with other "reassuring" remarks such as "you don't look that old" and "I reckon it's just the water down there - it makes my eyes really wrinkly when I come down to see you as well". And Effie no I doubt it as she was not much younger than me and was a typical middle class mummy type.

Not that I'm obsessing about this or anything, but those of you who haven't met me, look at this pic of me & DP and tell me honestly: <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=allieiswired.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/richardjudypa_468x417.jpg&imgrefurl=allieiswired.com/archives/2009/05/richard-and-judy-quit-tv-oh-no/&usg=__TauJqGOLyKkJKeA2HMStRj0Kkq8=&h=417&w=468&sz=62&hl=en&start=0&sig2=zRTyXhQq2l_A2J7AZ7jbLA&zoom=1&tbnid=qQmIbdcroLtX9M:&tbnh=144&tbnw=162&ei=GYOETbWfD8qwhQetj9zFBA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drichard%2Bjudy%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D593%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=134&vpy=73&dur=49&hovh=212&hovw=238&tx=125&ty=109&oei=GYOETbWfD8qwhQetj9zFBA&page=1&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">do I look old enough to be his mother?

Yes it is a gorgeous day today. We are squandering it by going to the pictures to see Toy Story 3. A fiver for the whole lot of us at Odeon Saturday morning kids club. Bargain! DD is excited and DS is terrified.

wg your MIL is a loon. But then you already knew that.

Morning ladies, lovely day here.

PD, you don't look old enough to be anyone's granny - truly. I am also plenty old enough to be my kids' granny but if you ever meet anyone who is genuinely a granny in their late 30s/early 40s, I can promise you they always look ancient. Not like us As for looking old enough to be your DP's Mum (which is vvv funny), that is ludicrous and only an alien from outer space could think that. I will never forget being in a pub in Shropshire when I was pregnant with DD1, and some locals were bothering us, (I suppose they were being friendly but the Londoner in me will not quite die) and they guessed DP was in his early thirties and I was about 40 (I was 36 at the time and he would have been 40). I have never heard the last of it.

WG, she is a pain for sure, and again I am so sorry you have this awful stress at the mo but a bit like the mozzie bites from my holiday I think you have to leave alone, avoid scratching to incite further inflammation and generally work on a polite-but-cool workability. With my own MIL (who is irritating, yes, but not in the same league as yours), one takes the view that - she is not going away, she is entitled to a relationship with her grandchildren, and it's a case of building up a protective barrier against her remarks. Cos they are meaningless, and if you let them penetrate, she wins. I totally get why you lost it when she called R pathetic, though. I know I'd have done the same.

SL, I contemplated buying tickets for the Archery cos it sounded sedate and it's at Lord's and I can walk there from my flat. But they are too dear!

Oh Arti, the worms sound beyond vile...Any more shopping for the house planned? Despite my own house woes I still like to glory in other people's house buying/interior decorating. I need to get the right blue for the entrance hall. Will either get a Faz&Baz or that 1829 range I was telling you about in B&Q.

Hope the party goes well, Sybs. 2007? I forget how small the gap is between your DD2 and your DS.

ZJ, loving the Bailey's. It's verboten for me as I am on a diet. Admittedly I am going for a nice lunch today but I have been really good the last couple of weeks and I am actually losing a bit of weight. I am only doing what I have done many times before, but I think my insulin resistance is receding, which might also explain my extra energy.

Jam, you ask why you are always doing housework. I go one step further - I feel like I am always doing housework and yet it still looks terrible and a mess in here. What's that about? (Cos it's so frightfully cluttered, I expect)

Get off Twitter, Rubes, and come back!

Bad, lazy grammar in the above post. I was not, for instance, telling Arti about a paint range WHILST we were in B&Q. I doubt Arti has ever set foot in there, for one thing

Having seen your pic, PD, I may have changed my mind. Despite the prevailing thinking that one should get blonder as one gets older, you looked better as a brunette.

RIGHT! Three and I'm out.

Oh LadyT, you have opened the flood gates by asking me to detail my interior decorating thoughts.

I am only thinking about the living room at the mo. The painter starts on Monday. For the walls I wanted a Little Greene Paint Company coir called Hammock (it's a stone/beige). However that company is £45 for 5 litres so I got it colour matched by Leyland for £24 per 5 litre. Paint purists say colour matching Farrow & Ball and Little Greene never works but the tester looks ok to me. The cornicing, ceiling, woodwork and book shelves will all be plain white. I have ordered white shutters for the windows. I would love reclaimed floorboards but it's a big room and we can't afford it so the debate is cream carpet vs an engineered wood floor (still quite expensive and may look like laminate. Light fittings are my obsession right now. We have two ceiling roses. Should we hang victorain style mini chandeliers (John Lewis have some so could use vouchers) or something more modern? I love a Conran Store pendant (will link in a min) but it's too pricey and haven't seen anything cheaper in a similar style.

Phew... You did ask!

Ooh, that's all very good. I think the colour matching will work out fine, actually. In my experience it's the quality of the paint that makes the difference (particularly when actually doing the painting) BUT as you have a professional painting, rather than a numpty such as me, you will get a good finish anyway. Are you absolutely sure you have sourced the cheapest reclaimed floorboards? You never know, if you look and look you might find cheaper somewhere (start a thread in Properrty & DIY?) I absolutely love cream carpet. We have it in DP's flat. But it's just so tricky (though you can get it stain protected). Engineered wood floor I have never seen. BHS is surprisingly good for lighting but won't have anything on the scale you need, I think. Certainly nothing similar to the Conran Store...I did all my lighting shopping online this time and found some good (and cheap) period (or pseudo period) lightfittings sites.

Conran pendant. Does it need a very high ceiling? Is it too modern?

It's very nice. It would need a high ceiling but you have those, surely? If you really like it, for the sake of £150 I would say get it. If you get something you don't like as much, you will only be looking at it for years, wishing you'd got the other one.