Sept 08 - Insert witty title 'here'

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

Sorry about the crap title ladies, I was lacking inspiration and we were up to our limit on posts!

Grrr... just lost my post. Will try again later but in the meantime, hello!

Sorry for the rant ladies

Anyway.

Have seen a house today we like but its the max we can/want to borrow.

The only available house to rent is not really big enough and basically means we would be movng twice (nnnoooooooooo!)
Moving in with PILs is really not a good idea for many, many reasons!!!

So, we will put an offer in and see what happens.

Apparently the vendors are open to offers - we are offering 10k less....but its been on a while........

Quick update:

We put in a cheeky offer of £13k below asking and they accepted!!!

BUT they want to complete in 3 weeks! Eeek.......

Congratulations Becaroo!
Faster the better...

I've been working from home today - have actually done a bit of work, too! And feel a lot better for it. SPD seems to be kicking in already, though (9 weeks). I'm worrying a bit less about miscarriage now. Only another 20 weeks before I can bog off on maternity leave. [sigh]

Congrats bec! That's brilliant.

carrie Very sorry about yer man. Please would you tell him he is absolutely never ever allowed to play silly ball games again. And I'm so excited about how soon you are due!!

Sorry I can't remember when I was last on the thread. We were buying a house but got gazumped. We are still furious about it, but have made ourselves feel a little better by finding an absolutely beuatiful house way over budget, and yesterday they accepted our piddling offer! (Must be the week for it bec.)

How can we afford this, you ask? Er, um, well, I have been offered a real job doing what I used to do, earning actual real money!!

I still can't really believe this. The whole way through the interview I thought someone was going to point at me and yell 'You're an imposter! You only know about changing nappies - and you're not even very good at that!'. So heaven knows how but I really have bluffed my way back into being a career mummy.

Now obviously freaking out about childcare.

Oh nc I meant to say bleuurr to the SPD. I have a wheelchair and crutches that I no longer need - if you (heaven forbid) think they might become useful to you please PM me and we'll see if we can work out a way to get them to you.

FP Yay!!!!! Well done you!

NC Sorry about the SPD...not nice

fanny - that's really generous - if I get to that stage the wheelchair could be really helpful (I can't use crutches as my arms are buggered to start with).

Feeling quite a lot better this afternoon after a day working from home in the comfort of my own sofa. And the planning inspector has decided our loft conversion doesn't need to be knocked down after all (you can imagine how happy we were with that idea out of the blue on May Day! Have been measuring the bloody thing ever since...) So things are looking up...

NC so sorry you've got spd pain already :( I was really worried about it this time as I could barely put one foot in front of the other when I had DS, but I followed the advice of acting like I've got it from the word go and its made such a difference. I try to avoid lifting the children at all costs - they have to get in and out of their car seats, beds and the bath by themselves (I offer a hand of support to DS with the bath and he uses a step and holds on to the sink) and if I have to lift them I make sure I do it straight on and don't twist or put them on my hip, and absolutely no walking while carrying them. I also walk very slowly and as little as possible, and take great care getting in and out of the car, the bath, and bed. I haven't pushed a supermarket trolley since I POAS, and got a lighter weight umbrella fold buggy for DS so I'm not pushing too much weight, or lifting too much in and out of the boot of the car. At 24 weeks I thought it was going to be horrendous again and was crying about it a lot, but believe it or not at 34 weeks I'm practically pain free!
I think the supermarket trolley and not having an 8mo baby are probably the main reasons the SPD hasn't got so bad though...!

Wow fanny a grown up job check you out! Well done! What form is the childcare freakout taking - is it a logisitical nightmare, or just not sure where to send them?

3 weeks bec - awesome! Hope you've got a solicitor who's on the ball, not the useless muppet we had. I'm sure I've got a housemove spreadsheet somewhere...

carrie

I need that spreadsheet!!!!

carrie speaks wise words about SPD prevention / reduction.

nc Not at all - it's nice to 'celebrate' not needing it any more. I've been meaning to pass it on for a while but for some strange reason I feel strongly that it should go to a fellow sufferer!

carrie childcare freakout is a combination of 1) cost, 2) figuring out the right sort, 3) worrying about what's best for the kids, 4) travel logistics, 5)lack of availability, and 6) cost!

Huge congrats on the job FP (what is it you do? [nosey])

And also congrats to Becs and NC on house move and bfp respectively!

FP I'm with you on the childcare costs. Luckily we have found a nursery we love and trust but still juggling the fact that come next Sept we either have to fund 2 fulltime places at nursery (around £800 a month after early yrs entitlement for C) and/or try to get her in a school nursery and juggle 2 drop offs every day.
I'm looking along the lines of perhaps working 4 days a week for a year, then losing 1/5 of my salary is about the same as the cost of one day's childcare IYSWIM. In that way C could go to pre-school 2 days a week (as one day a week I always work from home so could pick up her after pre-school and take her to nursery) and new baby wouldn't go to nursery FT till h/she was almost 2. Phew [wipes forehead].

I think I want to find out the sex but they couldn't at the 20wk scan. Have another scan in 2 weeks, so will ask again. If we find out, you ladies may be the only ones to know!

Blood pressure normal (by my home monitor) and all is fine. Don't have a midwife appt till end of August and am doing my research to defend my hb preference. Meeting a possible doula next week. Am sad that my previous 'white coat' hypertension with C (which I strongly suspect never was hypertension given my home readings) meant that the tablets they put me on stopped my milk coming in. This time, my midwife (who suffers from white coat syndrome herself) is OK to use my home readings and I'm not anywhere near any tablets. My boobs are starting to leak bits of white already - maybe this time I'll manage it.

And currently looking at stretchy wraps - Moby or Close anyone?

I'm trying to look after my pelvis as much as possible - knees together, careful when getting up and down, but still having to do lifting of A - we tried taking the side of his cot down. He cried loads. He likes being in the cot. And even if he stood on a step there's no way he could get in the bath - he's too short. Though he only has a bath about once a week.
I never push a heavy trolley as everything is carried home on the pushchair - the main problem is likely to be wrestling the pushchair into the nursery sheds (two of them, have to stand each pushchair up neatly to get another in, and they are only 2 feet apart so you have to squeeze round the doors). Getting a really light stroller might be an idea - and help wean him of his pushchair which he loves.

A's going through a clingy phase, keeps wanting to sit on my lap while watching telly or at least have me in the same room all the time. Failing that (or as well), has to have dummy and blanket. He's never been clingy ever so not sure what to do - so far I'm going along with it except dummies aren't allowed outside except at naptime and I can't understand anything he says with one in his mouth!

Pretty much every other kid he knows has a baby at their house so hopefully he'll accept that as the way things are. And hopefully get less clingy and be up for potty training over the next 6 months...

NC Def get a lightweight pushchair....made such a diff to me.
Also, at the end of my pg with Toby I sat on plastic sheets on chairs, in bed, car etc so I could swivel off them, and it really worked!!!

I only had mild SPD but it was bad enough...really restricted my movement and I was unable to walk very far at all

bookmarking, just got back from a week in Cornwall.

Had a great day today at my dsis 40th party today. Robyn was in a bit of a daze as she was tired but she had fun exploring the garden with a magnifying glass. I kept her in a nappy in the end as she was so tired and I didn't want to give her anything else to worry about. She zonked in the car after 5 mins so I didn't have to feed her to sleep.YAY!

Bec Glad you got the house, especially at £13K off the asking price. About 15 years ago you could get a 2 bed semi in our area for £13K. Now they are about £55K. We will never be able to buy our own house so that's one thing we don't have to stress about. Although it would be nice to not have to rent.

debs 2 bed terraces here are £130k!!!!! We looked at a 3 bed semi last week and it was on for £160k. Its mad. We live in Derbyshire, so not like we live in london or anything! We didnt want to spend so much but we need to to get what we want/need. Where abouts are you?

We did think about renting for a while but tbh for a big enough house it would have cost the same as the mortgage repayments for the new house so we thought, whats the point?.....we wouldnt be saving any money.

Sigh. Its very stressful

I'm in Hull (Yorkshire) which i think is still one of the cheapest areas to buy in. The prices are still way out of our budget though

Oooohhh we went to "The Deep" last year..........

NC I'm with you on the clingy child thing, don't know what's up with DS. Last weekend we went to a wedding and he stayed up really late on the saturday, so when he was a bit out of sorts at the start of the week I put it down to tiredness, but a week later and he's still not right. He wouldn't go out to kids church today, just wants to be held, is eating very little (unless is bacon butties ) and sleeping loads. Yesterday morning after he got dressed he said "I'm going to have a nap". It was 9:30am. We woke him 3 hours later... Not sure at what point to take him to the docs to see if somethings up, but I'm guessing all they'd say is "its a virus" which is sooooo helpful
He wants to be carried all the time which neither me or DH can do for very long. I suppose I ought to go and wake him now as its 4pm and bedtime in 3 hours!

Bec It's great isn't it. we don't live far from there. we're going to take Robyn and Lucy in september.

Carrie I hope he feels better soon. Robyn has been off colour this weekend then last night she got wheezy again and spent the night in my bed coughing and waking herself up

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can get DD for her third birthday? Ideally something small as we have no space!

Her big brother has lots of toys so we don't need Duplo or any more fisher price sets.

meg We are thinking of a balance bike - I realise this won't help you though as it's not exactly small! In fact, I came on here to ask carrie for pointers.

What do you suggest, carrie? I seem to recall you have one you like.

Other ideas are a personalised Thomas book and a micro scooter.

Ds2 is football mad so getting him blow up goal posts and a football, that's what he has asked for

I think girls are easier to buy for, a pram if she hasn't got one, my little pony and sylvanian families are a hit in our house, books and anything crafty

I have no idea what to do for N's birthday this year too! and if I don't invite people by next tuesday, no one will come. blah.

so, one week to figure out a cheap and cheerful birthday party for N. i'm thinking a picnic at a play ground or something. not too sure. i'm thinking of no birthday party at all, but i think that might be a little mean. :(