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!

ninja Hmmm...tough one! He is happy - which is great. Its a lovely small village school and I have a good rapport with the HT (his new teachers are a bit of an unknowm atm)

He has made progress, albiet very slowly. Am working with him over the summer and he is being assessed by the dylexia team next term.

He was a baker in the end of term play - which he hated "They forced me mummy!!" He looked very cute and sang his song well. He was a star on sports day and came 1st in the 100m and 2nd in the hurdles. (welly wanging was a bit of a disaster though!!)

Your dd is doing so well! You must be very proud I think the getting letter/numbers the wrong way round is quite common at this age. I took AGES to learn to tell the time.....and I was a good reader at an early age too

In year 4 his teachers are job share (and year 5 actually) and not sure how I feel about that tbh......

Anyway, off to town to try and find us a house to live in in 3 weeks time

I wouldn't worry about using reins for dc's that bolt. DS is 4.9 and I've only just stopped using them with him. Until now he would dart off and refuse to come back.

eandz we failed with time out too. DS sometimes has time out on the back garden step (usually if he's walloped me or his sister). Even so I usually look out to see him playing with pebbles / twigs. Its like water off a ducks back to him.

They're currently in the garden on their bike + trike. DS has tied a rope to DD's trike and is trying to pull her along. The main thing is they aren't shouting or squabbling .

meglet Is it OK if I am very jealous of your veg success? My first ever harvest was yesterday. We dug up my entire potato crop for this year. 14 tiny little potatoes. I weighed the bounty and it was a pathetic 300 g!! For all that effort.

Anyway, I made them into a little potato salad to go with our barbeque last night and I must admit they were yu-u-u-mmy! Perhaps I'll do better next year. I am also still waiting to see any results from my broad beans, broccoli, carrots, and the one remaining courgette plant (slugs destroyed the rest).

debi If you have any questions about planning the trip to NZ ask me! Feel free to PM if you want. I've been everywhere, man.

This weekend was great. Sunshine, barbeques, paddling pool, pitched a tent in the garden, happy children (mostly), etc!

becs So sorry about the house.

ninja glad you're having a good holiday in the middle of all the crappiness going on, it sounds like your girls are absolute superstars and a real credit to you :)

fanny I don't understand how anyone has veg success, my tomatoes are dying and the only thing thats doing remotely well are the radishes which no one in our family even likes! For next summer I hope we'll have pulled up the massive hawthorn hedge across the end of our garden and turned it into a veg plot as that's the area that gets the most sun (and it'll save us a fortune in punctured footballs on the thorns)

How was the househunting bec?

I'm storing away all these tips for dealing with runaway children, I just have a feeling that DC3 is going to be rather different to the two I've already got, its the way its trying to kick its way out through my belly button that's got me rather alarmed, I don't think it'll be a placid child! We've just spent the morning at a lovely birthday party, DD spent the whole time on the bouncy castle, and DS just played matchbox cars, I think I can see what theme his 3rd birthday presents are going to take! He has a small collection of cars already and can correctly identify a Porche 911 GT3 as opposed to a Ford Mustang...no thanks to me telling him they were both Ferraris I might add!

fp & carrie My tomatoes are buggered too. Not sure why I had so much luck with the spuds. I didn't earth them up particularly well and we had that dry spell in the spring when I thought I'd lose it all. It's all in a sheltered sunny corner of the garden though, maybe that's the trick?

Does anyone on here have one of those ceiling mounted clothes airers? A Pulleymaid I think? I have had it with the normal clothes airer as there's no space for it and the dc's pull things off it . I reckon if I can get a ceiling airer fitted at the top of my stairs it will dry off really fast as the air circulates up there and the kids won't be able to touch it.

I'm having a productive afternoon. The kids are out at the park with my stepmum and I'm sunbathing in my bikini, doing general tidy up, pegging out laundry and watering chores in the garden. Bed linen to change next, easier to do it now then when the children are home for tea.

meglet The Sheila Maid is what you want. Bloody brilliant.

I think part of my problem is I planted everything so late. Oh well. There's always next year.

My sum total harvest this year???

3 strawberries.....which toby ate.

Ffs. Dont know why I bother.

We should exchange on this house tomorrow and we have appts to view 2 rental properties tomorrow afternoon....1 is a 4 bed det and 1 is a 2 bed maisonette.

I dont even know what a maisonette is

They are the only available rental properties so its got to be one of them!

Hey ho. I look at the news and it sort of puts my worries/problems into perspective.

(have got my appt with the consultant rheumatologist through already!....22/09)

Brilliant. Thank you fp. I think I'll have to get one, would make life so much easier in the Winter months. I have a tumble dryer for towels and jeans but try not to use it too often.

Bec - good that he's happy and I'm very impressed they do 100m and hurdles, we're still on obsticale and egg and spoon (my favourite). I hope one of the houses is OK - it's fair enough to worry about not having somewhere to live.

You're right tho' somethimes our problems seem trivial compared to some people

DD's school is small and they've just moved the teachers around so she's completely bypassed the outstanding one . I'm a governor and heard first but had to bite my tongue.DD will have the teacher who's been away with soemthing serious for the last year and will now definitely be away until at least January. As she's likely to be nsettled next year with all that's happened (she wet the bed for over a year when M came along) I'm a little concerned.

We managed about 8 strawberries (5 of which M ate while they were white) and a few raspberries. The peppers are only just flowering but I still live in hope.

DD1 brought some lovely potatoes back from gardening club though

I was robbed in the mothers potato and spoon race (Yes, potato. I dont know why either)

I got off to a flying start (think bob haired, overweight spectacle wearing gazelle!) but the bloody potato kept falling off the ruddy spoon! Beat my dsis, which of course is the main thing

Am going in for the tug of war next year!

Now we are moving....somewhere!...we wont be doing any planting for a good while. We have never exactly had a bumper harvest tbh. I am not green fingered. I once killed a cactus and thats not easy to do They can survive in death valley but not a teenagers bedroom apparently

Also had a Yukka plant (a friend gave it to me as a b day gift) and that didnt last long either. It seemed such a good idea to clean the leaves...they were all dusty. Just shouldnt have used mums dyson to do it

If anyone wants to mock my crap pepper harvest there is a photo on my profile page .

I am MASTER of the egg (or potato for health and safety reasons!) and spoon - the trick is to keep your centre of mass low and steady.

While 5.5 months pregnant with M I won the running and egg and spoon race on Whit Friday (a big celebration here). I was soo proud

I'm just glad that DD1 is going to gardening club. y Grandma was a great gardener, really knowledgable. I love the idea but .... I'm hoping I'll have more time and space to do it now.

Going to some outdoor warm mineral springs today. Kids are having a good time even though their father is grumpy (that might just be my impression)

Ahem.....is there a challenge in the offing ninja

I would love to be a wonderful gardener/grower. I love looking at and walking round lovely gardens but I am just useless. The soil here is pretty rubbish tbh so maybe in our next garden I will have more luck!?

Going to see the rental properties this afternoon - fingers crossed!

Have a good day x

Yes, we all know that ninja has a black belt in egg potato and spoon racing!

Are we planning on a gardening challenge next summer?

Good luck with the viewings today bec. Fingers and toes crossed that you find something suitable.

Oooooh, a gardening challenge, I like it! The challenge is just that we have to find our gardens under the piles of plastic toys right...?

DS was sick in the night and did a really grim (fish smelling, bleugh) nappy this morning, so DD has gone to the park with her lovely godmother and DS is watching tv and I'm washing all his bedding, oh the joys.

We've been having really weird behaviour from DS around dinner times recently (unrelated to the puking incident, its been going on about 3 weeks) where he won't sit up at the table, then won't eat, and makes a fuss about which chair he's on, whether or not he'll wear a bib etc. He'll happily have breakfast and lunch, he's just got some sort of block about dinner and won't touch it and has screaming habdabs. DH and I have decided its got to the point of needing to be dealt with now, so when he's over this bug its gonna be hard-line mum and dad...sit up nicely or sit on the naughty step, but sitting up and screaming is not acceptable. Let battle commence

I'm not joining in any gardening challenge, though I've had 4 strawberries and a dozen more on their way. And the plum tree is doing well - it never produced anything for 4 years until we hacked half of it off last year. The cherry tree did OK but was too high to reach most of them - got an icecream box full. My parents came on the w/e and cut back all the growing stuff so there's more garden now. Apparently the garden was wonderful 35 years ago but has been neglected ever since. It's only about 15 foot square so you can get overwhelmed quickly!
I did actually plant some sprouting potatoes in a large tub but got told the other day that you can't grow potatoes in a pot - will dig them up sometime and see.

Feeling better than I have been but still knackered and a bit sick. But mostly hating my job - I'm only staying because the maternity benefits are fab and finally I should be able to make use of them again! [polishes up CV]

OK - so when we have a meet-up a egg and spoon race it is, I warn you I am a little competitive they gave the kids sweets for prizes and I was queuing up for mine

Now a gardening challenge would be interesting, can we stipulate only beginners allowed to enter (or have some kind of seeding process - no pun intended )

fannyp - are you mocking my black belt? (or have I mentioned the egg and spoon before) oh the shame, poor DD

Definitely not mocking! I am full of respect.

Loving the garden talk. I would love to be green fingered but it's not my forte I'm afraid.
I'd win at the egg and spoon cos I'd cheat!!

And after all the terrible times we had at the weekend, today madam stunned me by saying, with no prompting, 'I said thank you to amy today for lending me her bike' (we've borrowed a balance bike from a friend to see how C gets on. And she goes to nursery with her. She loves it, so we're sold)I almost fainted with shock and pride.

She then scratched DP once tonight. We got cross and tried the naughty corner but she got out of that by saying she needed a wee quickly. She then said very solemnly to DP 'I am trying my very best not to scratch you daddy'

On a completely unrelated topic, As time progresses I may need some tips from you guys about bf and coping with no sleep. I am determined to bf this time but also need a routine and (those of you who remember) as C slept through from a very early stage, I am quite scared of the no sleeping bit.
I think carrie manages to combine bf and GF, so I'm looking for something in between. I've not explained that very well - basically, I'd love some advice from successful bfers and to be reassured that the baby will sleep at some point!

bookmarking.

Before I forget, I will try and get to London in the Autumn with DD so I might be able to catch up with some of you guys . Once DS is at school and things have settled down I'll let you know when I plan to head up.

Yes mrsA I did bf and GF with DS. I followed the baby whisperer first for a more flexible routine, and guided DS towards GF but he was 3 months old before he was on her times.
Baby whisperer is basically eat, awake time, sleep. So you're not feeding them to sleep, you aim to get a good full feed, then a little bit of awake time (may only be 5mins by the time you've done the feed and a nappy change!) then next its sleep, so if they cry you try and settle them in bed rather than just feed them again (obv if they're hungry and routing you feed them, always feed a hungry baby!). For nap times I followed GF's advice of taking them to their room for 10mins wind down and quiet cuddles so you settle them in their cot drowsy but awake. Most people think GF is about bunging them in bed and leaving them to scream, but its really not, that's why its called the contented baby book, because you anticipate their needs and reduce the amount of crying and guess work. Some people love to have babies napping in a pram or bouncy chair, or in a sling, or are happy to rock them to sleep, but especially once I was on my second child it was really important to me to teach them to sleep in bed and to settle themselves, and the time I invested in the first few months with DS more than paid for itself in the long run. There were times of course when he wouldn't settle, I remember 18mo DD rocking him to sleep in the phil and teds! And I really remember the 3 week growth spurt when he fed hungrily every 1.5hrs, but I kept to the eat, activity, sleep structure, and as soon as the growth spurt was over he went back to 3 hourly feeding. He was a sleepy baby in the day and I remember giving him cold baths to try and elicit a few mins awake time to gradually teach his body day from night. That's another important aspect of routine, having the confidence to wake a baby from a nap in the day so they eat every 3ish hours and take on most of their milk in the day, and have most of their sleep at night. Hope that makes some sort of sense! Really need to brush up on my GF technique in the next 3 weeks

Today I'm sitting in waiting for the builders who are supposed to be coming and putting in the extra beam in the kitchen after we failed our building regs inspection. I can't remember the last time they turned up when they said they would (this work should have been done in June) but I've cleared the kitchen in anticipation so we wait and hope....

Ha ha mrsa. Isn't it amazing the way they can make you so proud one moment then cringe and weep the next?

Yesterday we were in a queue in a shop when the lady behind us said 'Can I just say, what lovely children.' [proud]
Then a minute later, still gazing at them she said 'I don't think I've ever seen two such lovely children!' [smug] and !

Unfortunately the next shop we went into DD had a tantrum, writhing on the floor in the doorway of the shop sobbing 'I wa-a-a-nt ch-o-o-colate!!'

Oh well - I hold on to the first shop experience, and wipe the other from my memory.

Thanks Carrie, I think i read the bf discussion of the day and panicked a bit. I am so keen to bf after my disaster with C and I think I've worked out what went wrong back then. I'm hearing tales about constant feeding and up every 90mins for weeks on end and panic about getting C to nursery, as she will still going 3 days a week. I have visions of being unable to leave the house bacause my baby is feeding 24/7!
But your post has calmed me down and I need to have confidence that things will work out, after all they did with C.

FP we had screaming this morning and left the house with toys thrown everywhere because I wouldn;t let her have a lolly for breakfast. No time for naughty step but I did explain in the car why i was cross at her. It seems to be slowly sinking in. Whether understanding 'why' means she then tries to behave is anyone's guess!
[She threw the toys, btw, not me!]