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 My mum is the youngest of 17 and she is 66 next birthday so a lot of my uncles and aunts are in their late 70s early 80s and, frankly, its showing now

Was hard to leave (as it always is) but good to see everyone and catch up.

Blooming heck Bec I thought my great gran worked hard with 11 but 17! Makes my 4 seem a doddle.
When my gran died we felt the same it was so nice to gwet together with so many older relations but sad knowing we would probably not see them again til their funeral.

Ninja your h is making me mad now. I hope he gets out soon and you can get some resolutions about childcare and other things. Then you can maybe relax a bit

bec SEVENTEEN . Were they all singletons or are there twins and triplets too, not that it makes that much difference when you have that many, but even so .

carrie lovely to know you're being looked after. I'm quite excited about another baby about to arrive on the thread!

I was speaking to nursery about DD's potty training and they said she refuses to use the little toilets for a poo (even though she takes herself away to a quiet corner and announces she's doing one) so I think she'll either decide to potty train all on her own or I'll do it in March / April. If we do it now, before she wants to, it's going to be a massive battle of wills.

meg no twins or triplets! My mum was born on my eldest auts 21st birthday! My poor grandmother She was totally worn out by the time she was 70...her body just gave out.

Lots of my aunts/uncles have 6-8 kids too. My dad was one of 6 too.

I counted up once...I have over 50 first cousins

50 cousins! I have a paltry 6! My Great Great Auntie was one of 12 (6 boys and 6 girls).

We're a very small family really, 2 kids each and my sister and one cousin don't have any kids and I don't think they will. I was keeping some decent baby bits for my sister but she's 35 and about to go off travelling so I think I'll bite the bullet and sell some of it off before it gets tatty (I'd like some loft space again!).

I have 2 first cousins!!

I just can't imagine 17 .... 2 really is hard enough

Its ridiculous really

I am often over in Ireland and will be walking down the street or in a shop and someone will come over and chat and after they have gone my mum will say "that was your cousin ***" and I have never met them before!"

My husbands family is quite small..his mum is an only and has 2 cousins left alive. My FIL has 1 sister but they dont get on and only see one another abut twice a year even though they live in the same town. Dh has 1 cousin who lives in Singapore.

I like the fact my dc's have loads of family....they have 2 (nearly 3!) cousins and great aunts and uncles, aunts and uncles and loads of 2nd/3rd/4th cousins.

I have about 25 cousins, dad is youngest of 8 and mum is middle of 5. When I was younger we were always running into aunts and uncles and distant cousins. One of my best friends at primary was a distant cousin, our great grans were cousins. I love big families, which is probably why I went for 4 kids.

Robyn is at nursery today but she doesn't want to go now she knows it is the holidays. We have done some fun stuff this week so maybe she feels she is missing out. It is typical the free times she can't wait to go but the days we pay she is a monster to get motivated

I've got 11 cousins but dh has only got 2. I know his 2 better than any of mine though! I wouldn't know some of mine if I met them in the street.
I've got 1 brother (married) and dh has 1 sister (single) so my 2 won't ever have many cousins.
50 is unbelieveable!!

I'm meant to be tidying the house for visitors coming for lunch and packing for holiday tomorrow.

Have just done the ironing...oh how loathe it

Get the keys to the rental house tomorrow!

Good god!!!! How many kids????

I have no first cousins. My mum was an only child and so was my dad, but my dad did have a step brother after his mum married again and this step brother had 2 kids, who are officially my step first cousins or something but it's complicated, as the step brother was obviously not my grandma's child but is actually a blood relation.....

Basically my Grandma had known Joe, the guy who was to become her 2nd husband (and the person i called grandad), since she was a little girl, as he was the son of her mother's brother - ie her first cousin!!
They fell in love at 17 and got engaged, then all hell broke loose as their families pressured them to break it off, children would be deformed etc etc. this was all in the 1930s.
Grandma ended up marrying someone else and had my dad in 1945. This man was a real wanker and ended up having numerous affairs, so my grandma left him when dad was young.
When dad was about 21 and had met my mum and got engaged, Grandma went to a dance and there was grandad out of the blue. he had a son but the woman he married had died of cancer. Apparently my grandma came home and announced that she was getting married again as she had met Joe again after all the years and she felt the same as she had always. Awwwwwww.
So she and Joe got married . Grandad died when I was 7 but he was a wonderful man.

My grandma has had quite an eventful life really - when bringing up my dad they lived in a backtoback terrace house and the one that backed onto them was Myra Hindley's mum's house and Myra Hindley and my dad played together as kids.
Grandma also lives just 2 streets away from Harold Shipman's doctors practice, so she had a narrow escape.

Blimey, don't know where that ramble came from - just sharing really!

I'd love 3 or 4 kids but this one will be our second and last realistically.

Good luck for tomorrow Becs Hope it all goes well.

Good luck with the move bec!

Had my 12-week scan today, and they now think I'm back to my original dates so I'm 11+5 today. All well. :)

My mum's family is a huge Irish/Polish Catholic family so while I only have 20 cousins on that side, I've been to a family reunion where my grandad's siblings and descendants were all invited, and there were over 400 of us who managed to make it to rural USA! My aunt's husband was one of 17, too.
I'm an only child, which they all find most odd!

what a love story

Mrsa i love re4ading stories like that in tab it's a lovely thing to finally get happiness.

Bec good luck with the move tomorrow

NC great news

Thanks for the good wishes everyone...just want to get the keys and start cleaning and moving stuff now!.........

Ooooh happy moving bec!!
Glad you had a good scan NC, how exciting!
Great love story MrsA!
I only have two cousins - one on my dad's side, she's nearly 20 years older than me, and one on my mum's side who's 10 years younger, so I never had a proper relationship with them. Being one of only two children with almost no extended family to speak of was one of the reasons I wanted lots of children of my own. DH is still v.keen on having 4...the jury is out til I've given birth to this one! DH has quite a few cousins all born within a few years of each other, and they're all having kids now too so I've adopted them as my cousins and love meeting up with them.
I'm glad you're all excited about having another baby on this thread, the realisation that I'm the one who has to go through childbirth is somewhat taking the edge off my excitement! 13 days to go and counting...bump feels so stretched and sore.

Just remembered the other thing I've been meaning to tell MrsA - I've been re-reading GF but its a new one a friend gave me - the baby with toddler version which takes into account that having a toddler means you need to go out to playdates/nursery/put two children to bed at the same time etc, and shows you how to adjust the routines accordingly. Its brilliant as it addresses two things I was wondering about - what to do when the baby falls asleep on the school run, and how to time their afternoon feed around school pick up times. Also my biggest bug bear about her previous books is the confrontational style they're written in, but this one is completely different. I do wish all the MN GF bashers would read it, there's whole chapters on breast feeding, building up milk supply, and reducing your baby's crying, not at all about leaving them to cry which is what people misguidedly think her 'method' is! Its also been updated in line with the FSID guidelines on having your baby sleep in a room with you for the first 6 months, even for daytime naps. There's also a chapter on helping your toddler adjust to the new baby.
Plug over

Holy shit MrsA. Hindley and Shipman!

My DC's are whinging nightmares this morning. They've been up for over 2 hours and I haven't had a quiet 5 mins yet . I have shouted - a lot. They're squabbling over toys, what sofa to sit on, dragging toilet steps across the landing to get toys off high shelves, falling off them, moaning they want Octonauts......... .

For reasons best known to my hormones I have decided I want another baby (which obviously can't happen). Since my last guinea pig died I've gone all weird and would really like a dog (a minature schnauzer) but am too sensible to get one.

A dog wouldn't demand constant Octonauts would it. And would happily go out for long walks without throwing itself on the floor and tantruming.

meglet my sister has 4 kids with approx 2 year gaps. Then 2 years after her youngest she got a dog, 2 years later another dog ......

I do feel your pain though, M is being a moaning monkey this morning. She pulled a chair over and got some crisps off a TALL shelf which she demanded (but didn't get) for breakfast. She wants everything and to sit everywhere where DD1 is

now dd1 is being miss grumpy, plus I was on a hen do last night and could do without it grrrrr

I swear its the thundery weather doing this to our children! DD keeps doing low level things to annoy her brother, like leaning that little bit too far across a book so he can't lift the flap, and seeing where he's headed and getting there first, just low level stuff but it results in epic whinging from them both. We did some baking this afternoon which seemed to clear the air a bit, but they still found plenty to argue over.
DH was asking DS what he's going to do to show love to the baby, DS's answer "read books to her about land rovers!" Ok then...! Not sure about the 'her' bit...does he know something I don't?!
lol at the dogs instead of babies! meglet a friend of mine has recently been told she needs a hysterectomy. She's in her 30s, her kids are 8 and 10 and she's single so all in all unlikely to even want any more, but still having the option taken away is hard, so I see how you feel. Maybe start with fish?!

carrie You are about to have a baby in few days, and yesterday you were baking with two grumpy young children? Is there anything you can't do?You are my ideal of Supermum.

carrie you can't walk a fish .

I have a bloody leak in my kitchen / pipes somewhere. One of the walls I painted a few weeks ago is looking a bit iffy and damp so I'm going to have to get a plumber to cut / dig out goodness knows what to find where the leak is. I'm hoping it's confined to just the one small wall and the laminate floor won't get damaged, if it does then it'll be an insurance job as the laminate covers the whole of the open plan downstairs

Wow, not long to go now Carrie. How exciting!

Are you a sling user Carrie? I have to say that my stretchy wrap sling (not the baby Bjorn shite carriers) has been an absolute god send. I use it around the house, out and about (I carried baby I in it from 8am-6pm last weekend), and on the pre school run. He is 14wo and still falls asleep in it within a minute of being put in it.

I wonder how Bec's move went?

I hope you can find the leak Meglet. I had the same thing happen in my property that I rent - the whole downstairs was open plan and laminated. It's a pita, but I always think 'ah well, that's what insurance is for.'