Fab Feb 2009 - pass mummy the gin, its potty time!

[dinkystinky]

New thread as the old one got filled up - hope you all find it ok!

Weekends are everything for us right now...its our time to just chill and play and cacth up on all the other stuff that doesn't get done during the week! Today is DSs 5th birthday so he had a brilliant birthday weekend because I knew he wouldn't get to enjoy it today.
Lots of left over cake from party...chocolate pirate cake anyone??

Hope your DS had a lovely birthday Chilled. I'd like some chocolate pirate cake please

Had a nice weekend - quiet local day on Saturday sorting out hanging up pictures in house, kids dance and swimming classes and doing slow cooker casserole then down to South London on Sunday to visit some friends who have just had their third child - holding a little (well not so little, 9lbs 10) 2 week old baby in my arms made me feel v broody but then seeing how tired our friends looked less so

chilled I'll have some cake, thanks
Glad ds had a great birthday.

Not much happening here.
Jacob got his in-soles for his shoes, but says they really hurt so we are starting off with just an hour or so a day atm.

I have got no idea what to get Luke for Christmas. Everytime I think I know what he'd like, I get it for him and he isn't interested.
When we have been at friends or in waiting rooms etc, he has been very interested in play-kitchens and both boys are starting to role-play and use their imaginations more, but thinking, what if he doesn't play with it??
He spends a lot of time at nursery playing dress-up so was also thinking of buying a big box and filling it with dressing up clothes and wrapping it up.

Jacob wants bakugans and we'll get him some more ds games, but other than that, am quite stuck for him too.
My parents are getting them both bikes this year, so that's that sorted.
Any ideas?
Shall we share lists this year?

Jack (also 4) is having police city lego- I know 4 is quite young but with an older brother he has been playing with it for a while now
Erin (also 4) is having a karaoke machine!!!!!

James (7) bits & bobs (also has a dec birthday)

Luke ------- help me please???????????

SM - if I was buying a wooden toy kitchen I would get this

So difficult isn'tr it? Everything ds1 gpt for xmas wheb he was 2 Luke already has!
I think the dressing up for. My luke might be the way to go. I will have a look at your kitchen link later at home, having trouble accessing it on the bb.

DS1 is getting a leapster leappad explorer for christmas this year- I like that is educational and has a stylus - and will hopefully free up DH's ipad so I can use it occasionally!

Danny is getting an octonauts octopod and toy farm (the boy loves animals!). Both lots have been purchased and hidden already.

When Danny was born we bought DS1 some wooden play food and a wooden toaster from Danny SM - which DS1 lvoed - and which Danny plays with nowadays. Toy kitchens are lovely but quite large - we decided we didnt have the space for it back then. The dressing up box is a great idea.

DS (4) and Lilian are getting Octonauts things from Mothercare that they can play with in the bath - both are big Octonauts fans so that will go down well. DS is also getting a play garage for all his cars and possibly some Hot Wheels track.

No idea what else to get Lilian - I'd like to get her the play kitchen I saw in Ikea the other week - it's a nice and simple one and good value too but we have so little space that I think DH will veto that idea as we'll be tripping over it all the time. She loves play food so I'll probably get her some of the cutting vegetables ones that I have seen somewhere.

Am back from Jordan and alive. Just!
SM was trekking Jordan to raise money for the National Deaf Children's society. DS1 and I did it with 28 others and in total we raised over 50k for various different charities.
It was hard. Bloody hard! I trekked China 6 years ago but since then have had two more DC and appear to gained 3 stone
Day 1 wasn't too bad, only trekked for 5 - 6 hours as we didn't get there til 3am. Camped in dessert in tents although most of us slept out under stars which was fabulous and taught the locals the delicacy that is toasted marshmallows on the bonfire!
Day 2 was a killer. Started walking at 7.15am and stopped for lunch at 2.15pm! Walked for a total of 11 hours that day and involved lots of climbing up mountains. I was so exhausted (and shit scared of some of the narrow ledges we were climbing up) that I cried at one point. Camped in dessert again and early start on Day 3 when we walked to Petra which was amazing.

Totally exhausted and every inch of my body is hurting but it was a fabulous experience and met some lovely people, many of whom I will keep in touch with.
Got very tired by last day, ended up signing (was one deaf man on trek with his interpreter and a few other signers, me being one of them) to the locals and speaking arabic to deaf man!

Right, off to get kids sorted.

Well done MOS Good for you! Sorry you are aching now though.
oooggs The link didn't work.

I'm not thinking of getting a big kitchen (or an expensive one), a basic, plastic one would be fine, like you say, the decent wooden ones are quite big and we don't really have the space.

Gonna let them flick through the argos catalogue too.

direct.asda.com/Wooden-Play-Kitchen/000745355,default,pd.html

that works if you copy & paste it but probably too big & expensive!!!!

That kitchen is very nice. £40 isn't too expensive, I was looking to spend between 40 and 70 on one......will have to think about it though. I'd hate to buy it just for it to be another toy no one plays with!

That kitchen is very nice. £40 isn't too expensive, I was looking to spend between 40 and 70 on one......will have to think about it though. I'd hate to buy it just for it to be another toy no one plays with!

SM, we got a small smoby kitchen when the dcs were very little and it was quite cheap but not as tacky looking as some of the other plastic ones. It's still going strong 6 years later and is played with all the time.

MOS... well done Had to laugh at your signing/speaking muddledness, I've accidentally signed at people a few times when sleep deprived, luckily Lamh requires you to speak as you sign so I just looked like a gesticulating madwoman rather than a complete freak Hope you're putting your feet up and relaxing now it's done, you must be so proud of yourself and ds1 to have gotten through it.

Well done MoS - I'm very proud of you!!

Hi SR - how is A coming along? Danny has taken to getting all of his bedside toys (all 12 of them ) and lining them up in our bathroom to have a story from me while I have a shower in the morning. They then applauded me at the end of the story and shower. I love the funny little personality he's turning into so much!

Aaron stole two coins from my pocket yesterday and has been clutching them for dear life ever since. He keeps dropping them and ordering us to crawl around looking for them. On the plus side he picked up the sign for 'money' pretty darn quick once it was shown to him!

He's finally starting to produce a few more varied sounds... instead of 'ah ah ah' for everything he's babbling now (only 2 years behind schedule ). His confidence is increasing, albeit glacially slowly, and he's not the quivering mess around other children that he used to be.

He managed to lift his tongue up to his top lip last week for the first time ever... I was sharing an ice lolly with him and trying to coax him to chase it with his tongue and when we were right down to the stick he finally managed it... you could see from his expression he didn't think he could do it and he was so proud of himself when he did, he was sitting on the couch pointing at himself and beaming

How has Danny's speech been coming along?

He keeps talking more and more (but his speech still isnt particularly clear and he jumbles sounds up - butI know what he means) - he is OBSESSED with his little soft toys (especially a little iggle piggle - we've had to get 3 of them to deal with situations where we cant find an iggle piggle - but even then he has favourites among the 3! - and a toy lion) and our days are spent hunting them out from where he has deliberately hidden them while he bellows "Where Ma Piggle/Lion? Ah, there ma piggle/lion. Now, where ma..."

Love the story about A and the ice lolly. Brilliant stuff. I know DS1 was SO proud of himself when he first managed to make a "t" sound - his confidence will come on in leaps and bounds now.

tbh, I think even the best talkers at this age are barely understandable to anyone but parents and carers I know dd and ds1 were very early talkers with huge vocabulary at this age and even they generally got puzzled looks from strangers.

Aren't their obsessions funny? A has latched onto a collection of cuddlies too... my old rabbit from when I was little, a toy red cat that belonged to Sarah and has been rechristened 'MiowMiow' by him, ds1's favourite cuddly 'Tiger' which he constantly steals and a huge mouse which also used belong to me and he 'shares' with ds1 We also have constant renditions of 'Ewr MiowMiow, 'ewr [sign for money], ewr . I seem to spend my days in a panic trying to find whatever toy he's desperately in need of, only for him to lose it 20 seconds later again!

My god they really are like twins! Danny also has a toy tiger which he's stolen from DS1 and a toy rat!

hey there ladies.
hope all is good.
Very excited that so many of you are with child - little Maxie is now 6 months and the most glorious child. His older brother is - ahem - a force of nature, to put it mildly. Still eats the worst diet in the world, still very small (and deadly) but makes up for any lack of stature with the most ENORMOUS personality.

You may remember that I was involved in a campaign to save a local nursery - both Stan and Angus went there and loved it. Well, it worked and I'm now on the case of our brilliant playcentre. We're quite positive about this but the more support I can get the better.

If any of you would be kind enough to add your name to this petition that would be amazing.

www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-camden-square-playcentre.html

I still check in here quite a lot. Take care. xxxx Lucy xxxx

Hi all

Well done MOS on the trekking

Toy kitchen - we have one which we got through freecycle, I was so excited when I got the email back saying we could have it. It's plastic and they play with it a lot, at one point it got tucked out of reach but I moved it to get into that space and it's now in a much more prominent part of the room.

My other suggestion would be to start or add to a collection of Duplo which you can add to for future birthdays and Christmas. My friend's teenager still has the Duplo collection as well as the Lego. I got a couple of free sets in exchange for writing reviews a few months ago - but I recommend the sets which aren't too specific, as our Danny just asks me to rebuild the police station whereas I like seeing what he creates for himself.

Otherwise I'm spending a lot of time reading and writing book reviews, and I have a rather daunting pile of review books that I actually have to write about.

MOS - hope you are putting your feet up after your trek! Well done - sounds amazing!

mslucy good to hear that your campaign saved the nursery - I'll add my support to your next cause when I get a minute. Little Maxie sounds lovely.

I'm in Brighton - staying at BIL's house while he is away. DH is working so I'm on my own here with the kids which has been hard work. Luckily it has been warmish and sunny and the beach is at the end of the road so DS and Lilian have spent loads of time there choosing pebbles... Looks like rain tomorrow so I'm hoping I can find a soft play place or something else to occupy them as unfortunately they don't like shopping

Hope everyone else is coping ok with half term?

Hello ladies.
Checking in to say hi.

I just got an e-mail from MNHQ saying I've been nominated to receive a christmas gift!
Feel really bad because I got 2 the year before last, and haven't been able to donate anything back to anyone else. I'm going to put some money away so I can do something next year though.
I didn't even see a thread asking for nominations and donaters.

Hi SM

That's cool! Didn't know MN gave Christmas gifts! What did you get last time?