The CRESH Creche and Spa - What's your excuse for not going back to work?

[Backinthebox]

Liking maternity leave too much? Can't be arsed to go back to your old job? Why not get made redundant, set up a company, have another baybee or even fall off a horse? Anything to spend more time with our little darlings! And it's so naice here - pass the gin!

Rocket, start your craft business.

Box, you are mental!

That's a bloody good idea meds but I wonder how my productivity will be affected by a mobile baby? Maybe I could employ loads of little nanas to crochet my stuff in bulk :o like they used to do piece work for factories in the olden days (but with better pay and conditions) I seem to have lost the Mary janes I made for sprout which is a bit annoying.

box you are bonkers. I once badly sprained my ankle while at a festival and my boyfriend refused to take me home. Trips to the toilet were fun, once he borrowed a bike to wheel me across the the loos. Genius bumpy ground plus not being able to put weight on one foot resulted in an extremely bruised fanjo. I used a bucket after that. Sounds like you will have all mod cons tho so will be a different kettle of fish. The tent sounds amazing, I am envious.

Er...is it raining less in your part of the world than it is mine today Box? Camping with a broken ankle in the pissing rain. Not my idea of fun. Deffo bonkers.

Seems like loads of us are in similar boats re work. I took redundancy back in Jan '09, did a Masters degree last year with a view to changing career, then finally managed to get diffed. Not really got much of an idea of exactly what sort of job I can get now . Plan I think is to start looking at the end of the summer, assuming it'll take me several months to find anything. Ideally I'd want to be heading back to work next Jan, which'll make it 2 years out of the workplace. I might start squib doing a day a week/a couple of half days in some sort of daycare once he's turned one - think it'll probably do him some good, and give me time to focus on the jobhunting/get to interviews. So long as interest rates stay where they are, then we're ok, but once they start to creep up, then we'll be in the same boat as you Rocket and my redundancy pot will start to diminish rather rapidly.

For the meantime my fingers remain firmly in my ears about all such matters.

BTW...do any of your small people ever wake up in the middle of the night and decide it's playtime? I was up for an hour and a half from 2.30 last night with a baby who didn't see the need for sleep. I just ended up holding him/sitting next to him trying to keep him quiet so his dad could sleep, until he finally reached the crying point and conked out at nearly 4ish. Should I just leave him to cry it out? Trouble is he always does this during the week when I really don't want him tiring his dad out who has to get up at 6 to go to work. WWYD?

MB didn't want to go to bed last night as he decided to vom then try and play with anything and everything!! Had to put him to bed and listen to him whinge himself to sleep whilst I made a start on the housework.

This whole bumshuffle malarky means I'm gonna have to make sure the floors are a bit cleaner !!!

box camping sounds ace!!!!!

oki have your new bras affected your milk supply?? Wondering whether to get some major brasiers to uplift etc as at the moment they are not far off mimicking an 80 year olds!

Silv I went back to work and got diffed 3 months later. I said to my boss that I was doing "one year on, one year off" etc which I thought was mildly funny, he didn't really. Anyway, nowt they can do about it. Get diffed and don't worry about it. WRT the bras I still have plenty of milk. If I am out and about I still wear the old nursing ones.

Don't speak to me about childcare costs. It is depressing. I just figure that if I can continue for a couple of years and bear the brunt of basically having no money for a while then by the time they go to school I will still have my career. Saying that, it all looks a bit dubious on the work front with my boss and his boss both being "let go" last week so not sure I will have a job to go back to. Hey ho.

Hope hoppalongbox is enjoying the camping. I am still totally confused as to how it became OK to talk about camping in ESH land. Though only on this side of the border, surely...

I think we may be beginning to make sense of the childcare thing. The new employer (which is also MrP's employer, did I mention?) has an on site nursery, but it is fully booked until Sept 2012! But they are just taking on another nursery which has places available and will be part of the staff salary sacrifice scheme, potentially saving 40%!!

It is 10 mins from our new house and sort of on the way to work, so I have tentatively booked 3 days / wk there and am going to visit on Monday to check it out.

I am still feeling sick. Who do I complain to?

Not MS fandango?

Ha ha silv! I can safely say, that would be a no.

FP it all seems to be working out quite nicely non?
Cas forgot to say that good news that the polyp is nowt toworry about and that is "just the way you are".

God he was a selfish arse at times wasn't he Rocket? Which festy was that?

curly I would apply for the job anyway, if you don't put your form in you'll never know. Even if they were to offer it to you, you don't of course have to take it - but if they do really like you, you have the opportunity to negotiate hard: flexi-working/relocation/minions to sprinkle rose petals in your path.

lightspaper It's the same here in NL, "most" parents simply dump the kids on grandparents. A charmed retirement I'm sure. Childcare here (and in Belgium) is heavily subsidised. I pay 122 euros a month for 2 days a week creche. People earning over 130k will from next year have to suck it up. Boo hoo.

medee I hope you find new work asap, but is it true that the economy is still "reasonably strong" in your neck of the woods?

rocket You're already all over etsy aren't you? A housemate at uni had "crafty" parents based in Cornwall, they had to suck every single last penny out of the summer tourists because there wouldn't be anything coming in during the winter.

I hope boxer is having a lovely time.

The campers over at BESH seem to love the outdoors & shiz, which I get - but they don't seem to have been punished by droids like we all were. I bought a Tesco 25 quid cheap number and we went up to an island. Big dog panted all night and the lining became heavy with condensation. Then she wagged her tail and we were rained on with dog breath. :( x 1000. The next morning we went out and spent nearly 75 quid on a new one!

Back to work tomorrow and quite frankly this last week's holiday has been shit. Bear has basically screamed at me non-stop and I've felt sick.

Sorry to hear you are feeling pukesville al! Really hope it doesn't reach epic proportions like last time. What will the age gap be?

I'm sat breakfasting with MB and watching him destroy some toast and I don't mean he's eating it quickly. He's pulling it apart, bashing bits together and generally making the kitchen look like a war zone.

Mutt has finally come into season which is good and bad. Good cos we can now plan her being chopped and she is "late". It's bad cos means on-lead walks and pounding the pavements at weird times to avoid other dogs. Just awesome. Really.

oki thanks for the advice! They'll just have to accept it won't they!

I have realised (yay me!) that having a newborn in the winter / dark nights contributed a lot to my state of mind mainly cos HI working lots and not around in the evenings whereas this summer I've not minded being on my own so much of an evening. Or that could be cos MB is older, has bedtime routine (rest of the day we play by ear!). Who knows!!!

I think the nappy rash in his groin may be eczema. Gonna go clinic next week for advice. Use the term advice lightly.

Cas good news about no more foof explorations!!!!

I'm going to check out the crèche at my local gym! Must be mad.

silvs I was saying the other day that I was really thankful that sprout was a summer baby. I think the first few months would have the potential to be very hard with short days and shitty weather. I would struggle to get dressed, let alone leave the house and do stuff.

skihorse I did put some stuff on Etsy a while ago but didnt really make any money. The problem is thete is so much stuff on there that things falls off the front page so quickly and i was a bit clueless as to how to promote myself otherwise. But then I wasn't on here or blogging or twitter at the time so I think it might be worth doing again or I might try folksy the UK version. I am intrigued to know what people would think is a fair price for those Mary janes I made?

boo um yeah he was a bit. (but I'm not bitter... much) it was green gathering 94. He also refused to take me home after it finished and we went on to Sydmouth Folk as planned. Via Sainsburys in Oxford where we stole commandeered a disabled shoping trolley to push me round in.

AIBU to want to punch Denise "I've got a 5 month old baby and still appear on broadway every night and live in the country with my aga and vegetable patch" Van Outen? Yes and I bet you have a nanny and a gardener so you can ponce about in your flowery wellies picking your 'home grown' vege but I bet you never broke a nail actually doing the weeding

Silv thankfully am not suffering to the extent of last time. Feel rough obv. And rough enough to be confident in the viability of this pregnancy... but am currently posting from the stables and not my sick bed, a massive improvement! May even remove myself from the hg thread as I feel fraudulent! ;)

rocket etsy's search system is shit.far too much uninspiring crap to wade through before finding a gem. An American friend works for then in nyc on their website - I really should have a word! My us friends use it a lot, although dare I say? The liberals based on the east coast mostly! As for your booties, I would expect to pay 'boden= prices, e.g., 18 quid, bearing in mind your effort minus corporation costs. Is that reasonable? Bear in mind that I am tight when it comes to kids clothes and I think like (?) And that Scandinavian place are really taking the piss with the 35 quid for a babygro bobbins.

Yes, the economy here is completely different to the rest of the country - tied pretty much to the oil price. There are effects but not as marked, so hopefully job hunting won't be too hard, but it might be difficult to find exactly the right thing.

what about Not on the High Street, Rocket? They sell things from lots of different companies. Or, craft fairs to begin with?

Ello ello ello. We have just sat down to a rather yummy spag bol. Squib had it too with pasta hoops and loved it. It did turn him rather orange what with all the smushing/face rubbing, but hey ho.

Bought a baby walker for a tenner off ebay yesterday, and it seems to be a big hit. Although I have now realised it means the wine-rack is now within range rather sooner than I had anticipated. I will have to either move it or empty it of its contents...which to do, which to do....

Not sure which is easier re summer/winter babies. Downside we are finding is that (even with black out curtains), it's difficult to persuade Squib that he should still be asleep when he wakes at 4 am with the light coming in round the edges. I guess with summer born babies, by the time they're old enough to be getting the concept of routine it'll be starting to get darker in the evenings. I think it's nice that Squib's old enough to appreciate being outside on a blanket etc though...so dunno which is better really! There is the impact on their performance at school though - it's amazing the difference being summer born makes. I guess if you have a summer born kid you just have to really concentrate on helping them to get lost in the early school years...

er...not to get lost...

I love having had EA in Spring - when in the early days all I could manage was a short walk at 4pm, at least it was still light. I don' think I could have coped having a winter baby, especially with the snow this year. It gets so dark up here so early. THe upside is the lovely long evenings now.

Scottish school years are based on a February/ March split, so slightly easier for the start of the new term. I am glad she'll be one of the eldest rather than youngest though.

I hadn't thought about the school year aspect. I was just going to spawn a G&TPFB so it wouldn't be a problem :o

Summer sprogs for me!!!! Like you can plan it!!! What will be will be.

How bad on a scale of 1-10, would it be returning from ML diffed?

silv To answer your earlier question, assuming all goes to plan Bear will be 19 months. I don't think it's abnormal to return to work diffed, it doesn't make employers jump with joy though - but you do what you gotta do and if you're planning to jump ship after #2 anyway what does it matter?

lightspaper Unfortunately I wasn't able to choose when Bear would be born due to "mishaps" during TTC and him being premature. Luckily though I've done this one properly so I hope this one at least won't be the dunce of the class and/or the village idiot.

I've never paid much notice to the whole school age nonsense. I was among the youngest in my year and it never did me any harm.

Sorry I've been a bit awol. We've had a bereavement in the family, another rellie hospitalised and Squeaks is waking in the night screaming. Apparently this is common for newly-turned one-year-olds.