April 2011 - cake-offing, gin-guzzling, wine-sipping, dreams of sleeping

[fraktious]

Thread 3!!!

T is currently having his first nap of the day

JKS

I am shattered. Have done loads of baking and cooking though, bonkers when it is so hot. Hoping DH will be home on time so I can hand the boys over for a bit!

H has discovered the shuffle bum technique of getting out of his chair. Yay...

He's hilarious when doing it, serious concentration face and flailing limbs. Then a big grin if we challenge him.

Am crossing my fingers you can rest Ali.

JKS thanks for the story to entertain me as I sit with a very sweaty S attached!

Lis I think you always have to go twice to Ikea to get things. Once to look and be disappointed that it doesn't look like you had imagined, then a follow-up visit to actually purchase after measuring spaces and persuading DH you are right.

Buck love your use of my native tongue with 'rellies' but I feel obliged to point out that 'avo' should be 'arvo' or you'll have people thinking you mean avocadoes. Unless you really did have F's friends doing tummy time over avocadoes?

S had her first daytime nap in her cot today. Took 20 mins of the pick up put down way but I was prepared for much longer so actually felt like a victory!

Thanks for the tips caramello!

I think the 'avo' is my way of avoiding too much westcountry rrrrrrr's! ("where be we arf this arrrvo?" ).

I'll endeavour to get it right in future!

I swear M recognises the word 'massage' now as she's been a bit moany for half an hour or so but a big smile appeared on her face when i told her it must be nearly time for her bedtime massage :o I wonder if it'll eventually be her first word?

Good story JKS, It brings back memories of my own underage clubbing days. We used to enjoy the naval visits, it kept the local boys on their toes . We're of a similar age so I may well have been downing the archers and lemonade alongside you. There was one particular nightclub which was much easier to get into when underage than the others. It has since been demolished to make way for a huge glass office block.

If it's any consolation to those with beach , I suffer from ikea , in fact most shops in general .

I did at the mention of Archers and lemonade! I liked Malibu and pineapple, the thought of it now makes me feel a bit jubby.

Chilli - I think I knows the word bath. He gets very excited when I mention it. Arms flailing around a big grin.

Everyone in the house had a good nights sleep - hurrah! Ds2 is off to granny's this morning so I think I and I will go into town and do some shopping.

Ah, underage clubbing, those were the days... I never did Archers and Lemonade though, too sweet. I was a Smirnoff Mule girl!

We're on our third nappy of the morning and H has only been up for half an hour! He's shuffling away in his chair now trying desperately to escape while dressed in his red and white stropped sleep suit. It's sooooooo cute!

I also used to drink Taboo and Lemonade, anyone else remember that one

Lis I'm sorry to hear about your Grandpa, and understand the absolute joy your must feel when you see B feeding directly.

Sorry I've been off radar. It's been a hectic week!
Here's our news (get a cup of , it's a nice long one):
Sunday was R's Baptism. It was a lovely day and quite moving. I lit a candle privately before Mass started for my Mum & Gran who have passed away and when I looked around the Church was absolutely packed, which was very heart warming. Folk sang the hymns with gusto (my Grandad, 86, is Welsh and loves to sing so he very much enjoyed that). My Dad's wife loudly proclaimed from the second from the front row during the service "I've had enough of this" and left to smoke outside but the service was so lovely that it didn't detract. The font had a beautiful shell from which Father T Baptised R. R was wearing the re-made Victorian gown and looked lovely and F was wearing a kilt I had made from sky blue, white and red tartan (and sewn into a vest so it didn't fall down!) with a tiny little sporran. I had been up early to decorate the 1930's hall with bunting made from Rose printed fabric, pink balloons, jam jars with thin white satin ribbons containing big bright blue hydrangeas from the garden. I had done 3 different types of mini quiches, 2 different salads, DH had made his special toffee (fudge for us from England), sausage rolls, 5 different types of sandwiches, sugared almonds and two different cakes. I had handmade wild roses and rosebuds from sugar paste and painted them individually to put on top of little chocolate fudge and vanilla butter-cream cupcakes. I brought out all the nice china and cake stands etc. i love doing things like this. I even did a playlist :)
It was very nice seeing my family and friends all talk to each other. There was a slight panic as I had asked my MIL to hold R whilst I got the huge tea and coffee pots round the room to everyone (think massive scouts camp metal things with 2 wooden handles) but once I had been round the room 20 minutes later I couldn't find her. DH tells me that she took R out to her car almost as soon as I asked her to hold R and hadn't been seen. I went out to her car but couldn't find them....tried to not show the panic and subsequent horror on my face when she return to the hall more than half an hour later with R wearing neon pink tracksuit (!) when there hadn't been any proper photos of the family with R in her Baptismal gown (which I had spent a long long time trying to alter from the original Victorian dimensions...) and no one had held or seen R at that point. I was mortified (do I sound like a snob?!). She then went over to F to see if she could take his kilt off ("oh he doesn't want to be wearing that"....) Am i missing something? F had a train set and playmat in the centre of the room and he was happily running back and forth the hall with the other children. Neither child looked uncomfortable. What do Mums normally do? Am I supposed to change them both for the party afterwards?
I tried to not let my face show what I was thinking (a mix of shame and horror) and just carried on introducing folk.
Amusingly MIL and my dad's wife both seemed shocked that I had put on weight.....you'd think that they didn't know the actual process of producing offspring. I bemused them by treating their comments as if they were compliments:
"Oh M you have put on weight..."
"Yes, I think so too."
Me: "Oh do you think so...(big grin) Thanks!"
"Are you doing something about it...so and so (a cousin down south) does weight watchers you should be doing that, that's what you need"
"What are you trying? Hot water instead of coffee keeps me"
Me: "Oh I'm just trying to be a Mum" I wander off.

It was a lovely day and to be honest I'm used to family antics so it didn't spoil it.
In other news:
R is rolling too! Horrah!
She is laughing.
No further development on the potty training front here.

Yes Liv Taboo & lemonade was one I remember. Was that the peach one?

Goodness it's been a long time since I've had a drink. I don't even know if they still sell the drinks I used to like!

Two children in close succession will do that i suppose!

Just checking in, will read through recent posts later when I get a minute, but have skimmed.

I have turned into a dripping, sweat monster. Where does it all come from? Does breastfeeding make you particularly sweaty? It's not pleasant!

Knackered as G now taken to waking every few hours over night, weep. I think its the heat as he seems v thirsty and wants feeding a lot but only for a short amount of time probably to quench his thirst.

Memories of underage drinking, those were the days. I was a pint of woodpecker girl (couldn't drink it now, sooo sweet) or pernod and orange but god ridiculously drunk on a camping trip and even the smell of pernod now makes me feel sick!

Arch I am well impressed by all your efforts for R baptism. Sounds lovely. I had thought I would make the invitations to dd's 4th birthday party myself but just given up and ordered a load on line. I would love to be creative and be able to sew and knit and make things but I'm just not!

My underage drink of choice was Jack Daniels & coke or Irn Bru (don't ask)[hardened drinker emoticon], a relic from an old boyfriend that has stood the test of time! I've been going through all my old photos with my birthday coming up. I was a party animal! Remembering the things I used to get up to has made me feel glad B wasn't a girl! Although I didn't tick running away with a marine off my list !

Arch thank you :), my joy appears to have been short lived. We have gone back to refusal. Maybe I need to be in the bath everytime I feed him! Kilts, cakes and toffee sounds like my idea of heaven!! Do you do parties to order? It sounds beautiful. MILs are sent to test us! And you, my dear have passed your test with flying colours. And your dads wife sounds like a right one too!

B is being a gurn today, will only settle sitting on my knee facing the TV. I can tell he's tired, but for some reason he's fighting it. We have our post natal follow up with the "too much cake" clinic this afternoon. And funnily enough I have to pass Ikea to get there. So it would be rude to not go in and get the book case!

weather is miserable here, and it was so muggle through the night.

I was more of a vodka girl in my youth, although in my early teens (before fake ID and the wonderful world of clubs!) we used to drink White Lightening and 20/20. Urgh, think 20/20 was some sort of fortified wine - it was truely minging! Does anybody else remember it? I found it was best enjoyed in the local park or the school playing fields (out of school hours, obviously). Very classy girl me...

Arch - the christening party sounds fabulous. Can I come to your next soiree? My mouth is watering at the thought of that spread. Why on earth was your MiL so desperate to get R into a neon pink tracksuit though ? Stories like that make be realise how lucky I am with my MiL. She's really careful not to step on mine or DH's toes when it comes to P and has shown no signs of any crazed behaviour yet!

We had an average night here. At the moment there's no regular pattern to our night time waking. P usually feeds twice between 8pm and 7(ish)am. One of these feeds is a dreamfeed at 10.30ish and the other is whenever she wakes up in the night. This can be anytime between 2am - 5am. Does anybody else LO wake at a different time every night, or are most your babies waking at regular times?

I know P is one of the youngest in the group, so suspect that she's probably a bit behind most of the other babies. I'm just hoping some sort of natural pattern emerges at some point. Mind you, I'm sure that if it does, it'll be messed up again when we hit the dreaded 16 week mark...

Ah white lightening, we used to get the Spars own brand, it was called something like thunder strike . We didn;t go to the park, we went to the beach, drank it then went skating. I've had a few concussions at the ice rink!! Oh my! i sound like a right one! I wasn't, I was easily led astray!!

I remember Taboo and Mad Dog 20/20!!

Star - I mostly wakes up at the same sort of time in the night, but he also throws us the odd curveball and wakes up an hour or two earlier than normal. But experience has showed me that it will settle down, then change again. The only thing you can count on is that things WILL change.

Lis - what is a gurn?

Archie- the christening and party sound lovely. Your family leave something to be desired though . good on you for turning the other cheek, I'm not sure i'd have the sense to do that.

I'm also making bunting at the mo. I's room is going to be the hungry caterpillar theme, so I bought some fabric off eBay and appliqued his name on it. Ds2 took a fancy to it, so I've made him some too. All I need to do now is attach the flags to the tape.

Arch your family sound like a royal pain in the arse, I hope they didn't spoil your day too much, especially when you'd obviously gone to so much trouble. Good on you for not kicking up a stink though, probably the right approach. Perhaps you can dress little R up in her gown and get some good snaps at your leisure and it can become a funny family story when she's older and looking back at her baby pics: "Well of course that picture was taken a week AFTER your christening because on the big day your Granny dressed you in this HIDEOUS pink tracksuit ..."

We are planning a welcome to the world party for Joanna in a few weeks time in lieu of a christening since we're atheists ... But we don't have much (any!) money to spend on it so we're inviting everyone to a 'bring and share' picnic in our local park. Not really sure if that's the "done thing" and if everyone will think we're weird ....but I wanted to do something to mark the occasion and have a chance to introduce her to those who haven't met her yet so there it is.

Another vote here for Archers and lemonade (if someone else was buying!), 20/20 (the blue one) and cheapy two litre bottles of cider. Which reminds me -did you lot know that in New York some pubs sell S'bow as 'premium', 'sophisticated' European import cider for a vastly inflated price? We lived there a few years ago and I used to find that hilarious considering my underage drinking past !!

arch the baptism sounds lovely. What on earth was your mil thinking tho!! Id have gone nuts and put the gown back on.

star I remember 20-20 too! Ew.20-20 and dukes and hollywoods nightclubs.
S doesn't have much of a sleep pattern yet. Sometimes he sleeps thru and sometimes he goes every three hours!

iltmi I love the hungry caterpillar.

ecuse I think ur welcome to the world picnic is wonderful idea.

Wow Arch, I'd have gone nuts at your MIL, what a rude thing to do, and your dad's wife sounds like a peach too. I'm full of admiration that you were so calm.

That's a great idea Ecuse.

I can't remember whether I've asked this already to the MN crowd so do tell me to shut up if I have.

I'm seeing a close long-term friend tomorrow, she's 39 weeks with her first DC. She's been given loads of cute clothes and things so I've gone practical and decided to get her stuff I would have found really useful so I got her...

A Naty Nature introduction kit with 16 Eco nappies, nice baby oil, lotion and an organic cotton bib.

Posh Tea tree oil.

Baptiste dry shampoo and...

Anusol.

Yes, Anusol. I really wished someone had told me I would need it as the hospital made a huge fuss about giving me any and it took an age. Is that really mean of me? I honestly wished I'd had some and asking my mum to buy me some was embarrassing so I'm just trying to be helpful, is it too much?

Kitty - are you talking about duke's in Chelmsford and Hollywood's in Ipswich by any chance?

Sounds like some lovely presents Cycle, excuse my ignorance, but is Anusol for piles? I've bought a pg friend nipple cream before.

It is indeed for piles! Why does no one warn you! Why?!

And yes, I'm slightly bitter.

And yes, I'm slightly bitter.

iltmi yes to dukes but hollywoods was Romford :-) and good idea for the nip cream. What about lansinoh cycle

ILTMIMI A gurn is a whinger. So be was gurning this morning, not crying, but not happy. Its a scottish thing!:o!