Sept 08- The threenagers have arrived - Advanced negotiating and crowd control skills required

[DebiTheScot]

Sorry Meglet if you wanted to start the thread with your title but I thought I'd best do it while there was still one space to post the link to this one on the last one.

How can one man be sooooo annoying, always late and always thing he's right grrrrrr

30 mins late thsi morning with M so could have missed Charlie and Lola (and he was clearly late for work)

30 mins late this evening and if my friend hadn't stepped in DD1 would have been late for her Brownie party 'Oh I forgot about that'. We must have had the conversation 3 or 4 times about both the times. I was teaching this evening online and had to start with M there which wasn't ideal.

He's so effing irresponsible but yet still angry at me.

Sorry, rant over. Had a mini Christmas party this afternoon too so a busy day, fun except poor DD1 was overtired and sulked a lot of the time because she'd organised it and wanted everyone to do things her way. She doesn't do herself any favours. Mulled wine and cider went down well though even though I couldn't drink it 'cos of working later.

NC not meant to work below 16 deg C - that's ridiculous !

Bec that's a crazy list of things to stop working, you must ahve one of those electrical thing curses

No way is our kitchen over 16C at this time of year. In fact most of the house isn't. Especially poor ds1's room which I think is about 5!

Rant away ninja, we don't mind!

Roff man is coming at 7.15am tomorrow and the boys and I have to catch a train at 8.15 to Scotland. It'll be chaos!

Kitchen is around 4 degrees as the olive oil is solid again. At least it means we can just leave food in there and not worry about a fridge. ILs have decided to come on the 24th after all, which is good, as the room will be done - radiator and carpet fitter come tomorrow.
I get to see a consultant tomorrow and hopefully convince him that MW-led care will be just fine thanks. Have to take A with me... he's just tried to get me to read him another story so is now in bed 'reading' to himself, so getting him up in the morning should be fun!

Good luck at the consultants nc

Been up with Toby all night...poor love has what ds1 has/had.

ninja God, he is an arse, isnt he??? You rant away!

Plumber coming tomorrow to try and sort boiler - fingers crossed - I miss my bath

Have finally stripped and made the beds for xmas - hope Toby doesnt throw up between now and then

Put all the furniture back the conservatory last night - if the roof leaks again I am just putting a bowl under it! I am NOT moving all the furniture again!

Cant do much tomorrow (plumber here) so on friday will be really busy cleaning/ironing/last minute shopping etc

Had to take my mum back to GP ysterday - she has a really bad water infection...have never heard of the ABs she is on!

Still not feeling very festive

YAY!!! The children are free of puke.

Had a lovely birthday yesterday doing college work, making my birthday cake and then wrapping presents. It was good though, tutor says she is certain I will pass so from January I will be helping to run an antenatal and breastfeeding group. Then 4 months relaxing before starting the Doula course.
It is all go next year and if it goes well I will be at college by the end and hopefully uni the year after. A bit scary but it's time I got back out there and got ready for a job.

Cake went well. I made a giant red velvet cupcake. Apart from the crusty bit where I left it in too long it was gorgeous. Got a very nice handbag from Next from my mum, chocs, books, slippers and perfume off everyone else.
I think I have everyone's gifts bought just need to get the food in.

hey leonie, good to hear from you!

Merry xmas and happy 2012! xxxx

do you realise it's nearly 4 years since the Sept 08 group was started!

I'm looking at the Xmas tree in the box, I should be building it but have .

Happy Christmas Leonie xx

Meglet I should be wrapping even more presents but Lucy is still awake on DP's knee so another late night for us. Could do with something to drink but don't like wine. Off to make another

leonie the only thing I did manage to do was to post my USA cards on time. Since then it's all gone downhill.

I need to build the tree really. Not a snowballs chance in hell of being able to do it when the DC's are awake. They've chosen their new baubles, I let them choose 1 new one each when the decorations are all marked down.

wow meglet you've made me realise that today is the 22nd, my LMP before having DS. I remember AF arrived shortly before setting off down south to go to my parents for what was my DD's first Christmas. I cried most of the way in the car, but little did I know what the next year held for us And I've recently passed the first anniversary of what shall be knows as the-day-I-should-have-had-an-operation, but poas 'just in case' in the morning with little faith after 11m of trying...and it was positive!
leonie good to see you again, I'm in awe of your organisation!
I'm going to marzipan the christmas cake tonight. Might brandy it one more time first . I don't even like Christmas cake, but I'm excited to have made my first ever one none the less!

Well I didn't get any wrapped. And I have a parcel to collect but the PO queues are horrendous so that gift may well wait till after christmas. Lucy is being a nightmare getting to sleep and I was so tired that I took her up with me at 10.30 in the end. She is sat with DP now trying to go to sleep.

Robyn has been a whingy whiney monster today. She has cried at everything and shouted everytime we speak to her. I had to bribe her to get her pj's on and have her hair brushed tonight. Am hoping tomorrow will be calmer. The only thing she enjoyed was making christmas cards/gift tags after tea. Lucy managed to eat a star sequin and almost choked on it but managed to cough it back up.

Well, I never wrapped any presents but the tree is up.

Today I cleaned some windows and polished the shoes .

DD's potty training is going ok, no accidents today!

Can I just ask, has everyone already put wrapped presents under the tree? I was shocked to find out someone with kids the same age as mine has put the presents out and they haven't torn into them . They wouldn't last 5 mins with my 2, I won't put their presents out until Xmas morning.

I'm starting to think my dc's are seriously badly behaved compared to most kids. Even passers by give me sympathy / support when we're all out together and tell me I have my hands full, it's really getting to me these days.

Meg I do have wrapped presents under the tree and I am absolutely astounded that M hasn't attacked them.

My friends think she's lovely but hard work

Have horrible coled/cough/chest infection .... and feel rough. Not helped by being out until 2am at my frinds 40th yesterday.

Got to go and wrat Father Christmas presents then off to be with a lemsip

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!! And thanks for all the support and letting me rant :)

We have presents under the tree and neither boy has gone near them. They are fascinated by them tho.
Santa only brings stocking fillers here, bigger presents are from the people they are from. Some of ours have been left at home and some are here at the inlaws.

Going for a run in the morning then church in aft and then out for an Indian. Looking forward to it.

Debi you're so dedicated - I'm going to try and set out a timetable for running and exercise in the new year

I did do the Yule Yomp 10k at Tatton Park a couple of weeks ago, very muddy and rainy but I really enjoyed it :)

Full day today, party at friends at 10.30, going to see Pinoccio at 1.30 and party at the cricket club at 5 - and don't forget Noad Tracking Santa :)

Finally got them all wrapped.
Presents come out tonight once they are all in bed, so anytime after 9pm(I am hoping) They all have pj's to open after bathtime and then a stocking to put up. Then I will bring down the hoards of presents and probably fill our living room. I told DP we wouldn't go mad as we are trying to declutter but he can't help it
Lucy is still being a nightmare and it took me 3 attempts to get her to settle in her cot. Then she came into my bed when I went up. I don't know why they are both bad sleepers. DD1 and DS were in their own beds and really easy to get to sleep by 1 year. I think I am just lazier now and I can't be bothered to persevere, I just put them in my bed. It is warmer that way.
Robyn isn't whining as much now but she is really snotty so think that was part of the problem.

If I don't get back on have a Happy Christmas Everyone

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you all have a fabulous day xx

Happy Christmas everyone! Hope you've had a great time. We didn't put the presents under the tree because we didn't want them all being opened on Christmas day but are spreading them out across the week so that each toy gets played with before they move on to the next one. So yesterday they had stockings and their main presents from us, today we saw BIL and SIL so they got presents from them. Tomorrow we'll bring out the presents that had been sent in the post from other friends, the day after we'll see DH's parents and get more presents, then a few days later we might bring out the presents that my parents left here for us.
My motto of 'if in doubt, bake' means we had 8 pudding options today . Everyone we see, including the tesco delivery driver, gets a goody bag!
DS2 has had conjunctivitis and was really unwell on Saturday afternoon but seems fine now. We are rapidly approaching weaning, maybe even start tomorrow since DH is around all week.
DS1 still hasn't connected his bladder to his brain, ah well.
Hope you all have a lovely week - this is my favourite week of the year where we see lots of family and friends, have yummy food, play with new things, and it feels like reality has been briefly suspended. Hope you all enjoy it too :)

Happy belated Christmas everyone and I hope you all had a good one .

I'm currently braving the sales, but spending most of the time waiting outside a shop with dd2, whilst dh tries on more checked shirts to add to his identical many .

Hello all.

Lovely party yesterday - 20 of us here, lots of food and drink and making a fool of ourselves on the wii

We all have this viral thingy going around - lots of snot and sneezing and Toby is still not well at all

MIL really outdid herself this year wrt gifts....even dh and SIL got rubbish this year! I got socks and tights (useful) and dinner place mats with a view of Scarborough on (I mean, I like scarborough, but?) and a load of twigs sprayed with red glitter in a bottle (I have no idea what thats about)

dh got socks and hankies (useful) and a tin musical xmas tree (wtf?)

SIL got a red fleecy house coat and gloves that dont fit.

Oh well, its the thought that counts - except she didnt really put much thought into it

Dc have had far too much as usual - we usually so what you do carrie and stagger the gifts but it hasnt worked out that way this year as we didnt go to dh's aunts on xmas eve (poorly dc) and wont be seeing anyone else now either.

We are away for the next couple of days so happy new year everyone!!! especially ninja star and splish and good luck to those with new arrivals on the way!! xxxx

Hello everyone!
Laptop totally dead but have resurrected an old desktop to access the outside world again.
Fridge repairman useless - told us we should have defrosted it for 24 hours before he arrived, with our psychic powers presumably, and he didn't have the parts anyway. MrNC then spent the evening defrosting and poking all the pipes he could find and got it going again at 2am!

A was a total star in his Christmas concert, with the very responsible job of handing out jingle bells and instruments to all the younger children. Turned out he was to sit at the front on the floor so just in front of me also on the floor, and he charmed lots of other parents before it started. :)

thanks to friends who decorated the house and took a shopping list and returnd with everything, our party on the 23rd was great and we had everything for Christmas sorted while I lay down a lot. :) Consultant basically said 'hm', is waiting for the psych's opinion on my drugs, and wants to see me again at 36 weeks just in case but the idea is I can have a MW-led birth with a neonatologist brought out near the end just in case, but that may not be necessary. At least I don't have diabetes so never have to drink Lucozade again!

We and ILs finally got kids to bed on Christmas Eve and then presents wrapped, stockings filled, a game played and booze drunk/chocolate eaten. Disrupted night as dn4 was poorly and then I spent a few hours throwing up, culminated in BIL getting up at 6am to trip over my prone naked body on the bathroom floor... Luckily I felt better after a few hours, and despite dinner being cooked by 6 different chefs with little coordination, it worked out OK!
I then fell down the stairs and figured that was a good excuse to stay on the sofa being waited on for the next few hours (landed on my well-padded thigh, so SPD and baby unaffected, just a bruise). We eventually found the kids under the mountains of wrapping paper!

Highlight was seeing children so happy with some of their smaller presents - shame I missed them opening stockings and A finding the whole toy farmyard, but he looked exactly like the photos of me playing with it 33 years earlier!
And watching the Gruffalo Child, each child on a lap, followed by lots of gruffalo/mouse/dinosaur roleplaying. :)

On New Year's Day I move into my new room, sort out baby stuff boxes and realise I have nothing in the calendar except for giving birth...

Happy New Year in case I don't manage to get computer access before then!