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.

I love that term just have to make sure I don't use it to his face!!

His latest reply:

Thank you for your surprisingly detailed and unusually polite email.

I have a query though; Why have you listed Jan 21st - 28th as this has no
apparent bearing on the rest of the email as it does not affect the
children? (I also note you haven't included any of the periods that you've
taken the children away to visit your family).

Would you please be so kind as to clarify exactly what is it that we're
discussing and clarify the status of your "advisor".

Many thanks in advance

So lovely and polite starlight is also cc'ed into it!! I've have NEVER heard so much from him in one day.

Star I think you are a genius

Reply to the stuff that matters. Don't get into a conversation about the unusualness or otherwise of your polite emails nor the status of your advisor. Ignore both but sort out the date stuff.

(as tempting as it would be to inform him that the status of your advisor is someone who advises you) God what an arse.

In fact, I would respond this time without ccing the advisor (although be as polite and stick to the important points as much as possible) saving the cc stuff for when he is being an arse as a behaviour modification system. I.e the reward for him being polite is you don't cc iyswim.

And I ain't no genius. Unfortunately I've learned these skills because I had to.

Thing is Star - he's actually replied about some other stuff to do with the kids, and told me about what he's said to DD1 about an incident earlier in the week. It's a big improvement.

On the minus side...... I can't be bothered to list it all. But he's upset my friend (who does us a lot of favours with DD1) and our childminder this week.

On the plus side he's away skiing all next week so I have the kids and no discussions

Bec value bread at that!

ninja Tbh I would cc star on every e mail for a while - at least until this new found politeness is more common in your dealings?

star Am job hunting atm but in the current climate its not looking good

I know Bec. I saw your TA thread which was too depressing to follow after a bit.

Yep, it was wasnt it? Courses gone up by 400%...the OU was developed supposedly to help people like me who couldnt afford the usual Uni costs.

Not sure whats going to happen tbh....I could apply for a student loan I guess but no guarantees.....sigh.

Looks like you are finally getting somewhere Ninja with the twatbadger.

Bec that is bad luck with the boiler and with OU price rise. I am getting worried about UNI costs. Our one is apparently really good so they have hiked the fees up to £9,000 per year. IT will be at least next year before I get to go but it is still a worry with 4 kids to feed as well.

I passed my Breastfeeding peer supporter course so I can now hopefully help mums who are wondering how to feed baby or who have any problems. I also go into Doula training in April and then the Access course for Higher ED in September as well so a busy educational year for me

Been lurking and really pleased to see ninja's finally managed to make progress communicating with xh.

Third trimester here (27+4 today) and nesting is in full swing with the builders being 2 weeks into ground floor renovation. New front door goes on next week, so they can finish inside of the porch. Painting then new floor being laid. All v exciting.

Am thinking of offering to work an hour a day from home during mat leave. Ds is at nursery in the morning so am hoping to do this when baby is napping. Potentially this could be quite flexible so if I 'miss' a day I could make up for it the next. Am I being unrealistic? I remember many hours sat on the sofa with ds - breastfeeding and watching e4 or browsing mn on my phone. I'm thinking a lot of this work could be done from my phone.

debs Yes its awful isnt it? HE should be accessible for everyone and thats now not the case anymore...its going to be HE for the rich from now on IMO

Well done on passing the BF support course btw!

Boiler fitted - please pray that nothing else goes wrong!! Been shopping to get paint for the conservatory and wallpaper for the front room so thats cheered me up a bit!

ninja and star what a team, long may the new responsive twatbadger last!

ninja it hadn't occurred to me to get the bigger size nappies...will get back to the growth charts pdq!

bec so :( for you. I was talking about student prices to someone (starting to face up to our DCs not having a uni education even if they want one) and a teacher friend was saying the new fees thing has been woefully mis-sold - the payment terms mean you'd pay back less than under the current system, even though the fees are more iyswim. But I have to admit I haven't looked into it any way, my oldest child only being 4!

Said 4 year old came home from school today with some independent writing that included the words "arsy", "nogin" and "ming" and something that looks a lot like "shiite"

DG how lovely to see you here, so excited for you that you're nesting! The renovations sound lovely!

MrsA how are you doing....?

debs well done on passing your course!

"arsy", "nogin" and "ming" and something that looks a lot like "shiite"

Carrie you'll still pay back more, but you don't start until your salary is bigger (so a teacher wouldn't have to pay back straightaway for example) and you pay a lower amount per month I think.

It is to all intents and purposes like a graduate tax I suppose (except the richest won't pay more). However, it doesn't feel like that wehn you're getting into debt. The other unknown is how Mortgage companies etc will consider it in the future - i.e. will it be seen as any other loan would be.

It's a hideous amount of money isn't it? Carrie you are right as well I'm sure that the class divide in HE will increase. It was becoming a little ridiculous the amount of people going to University, especially as a lot of the things they were studying were better placed under different schemes, but at least it inceased opportunities.

Bec I do feel for you - why might you not get a student loan?

Star I know you've had to learn the hard way, you've really had soem fights on your hands

ninja sounds like you're doing ok and making some progress. Love the nn twatbadger btw.

carrie thanks for asking after me. We had a bad day yesterday. DS has major cold and at 6 weeks can't have anything. DP was away Thurs night and it was all going so well. I managed to eat tea and we had a chilled evening but then he woke at 11 with a bad cold and basically struggled all night, plus 2 lots of baby sick. Then DD was coughing so much she was sick. So yesterday was hard - had both all day, was so so tired and DS is still feeding every 2hrs at least so as soon as DD and I started doing something he seemed to want to eat. Lunch took 6 attempts! In the end he had to cry a bit and I admit I shouted at him to my shame. A better night last night but roll on 2 weeks when he can have calpol!

ninja I am not sure I am entitled to a student loan (?) as a part time student and my age (old!) and then there is the notion of taking on debt which I am not happy about....although under the current rules I would never have to pay it back as I would never earn over £21k!!!! Cant be right, can it? I have nightmares about successive govts altering the rules and suddenly saying "oh, we will have our money back now, thanks!"

carrie good spellings!!!!

mrsa Oh its is hard when they are so young you cant give them anything Hope he feels better soon x

Spoke too soon ladies....conservatory roof is leaking again Its getting a bit ridiculous now, isnt it??? So, got to get that fixed (£???)

Its such a shame....I know moving before xmas isnt the best idea and god knows falling down the stairs didnt help (!) but I am really struggling to be happy here Just so many problems and so much money we dont have

ninja and bec.

Congrats Debs!

Well we are back home after 5 looong months. Still loads to do and as I'm typing this, dh is fitting kitchen doors (quietly of course thanks to the electric screwdriver) as our neighbours are frosty with us enough as it is. I don't blame them as they put up with all the noise, whilst I swanned off with the dd's to my folks. They were actually very good and didn't complain too much.

I went back to work this week, just part-time, to help out out finances as the building work has wiped us. I wanted to work closer to home but I can't be picky.

bec gawd, it's one thing after another isn't it? So sorry all these repairs need doing at the same time? Do you know anyone handy that could temporarily put a bit of gaffer tape over the leak until you can afford to get it properly fixed?

The only way we're affording to do all our work is that we finally managed to get our mortgage renewed at a much lower interest rate so even though we've borrowed more money we're actually paying a little bit less per month.

kagey does this mean there's an end in sight?

DS is occasionally falling asleep by himself - yay! And if he hasn't had a ridiculously early bedtime he mostly goes through till 5/6am before coming in with us. This is a massive development for him (and us) and will hopefully lead to him feeling more confident through the night. I never thought it would take this long, but glad he's doing it of his own accord rather than us having to go through more stressful 'sleep training'.

Just bought an Ergo carrier off eBay, still need to flog my wilkinet so I can also buy a wrap sling. Little bit excited!

Oh yes digi the end is in sight .

digi Pleased to hear the house is going ok. Have you applied for DS's school place?

ninja and star well done on taking charge of the twatbadger .

carrie DS tried to write 'Thank You' in class this week. It came out as F K U. Even his teacher thought it was funny. I did speak to her this week and he's doing well. Some messing about (he has to sit separately from his friend at story time and there have been wee-ing competitions in the boys loo's) but generally pretty good.

bec Really sorry you're not settled in the house yet .

debi Did I imagine it or are you off to NZ this Spring? [spends too much time on MN emoticon].

My Dsis has arrived in Sydney and flies to NZ next weekend. They're having a chilly summer over there apparently.

aw bec - the house will seem so much better in Spring when it gets warmer! and at least if you deal with all the problems now there's much less that could take you by surprise next Winter.

Anyone else with a threenager who's started getting out of bed to play silly buggers? Ds will lull me into a false sense of security by sleeping for about an hour and then repeatedly materialising - and usually refusing to go back to his room though sometimes can be convinced. He's now realised that if he sits on my foot I can't bend down to pull him up, which is not great if MrNC is out, and also I can't plonk him in bed and shut his door fast enough before he gets there and shoves body parts in the way (we normally leave the door ajar so he can go to the potty, as the handle is too stiff for him to open yet...thank god)

And I've hit the stage where I'm just too exhausted to do anything other than sleep really - only 36 weeks today. Not sure how I can cope - the house is a right state as I can't get anything off the floor and ds is more likely to throw stuff on the floor than pick much up.
Any ideas?

meglet yes, we've applied to a grand total of two schools. They're the only schools we're in the catchment area for and the second one we've put only has a one form entry so quite likely that the catchment has shrunk for that this year. Find out Easter I think. Hoping the distraction of a new baby will stop me from remembering to stress about it!

NC DS is currently upstairs clapping like a Maitre D to get our attention ("Mum!" Clap-clap "Come here now!"). He had a ridiculous 3 hour nap today (even after sleeping through last night till 7:30) that neither of us had the energy to wake him out of. Hence not being asleep despite bedtime not starting till 9. Anyway, I've found that the naughty step works for me. Yesterday he had 3 x 3mins on it after ripping my cardigan and refusing to apologise. After the third spell he apologised and ate all his dinner. It often works as a time out for both of us and when given the choice he occasionally opts for the naughty step rather than eat breakfast/pick up his toys/say sorry. But eventually he will do as he's told. Playing up when we're out and about and he's knackered is another thing altogether.

Some of you may remember we had a problem with DS swearing. Managed to get him to stop saying the F word after telling him it was naughty. He now tells us off if we accidently slip a Bloody into a sentence. However, we've both recently said the word 'Shit' when dropping something - and this is DS's new 'Oops'. Have told him off about it so now he just says it when I'm not in the room. Such a bad mummy.

meglet lol at 'F K U'!
DD attempted to write bananas in pyjamas yesterday but it reads all west country - bnrnnus in bjrmus
DD's got another uti - third in six months. Turns out if you go the walk in centre with an under-5 then you get to queue jump though! We've got our referral to the enuresis clinic for the end of Feb. Really not sure what they'll do, but I'll try and remain faintly optimistic that there will be some way of retraining her.
NC can you put the potty and nightlight in your DS's room, or would that result in more messing around?
Kagey that's great that you're home! We only moved out for 6 weeks when our extension was done and that was long enough!

NC 36 weeks??? Gosh, you must be exhausted Toby wants to use the "big toilet" which is fine but he doesnt always tell me and then we get accidents as he cant always pull his pants/jeans down and get up there quick enough!

Thanks for the sympathy re: house. Am v v fed up

I am terrible lately for swearing...well, you cant imagine with whats been going on!!! Anyway, this morning (when my mum was here, natch) he piped up with "mummy will you turn the bloody octonauts on??!

Ds1 has blood on the paper after going to the loo so trying to get him to GPs this week...always something isnt there?

carrie - might try the potty in ds's room, or threaten it if he doesn't stay in his room! It works for dn at ours (who is currently being a right nightmare for his mum as will get up and play all night, whereas if ds is in his room, he at least gets into bed within the hour and is fine).

digi the 'calming down mat' aka doormat has the issue of how to get ds to stay on it now I can't physically dump him back onto it. And last time he was on it and I turned away he picked it up and somehow carted it into the lounge where dn was watching telly and then argued he was still on it!

As for swearing, somehow I manage to do fairly well not swearing in front of the kids, but end up releasing it all in front of my parents instead. Wonder if this is partly why they finally think I've grown up??

At least I'm not worrying much about schools - dn is under 150m from his first choice, and ds is next year and will likely end up at whichever of the 3 local schools is forced to have a bulge class that year, all of which are fine.

We haven't even thought about applying for schools yet.
Robyn will stay at the private nursery for now, Lucy will join her for 2 mornings/afternoons a week from September.
We are desperately hoping we will get a move before then or me and DP will have to sleep in the dining/play/dumping room. With the dog and the cat and most of our food, great for a midnight snack. If we do move then it will be a mad rush to get her into a place near us which is still a good school. I have identified 3-4 good schools out of about 15 so we are hoping to beat the odds on this.
DD has just been accepted into 6th form at her school and at a local 6th form college and she doesn't mind about travelling, although if she stays at school we get extra points for housing.