April 2011 - Hello Grindstone. Nose here, reporting for duty.

[DairyBeetle]

Plumps comfy pillows, shakes warm fluffy blankets, passes them round, sleeps

Phew! Secret Santa posted! Glad we had a deadline, it would never have been sent otherwise!

Off to a baby Xmas party, longer post later (maybe!!)

Eeek...have I missed a posting deadline? Apologies in advance to my recipient if so, as I haven't posted it yet. Post Office is shut on Wednesday afternoon, so I'll do it tomorrow.

Sorry to hear that you're both feeling crap Mrs W and Cycle - at least you should be over it by Christmas. I always seem to come down with something for Christmas Day . Fingers crossed that P and I will be lurgy free this year.

Better night here. We only had one much shorter wake up, so I'm feeling a lot more lively today. In other news, I've just caught DD pulling baubles off the Christmas tree. The poor tree doesn't stand a chance. I wondered how long that would take...

Happy (belated) Birthday ILTMIMI and for today Chilli, hope you are both having lovely celebrations!

MrsW about the UTI being back. Can you get any cranberry extract from a health food shop anytime soon? I used to get a lot of UTIs and found taking high doses of the extract helped things ease faster, in combo with the ABs and drinking pints of fresh cranberry juice. Nasty, nasty things.

SS gift posted today so on its way to a little baby as I type.

Feeling like a day off parenting today. Both S and DS have colds, S has slept badly for 3 nights, DS is pushing every boundary known to man at playgroup and I just realised I am out of chocolate and biscuits. Have had to have honey on crumpets. Not really cutting it!

Don't worry Star, not a Royal Mail deadline, just the one set by Fizz - think she knew how disorganised some of us would be and put some leeway in there!! Not home from our Xmas party yet, waiting for DH at train station!

Actually today was the deadline because its the recommended last posting day for parcels. Sorry I thought i said that further up thread! However I'm sure posting tomorrow will be fine.

I braved shopping today! Primarni has just opened at our centre. its huge! Three floors of bargainous wonders! I went a bit mad!! Oops!

Oooops. I'm sure you did say it - I've just missed it . It will be posted first class tomorrow, promise!

I know what you mean Caramello. When you need chocolate, you need chocolate. Nothing else will do. I must admit that I sank as low as stealing next week's chocolates out the advent calendar earlier!

No teeth here, MrsW at 7.5 months

I'm trying to feed J back to sleep having just been copiously vommed over. Haven't even managed to have dinner yet and I'm starving. It's gone 10pm!!!. Spent two hours in IKEA earlier only to get to the end and find both big items I went for were out of stock. One of those days

Oh ecuse that is a bummer indeed! I both love and loathe Ikea.

Just feeding T back to sleep from his first wake up. Please let there only be one more, not two!

Mmmmmm, honey crumpets with lots of butter.... Mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Don't envy you ecuse, I'm constantly being thrown up on and it's one of the few things that make me cry when it's constant.

I like the festive make over Ali!

Miserable day today here. But I found aladybird camping out in the dining room. I wad showing b and he tried to eat it . made me remember catching them in matchboxes when I was young! I can't wait for b to be into bugs and creepy crawlies!

I'm looking forward to the bugs and creepy crawlies stage too Fizz. I used to love looking under all the rocks in the garden. Sadly we only have a back yard here :( I'll have to teach her not to take spiders to daddy though - he's the one who's scared of them here.

We're off to Christmas party at one of the Children's Centres later.

I gave M a bit of dark chocolate mint to try yesterday after my birthday lunch. I expected her to turn her nose up at it and pull a face but she's clearly daddy's girl and scoffed it. She loved trying to eat all the wrapping paper and envelopes too

I think my secret Santa has arrived , however I was out, so it's in a black hole the sorting office and I've got to wait until tomorrow to collect it - impatient, moi?!

My Secret Santa has been posted. I checked with the man behind the counter and the last day for first class post is next week, so it should be with you in time. Phew!

I've wrapped up SS gift and it's on the way. I'm very excited about it and hope that recipient really likes it. I'm absolutely shivery and lovely looking with a heavy cold. It's not all bad though. A little while back MNHQ sent me an email asking for my address. I dutifully replied. Yesterday I received a lovely anonymous card from "a fellow mumsnetter with thanks" with a £20 M&S voucher enclosed. I had a bit of a weep I was so touched, especially as this year we're not doing adult Christmas presents. So my kind fellow mumsnetter if you are on this thread/ kind MNHQ then thank you. I tend to believe that God sees all, and that was a very nice thing to do indeed.

In other news I didn't get to go to that ceilidh afterall.

I hope you had a good birthday ILTMIMI.

It's my DH birthday on saturday, after my birthday fiasco I'm tempted to write an AIBU to see what I should do for his birthday as my folks and close friend are strongly of the opinion that he gets nothing. I have bought some still and steak and hidden them in the freezer for doing a nice steak and sauce. Last weekend I bought a bottle of Cairn 0'mohr with intention to serve at dinner this Saturday but he's mistakenly opened it (I didn't say why it was in the fridge). I have sat down and made a card with help from the children from them welding the poster paint. WWYD? would do you absolutely nothing out of the ordinary? or would you buy a present and make a cake?

Hope all cold/lurgies vanish from our group soon.

How lovely Arch! What a fab surprise. I've been wondering how the Mumsnet Secret Santa works. Do MNHQ tell you why you've been nominated or is it all very mysterious?

Re your DH, I probably would still make a cake etc. Partly in order to be the bigger person, partly in the hope it would make him feel a tinsy bit guilty about his crapness for your birthday and mostly so I could eat a piece myself !

We've got snow this morning! I'm now feeling rather festive!

Snow here too and it is ds's pre school Christmas party, so he is stupidly excited

Thanks for the birthday wishes and hope you had a good birthday Chilli.

I's sleep the last two nights has been dreadful, so that combined with me actually having an evening social life means I seem to have a permanent tired headache - grrrrrrrr.

I would celebrate your dp's birthday Arch and be so bloody nice and passive aggressive, that I would kill him with kindness

So many things left to do and organise for Christmas that my head is spinning ......

Snow here too! And its really icy!

Arch what a lovely surprise for you. Make sure you get something lovely for yourself with it and some Percy pigs. I would kill with kindness too. I do a very good guilt trip.

Settling in day 2 either the child binder
. dropped him off sound asleep in the pram just after 9. I don't pick him up til 1. What to do with myself?

Happy belated birthday to the birthday ladies.

I've had builders here since Wednesday fixing my leaky shower. I'm getting cabin fever.

And the snow needs to get list or I can't get to my family Christmas again this year and I'll be gutted. Last year stuck in the car for 6 hours on the m25 while pregnant with s.

S now has three teeth. Found the third one yest when I thought how can he be grinding two bottom teeth. It's not above the bottom middle to but to the left up there. Odd. Smug tho cos mil said he would get the top front two next and have 8 by Christmas. Ha. He's also sleeping thru and self settling since my meltdown about three weeks ago where I left him to cry. Only for 10 mins. I went in and cuddles him and put him back but he cried again only for 5 mins then went to sleep. Since then he goes down after his bottle to music every-night. Hope those of you having a time of it get a break soon.

So my 3 hours Blair free were not long enough. but I got my cards finished. filed. the pile of paperwork that has appeared from nowhere and wrapped some presents.

On the kitchen front the paint I bought looks a bit against the tiles. its a deep red with the tiles being like different shades of natural stone. golds cream and grey. its only one coat un though over a sage green colour. it might be better after a few coats.

Hurray! Texted a pregnant friend to ask if we were still on to meet today and she texted back that she'd had her baby girl at 5.43am this morning!

She was due on the 22nd and was getting exhausted and thoroughly fed up so I'm so pleased for her. Baby is gorgeous!

Congrats to your friend cycle :)

M's secret santa has arrived :) and loads of other stuff for her. DH and I are going to spend the whole of Christmas day opening her stuff! She was giggling at me opening one parcel, I think it was the sound of the bubble wrap, then she enjoyed trying to eat the brown paper.

She had a mega nap after swimming today - 2 and a half hours - I got loads done; presents wrapped, cards written, washing sorted , more washing on, lunch! By the time she woke up I was beginning to wonder what to do next.

Chilli - I love it when DD does those kind of naps. It makes swimming worth the added effort of all the faff :)

Cycle - congrats to your friend :) Those early days seem so long ago already.

Caught up with a mum I vaguely know today, she has 20month gap between her boys (as do I) and her youngest is 4months old. Really took me back to those days; endless rounds of nappy changes, playgroups, cBeebies Wouldn't do a 20month gap by choice again.

DH doing the DC tea, DD having her fave; broccoli :)

Awh that's fab cycle

What a lovely surprise Arch, I would also join in on the upper hand for DH birthday . BTW I just googled Cairn 0'mohr , as I hadn't heard of it before. DH is a bit of a wine buff. He's also a fan of real ales and traditional drinks like mead & porter. It sounds like a potential future gift idea. Which is your personal favourite/recommendation?

No teeth here either Mrs W and P will be 9 months on New Years Eve. And in answer to your earlier question, yes the roads in Guernsey are really like that

Congratulations to your friend Cycle, must be something in the air as a friend of mine has just had her baby too. I'm hoping to see him next week when DH has a couple of days off as he can look after the DC and I can have a proper visit without worrying about DS touching what will undoubtedly be her precious first born. wistfully remembers the days of steralising anything the my own PFB might possibly remotely touch, as opposed to now where it might get a quick wipe on my jumper if lucky.

Oh and for the Strictly fans, Artem made an appearance in the Cbeebies panto (which I made DS watch, halfway through he wanted to change the channel so I hid the sky remote ).

I held a newborn on Thursday night As much as I adore them, I am not doing it again. It's the whole lack of sleep thing that gets me.

Lol at hiding the remote Gache Your comments about Guernsey roads made me laugh. I bet the locals hate visitors/tourists driving, they must seem aggressive and speed freaks.i know I would be a nightmare, I adore driving fast.

Have you been watching The Killing 2 Gache ? I'm gripped, not even the subtitles put me off.

The presents were wrapped last night and I have dropped off thelast of the Christmas cards, so the never ending list is going down - hurrah!

A day of haircuts, swimming, getting Sky installed and nipping into town. I am NOT looking forward to going into town, there may be lots of swearing involved!