July 2010: It's about time, that we all went back to rhyme!

[Spirael]

Though mutiny is always an option.

*too
**doing

Not got the energy to post much as I've had a crappy, vomit/snot/coughing/loose nappy/prescription drug filled day (I feel like a frigging pharmacist I've doled out that many drugs to different family members today) and I'm exhausted. I'm ill, kids are ill. I really, really hope we all sleep it off a bit tonight because I don't know how I'll cope tomorrow if none of us feel better :(

Sounds like a lovely day in the end woodlands

Night all

Sorry your all sick mlic. I've got snotty, sore throat, fever and shivers - but it only came on in the last hour. Can you catch sickness through an MN thread?

Feel rotten. Hope the family don't catch it.

Seems there's disruption all over at the moment. Totally feel for everyone not getting sleep and coping with grumpy LOs! M is definitely teething, one has finally broken through on the bottom, which explains why she's not slept through for a week now.

Hopefully there's just the twin tooth on the other side to come through now, then we can return to full nights of sleep. [wibble]

DH and I are indebted now to his parents though who not only helped us replace our shower that decided to spectacularly and spontaneously expire the other day, but also took M away overnight last night so we could tidy the pigsty house and get some sleep!

I need a cleaner, which means I need more money, which means I need to work more, which means I have even less time to sleep/clean. [explodes]

And things need to stop breaking! [glares menacingly at the car/boiler/xbox360/pc/shower] The next thing to stop working is going regret it!

[goes to bed]

I hope all the non-sleeping/sick babies (and mums) are better soon.

I had a shocker of Sunday due to only 4 hours sleep, it was a bit self-inflicted by my late night on Saturday though. Dh helped by fucking off to play golf for 8 hours .

It was a total "count down the hours till bedtime" day. I went to bed at 7.30pm and slept for 9 hours straight till 4.30 when G was briefly awake. Then back to sleep till 6am. Feel loads better for such a big sleep.

Spirael - I have a cleaner and she is totally worth every penny. She charges me £16 a week (£8 per hour) and cleans my house top to bottom most weeks (if I leave it messy she sometimes doesn't have time to dust a room).

I love it, because it would take me three days to do what she manages in 2 hours.

She's such a pro, but also doesn't have kids under her feet whilst trying to do it.

Night

From

Hell

Oh no mlisc dare I ask what happened?

D went to sleep so well, 7:20 and only took 10 mibs buy he was then up 5 times in the next 4 hours. He was really bunged up and coughing and he seemed to have bad wind.

He came in our bed in the end.

Oh no mlisc, poor you, sounds like you desperately needed sleep. WHat happened?

Although we did nice stuff yesterday J was just so whingy and unpleasant all day long - I hate it when they don't get enough sleep. ANyway, miraculously last night he slept all the way through till 7.10am! Hooray! Hope it wasn't just a one off. Unfortunately I didn't sleep brilliantly, I think I'm getting a cold - feel all sore-throaty this morning. Grr.

what happened mlic

fabulous night woodlands

ours was shit - both up loads. F awful today as over-tired. roll on nap time.

So, quick survey - what are you doing for lunches and puds now? tis always nice to get ideas as i find it hard to

Our lunches seem to have settled into a routine of alternating weeks of me making either a big batch of tarka dal (+ a veggie like kale) or vegetable soup (+ a protein like quinoa) and then having the former with 2 or 3 of the following: mango chutney, chapatis, poppadoms and/or rice and the latter with bread, rolls or garlicky croutons if I have some bread to use up.

on other days we'll tend to have pasta or noodles plus veggies, 'cheese' etc

For puds, I tend to make a cake like sticky date cake, carrot cake or banana bread most weeks so they'll have that. on non-cake days it'll be soya icecream, yoghurt or dessert + fruit (with vitamins, flax oil and ground almonds bunged in).

about to make some very non-nutritious cakes using the bits and pieces from a Thomas box mix (making my own batter)

Morning all,
Oh mylife sounds BAD your end, are both children poorly and how do u feel?
Our night was the same as usual, D goes down easily, sleeps till 4ish then wakes for about an hour and a half and chats moans and bangs around while we lie there fuming, he then settled to sleep this morning untill 8! which isnt ideal due to three mornings a week having to be at the cm at 8. I soooo wish i know why he does it, i checked him and hes not wet, it cant be teething as it happenes so regularly so god knows!
Hes whinging like MAD now he hates me being on here.
Had a nice weekend in Brum, but seriously exhausting, went to Ikea and got some train set for D's xmas.............................BLOODY HELL MANNNNNNNNNNN.
wHINGE CITY, HAVE TO GO!!!

hard to ..... find time to make something fresh every day

For lunches I tend to make soup most weeks - I made butternut squash soup this weekend and will be having that for lunch. Soup seems to be the best way to get J to eat vegetables, he loves it (the spicier the better!). We have that with bread and cheese or ham. Other light meals I give J include beans on toast, scrambled eggs, eggy bread etc. For puddings - at lunchtime usually just fruit, at dinnertime he has plain Greek yoghurt (sometimes with a spoonful of honey or lemon curd mixed in as a treat) plus a banana and some blueberries.

He has lunch at nursery three days a week anyway. They have a main meal and proper puddings there!

Ok so my night started off badly. Then got worse.

I couldn't get biglad to sleep because he was hysterical, crying 'I feel so poorly' :( I thought I had cracked it at one point but 5 minutes later he was at the top of the stairs, sobbing. So I brought him down and he didn't know what the hell to do with himself. He wanted to go to bed, so I took him, he didn't want to go to bed. I eventually got him to sleep at 8.45 but then he was up again at 9.30 so I decided to sleep in his room. Even next to me he was sitting up, sobbing. He was up 9.30pm, 10pm until 10.30pm, 11pm then I gave him more paracetamol and cough medicine, 1am and then seemed to settle down a bit after that but was still crying out in his sleep and he was paranoid about me leaving him so he kept ramming his feet under my ribs/leg and hitting me when he threw his hand out to check he could still feel me.

Then I got up to babyface who had been sick, so had to put his bedding straight in the wash. He hates his antibiotics and has to have them 4 times a day.

Took bigboy to the docs because he was so bad last night/this mornng but she said it's just this really nasty viral thing and there's no sign of infection, thank goodness. She seemed hopeful that his bad episode last night may have been the 'peak' of the virus. Here's hoping.

And now I have a pain in my left ear. I'm sick of feeling ill. I'm exhausted with coughing continuously and being up all night.

Sorry about the 'me, me, me' - am feeling a leetle sorry for myself!

Cake I give the boys a hearty breakfast, a light lunch and their main meal is in the evening. So lunches tend to be snacky - cauliflower cheese/beans on toast/sandwich/scrambled egg type stuff. I don't give them puddings unless you count fromage frais and fruit as puddings. Occassionally they'll have jelly or custard but not very often.

God mlisc what a shitty night. Really hope you can get more sleep tonight. Hope the boys feel better too.

D still has a snotty cold and cough, he's been asleep half an hour and woke up coughing 20 mins ago.

Dh is off work today so we're going into town to do some Xmas shopping and try D out on reigns for the first time.

ouch mlic, sounds awful. i wonder if F has the same virus as your ds1 as he's coughing, upset and not sleeping well at all - tis only because dh did most of his wake-ups/slept in his bed in the end, leaving me to focus on Madame Teether that I got any sleep at all. i really don;t know how you do it all on your own

hope you get a decent break at nap-time tsc

any reason why you two aren't into giving puds? just out of interest.

i think part of the reason, i always give them it (after lunches and dinners tho the lunch one will be smaller like a fig roll biscuit) is to keep their calorie intake high enough given a) their main meals might not be as fat-dense as some and b) they rarely have anything else sweet, ie little fruit and no sweets and c) they're not grazers, they just have meals + afternoon snack

Mornin

sounds like colds and viruses all round. Shitty time of year.

F seems to have his first snotty nose as well at only just two weeks old. Poor thing.

He's doing OK but has started to get belly aches so we're off to the osteopath later. Hope they can help him. I feel so helpless when he screams and arches in agony and there is nothing I can do to make him feel better

M is not doing so well . She screamed pretty much all day yesterday, no matter what we did. Played with her, sang to her, went out, stayed in etc... It was unbelievable. Proper screaming, kicking, tantruming the.whole.fucking.day. We thought she was very tired, but then she was up at night for 3 whole hours. I have no idea what to do with her. Since she was pretty bad before F was born, I'm not even sure it's related to him being here or if she would have been like that anyway. She doesn't resent him, tells us when he cries, strokes him, smiles at him etc.

cake, mlisc and chulita Did your older children do anything like that in the weeks after you brought home the then baby? How did you react?

I'm trying to hold her and cuddle her and tell her it is unacceptable to be screaming and then praise her as soon as she stops but it doesn't make a jot of a difference. Oh well, maybe she just needs time to adjust to the changes, but it's not nice.

Other than that we're fine though and enjoying our family of 4.

lunches: M got a bit bored of the stuff I give her for dinner (lunch is our big meal, so I'm writing what she has for dinner) so I've started to give her whatever is leftover from lunch and she loves that. Sounds boring but she likes to eat proper meals rather than sandwich type of stuff these days, so we just go with it. I'm sure it will change soon though, cos a few weeks ago bread was her favourite

You were talking about the December ante natal thread the other day viks. I feel a bit the same. I've posted a few times in October but have not really clicked with them and they also seem a bit exclusive so I have not bothered lately. I can hardly keep up here.

Have a good day all.

Trudy it sounds entirely co-incidental to me. Maybe she's off colour too.

I don't give puddings because I do enough bloody cooking! They don't 'need' it - I certainly don't have a pudding after every meal and don't see why they need to.

Neither of them have had more than a slice of toast and a fromage frais for the last two days anyway so it's a moot point atm

Trudy sounds a bit stressfull with M, poor girl, i wonder why shes upset, it must be very different for them, how is she with the nanny?
tsc whats the matter, hope ur feeling better, did he nap?
cake My goodness ur meals sound advanced, D has refused even pasta so far and i havent even tried him with rice yet. He usually has a really good breakfast and a hot dinner bit i too struggle with lunch, today he has had grated cheese, ham, tomatoe and eggy bread. Its always picky stuff like that really, i usually give him a yog/custard/fruit pot for afters for lunch and dinner and then sometimes a biscuit if he will eat it. He so wants to do it all himself at the moment, he will hardly have anything off a spoon from me but will eat the lot if he holds the spoon himself. I brought waffels containing carrott today, weird, have never given him anything like that before, do u think its bad?? Trying to find finger/fork food for him though.
mylife i hope today is easier for u, sounds poo there.

W woke up after a 50 min nap but I got him back off. He woke up after a further 50 mins and I brought him down and gave him his antibiotics.

He promptly threw up all over me, himself and the kitchen floor.

Thankfully E seems to have picked up some this afternoon. But my ear still hurts. I do hope it's just congestion and not an infection

Hello ladies im back! a little fatter due to cakes every night and a lot of take outs but im back to healthy eating!
Ive missed you guys! shit it isnt half lonely without my laptop!
I love the house its finally taking shape, L loves his new room and is sleeping so much better but is teething terribly!
viksam we have those carrot waffles, L loves them, I give them about once a week with some fish and beans (usually the day I work so dh can sort it!)
dh we have the little life reins with the shark fin so we can put a nappy, wipes and juice in it if we are popping out, he is a bolter and will only hold my hand if he is sitting in the buggy (which is strange and dificult when on my own!)

I thing my DH would get on with you all, he gets on with everyone and he is genuinly the first person ive never heard people snipe or moan about (apart from me) he is so laid back and chilled, was shit with money before me but most blokes are when single, he is an amazing dad, very hands on, shit at DIY which is great as ive had to paint, drill, even put the new sofa together and tonight im wallpapering but he then takes L to the park, feeds him etc!

Is everyone back on here or are we still missing a few? how is trudyla?

Well we got reigns from mothercare and ventured into town but he still wanted to walk in a different direction and if we tried to tug him he laid on the floor and had a tantrum. So I've got one of THOSE kids! I did get a new winter coat though so it was successful.

He only had 45 mins sleep earlier and he fell asleep in the car on the way home for 20 Ish mins, i don't mind so much because he's not well so his 'big' sleep is disturbed by his blocked nose/ coughing so if he needs a catch up I don't mind and he still goes to bed at a reasonable hour.

Lunches here are never v inspiring, I never know what to do he usually has a sandwich with cheese/ fruit and some baby crisps although D is def a grazer and much prefers eating little and often.

oh dear mylife thats shit about babyboy, poor thing. Hows ur ear?
memph good to see u back! What do you have left to do in the house?
dh yep i know where ur coming from with the reigns, D is ok with them but he does just want to go in a different direction, i have found them usefull for saving him from falls mostly but i do still try and get him to hold my hand.
Ok, i have just give D a chicken dinner on a plate like how we would eat it rather than mushed up and he didnt want to know at all, he had some mash and that was it, would you guys have done him something else? I havent, i have just given him a yog and some fruit and an oaty bar, no other 'dinner' im bummed out that he didnt eat it but hes not really eating any of this with any gusto so maybe hes just not hungry, it just worries me regarding night time and if (when) he wakes up i'll be lyng there worrying that hes hungry!
My DH is very very quiet and doesnt generally start a conversation, there has been loads of times that i have been embarrassed due to him not talking to anyone, he's better now but its always been awqward if ive wanted to go out with my friends and their partners and DH wouldnt speak so people wouldnt know what to make of him.
Hes just told me he wont be back till 9 tonight...........great! Its been a long afternoon already and theres still an hour and a half till bed!

can I be really pedantic and point out it is reins, not reigns? Reigning is what a king or queen does, reins are what horses (and babies) have!

sorry about that.