November 07 - Now they are FOUR they want so much more!!

[RGPargy]

New thread ladies to celebrate our DCs turning 4!! (!!!) :o

Jetgirl - hope everything went well today! Thought of you.

Well, officially we can't say until the full report is published, so for now I'll say it was what we expected. I wasn't seen, which was annoying, but a relief too, though I spent most of the day on tenterhooks. Following up with year 10 parents' evening made it especially exhausting, but it was a very good parents' evening.

DD was really poorly last week, but has turned a corner now. She's been much worse than William was. Spots everywhere, inlcuding her eyes and just utter exhaustion. I went to work for half the day on Friday because my yr 9s hadn't had a lesson with me for 5 weeks, but I came home because it was so awful leaving her.

We've got some viweings here this week and are going to look at a couple ourselves. I'm hoping this will be a straightforward process, but I don't expect it to be!

William threw exactly the same strop here tonight, Loopy - full on screaming, yelling, kicking the covers. All the while DH was entertaining MIL and FIL, he did come up to help after a bit, but William was stropping because he wanted DH to put him to bed and wasn't getting his own way. So I still put him to bed in the end. I'm not being beaten by a 4 year old

How great that you've got a good support network in your church

MIL and FIL have helped out with childcare - they were coming this weekend anyway but are staying an extra night to look after DD tomorrow as she's still not fully scabbed yet. MIL said she would take her to the playground tomorrow and I put y foot down and said no. If she's not allowed to go to school, she can't go to the playground in my book. They were quite put out by my response but I'm not having it! They did far too much with her at home today and by bedtime she was wiped out, and she had a strop too. I've told DD she is to watch DVDs and nap tomorrow while I'm at work! No jewellery making, board games, computer games, puzzles, etc. They've offered to cook tomorrow evning which is fine, but I've said it must be healthy as I was awful last week relying on too many oven-ready type things to save time so I could prep lessons. Back on the high veg, no sugary treats diet here! Am I being harsh? I am very grateful for the help, and it's meant I could go to work, yay but I am still the parent. I don't know, maybe I'm still trying to get rid of last week's stress.

I think you are right, Jet. DD should be resting and if she is exhausted from being ill, she should deffo be snoozing and watching DVDs. I personally wouldn't stop her from doing a few puzzles tho, but that's just what i would do with MY DD. I dont think a jigsaw is over stimulating really and can kill a little time..... :o

Loopy - so pleased you have found help within your church. They really do sound like a very helpful bunch! :)

RG - oh no, the in laws had her doing sudokus, not jigsaw puzzles!

Loopy - they are good at getting what they want from grandparents aren't they? William told them he always has strawberry nesquik at bedtime when we went out on Sunday. They believed him! DD was obviously too ill to contemplate such naughtiness!

Anyway, I survived! Despite FIL's 'helpful' shopping trip in which he bought 4 doughnuts, 4 yum yums, a packet of tunnocks tea cakes, wagon wheels and low fat ham! DD went back to school on Wednesday and seems to be coping, though is exhausted by bedtime. Of course, she was back in time for world book day which meant my evening yesterday ws spent creating Rabbit Girl's cape as they were going as a superhero and could invent their own if they wanted. She did look cool!

We viewed a house today which I really like but DH is not so sure about. It had big rooms, lovely kitchen and didn't need much doing to it, and well within budget and right catchment area. But the garden wasn't big enough for DH (I liked it) and there was no off road parking (but loads of space on-road) this one The kids liked it too.

Oh how horrible Loopy. There's a nasty bug going around Southampton at the moment. We had a number of staff and students off today and it was a real struggle finding supply too apparently.

We viewed in the evening when most people were back from work, so it's promising. DH is coming round to the idea, I just hope he does so quickly! I want to put an offer in!

Hi everyone.

Jetgirl - lovely house! Hope you manage to convince DH. I think it is a no-brainer. Garden not massive but less work and is there a nice local park? Our garden is half the size of that! You made me laugh re your FIL, my MILs idea of a healthy lunch is a sausage roll, bag of crisps, fruit shoot and some biscuits and let's not forget the sweets for an afternoon snack. And she knows my views! Thank god he is only there one afternoon a week.

Loopy - baby steps are good, crapola about the sickness bug, not what you need when you are starting to make some progress. Hope you are over the worst of it. There have been some really nasty viruses going around.

Had a lovely day at uni yesterday, so enjoying my Masters (geek alert!) and did pretty well in the first assignment (81% ) so feel like I am righting some wrongs from my youth when I spent too much time watching neighbours and drinking cider and black.

On a less positive note Adam is being a little sod at the moment, stamping feet, defiant and generally kicking off. Not listening again at nursery. But inbetween super cute and angelic. Thought mood-swings were for teenagers! Loopy et al - I take my hat off to you!

Loopy - I hope your DH can see the bigger picture. Just by your posts on here we can see how far you've come, and while you have a way to go, the baby steps do and have made a difference.

Greedy - so pleased you are enjoying your masters. Congratulations on the 81%! I like to think I would do something in the future, when both kids are settled at school.

We are doing a second viewing on the house on Thursday It is close to the park (with a fab coffee shop), and garden has potential to be nicely done. I think he has come around to my way of thinking - catchment area wins over the 4 properties we viewed on Saturday!

Oh thanks! Got the next one to do now, yikes.

Loopy - that's really good re DH being able to access support through work, I hope he finds it helpful, I think my DH would also struggle to talk to someone - a lot of our arguments are around his stereotypical inability to discuss his feelings! I should also maybe have done English at uni - everyone put me off by saying it wouldn't lead to a job (apart from teaching which i was dead against at the time!) so I ended up doing Social Policy which was neither use nor ornament! Or I should have done sociology/psychology. But I probably would still have watched too much neighbours!

Jetgirl - v.exciting! The all important catchment area! There is a village that we would like to move to (and DS may end up being offered a primary school there) but we are aware that the catchment area for the secondary schools are likely to change in the future so I find myself in the ridiculous situation of considering which secondary school I would like DS to go to when he is just 4! How are you feeling after Ofsted? I was so knackered after ours last year that I kind of lost my mojo for the rest of the year! Silly really. Is your DD fully recovered? No doubt Adam is waiting until we have some flights booked to Australia before he gets the pox!

Absolutely sensible!! We I am worried about secondary schools now. Am hoping DD will be bright enough to go to the local grammar. She seems very bright for her age (but i'm bound to say that - i'm biased!). I would hate for her to go to the local normal secondary school as they are either a) full of riff raff coz of the area (sorry for being judgy ) or b) a bus ride away, which is not what i want at all for DD when the local grammar school is walkable!

Oh not just me then !

Ha ha Loopy - how did it all go?! My friend has just been through her first dancing show and was at how much it all cost, said it was gorgeous and worth it all seeing her DD beaming with pride on the first night but the second night her DD was bored of it all and scratching her bum!

Lovely weather in these parts this weekend. So glad that winter is over (touch wood).