Dec 08 Mums - happy new year, happy new thread and soon some happy new babies!

[sybilfaulty]

Happy new year!

Sorry for the rubbish title but wanted to get the new thread underway. Let's close the door on some of the sad events of 2011 and look forward to a better year in 2012.

Congratulations Kayz! Hope you're having a super day.

Zj I had to take L out of necessity to J's jabs. I'd explained it all beforehand but L tried to push the hv away from J and burst into tears. I'd avoid if poss.

Kayz Congrats! Hope the weather was lovely.

DH has just ruined a batch of cornflake cakes. The easiest cooking known to man! I melted the choc as I've had it seize up, but from perfectly melted choc? The mind boggles!

Congratulations Kayz

Quickly popping on to say thank you!! I'm married now, the weather has been brilliant and it's been an amazing day!!!

It's never nice to hear of chocolate wasted.

ZJ I forgot ti say earlier when we arrived here both boys had to have loads of jabs to catch up with the NL system. Anyway for a set of ds2's I had to take ds1 along. He was 4.5 so I thought he would be OK. It was a nightmare, he was bawling and the poor doctor doing the jabs felt really guilty as they both ended up in tears. Worse of all ds1 had to go for his catch up jabs a few months later. Nightmare.

Speaking of nightmare, ds2 had the mother of all tantrums in the supermarket today because I wouldn't buy him cake, he screamed the whole way around so i gave up and just bought the essentials. Of course he continued screaming in the long checkout que and I had an old lady make a snide comment about not being able to hear herself think. Thankfully most of the people in the queue seemed to be ladies who have kids who were just happy it wasn't theirs going off. Due to having to leave early I forgot to buy tea and have completely run out so have had to resort to a warming hot apple juice and pimms instead of my afternoon cuppa.

Yay Kayz hooray!! Looking forward to the photos.

urgh at people doing catbumface in the supermarket. Dd screamed all the way round Sainsbury a while ago because I wouldn't let her run around and one bloke said "can't you control that bloody child". I resisted the temptation to point out that I was controlling her and that was what caused the screaming!

Just to be different, I havr taken ds to dd's jabs with no trouble. But then he merrily sat through his preschool jabs without flinching so he could just be odd.

We too had the catsbumface in Tescos today. What is wrong with people. grr. Also I was there doing my weekly shop always go on a Thursday and you would have thought there was some sort of armageddon about to happen I have never seen it so busy.

Kayz many congratulations. Have a great night.

Rubes lovey did you have a better day today?

What a bloody git, I wish you'd said "no, would you like to try". I did enjoy the fact that the women made the comment "I can't hear anything with all this noise" when she was asked for the second time to move to a different register as the one she was at was closing, she then proceeded to hold up the entire line because she messed up something with her payment. Whose the public niusance now grandma! To be fair generally I think the Dutch esp those with kids take an, 'but there by the grace of god' approach to kids tantrums in public. I once witnessed a very stoic mother walking, albeit with difficulty, across a toy store to the counter with a large squealing toddler attached to her right ankle. No one batted an eyelid, not even the shop assistent when the toddler raised her pitch to the one just below the one that only dogs can hear, while she was totally the mums purchases.

Anyway the evening got worse with more meltdowns and hitting and general not much funness. I did wat I hate, I yelled at ds2 and picked him up roughly and literally threw him into our bedroom while he settled down. Then amongst all this the mail came and it was a letter from a collection agency because we seemly havent paid our lecky and gas for 3 months. Basically, the company changed our account told us in a letter but as dh doesn't read dutch when he opened the letter he just ignored it, then as letters arrived with each months unpaid bill he jyst assumed they were showing how much we paid that month and left them. Then he hasn't even been opening the letters lately so missed the one that said if you dont pay we'll get the debt collectors onto you. So now they are onto us and we owe the unpaid fuel bill and ?150 for the use of the debt collection company. The one saving grace is, it's actually only 2 months we havent paid as dh can see from our account tat we definitely paid in January.

Got back from Mum's this eve and had a fabbo time, haven't been checking MN (since last Sat) but just wanted to say (as have only skimmed)

CONGRATULATIONS to Kayz, hope you are having a wonderful day xxx

Rubes, hope things have been much better for you today xxx

And Beans, what totally, totally splendiferous news about your Dad. Just brilliant xxx

More tomorrow...

Oh dear Vag, the joys of language troubles. At least it hasn't been too long and you can sort it.

We are the house of snot. Poor little ds2 is not impressed.

Dh just left to go get the big ones. They have new swords and shields .

Congratulations Kayz. I've had a snoop on fb and you are gorgeous, the dress is beautiful, and your boys look fab in their suits

Spot yesterday sounds tough, if both you and T had had so little sleep. Are you going to have to do the test again and hope he keeps it on next time?

Indith some tips on night terrors would be great, thanks. We're starting to think it's not just bad dreams, and like your DS they seem to happen at busy times when we've a lot going on. Should we try to wake her, or just leave her to it?

I love the image of the Mum dragging the screaming child round on her foot , but what a lot of horror children we had yesterday. It must be because it's a full moon tonight

Ruining cornflake cakes - how?

What a right pain in the arse about the bills Vag, will pleading language difficulties let you off the €150?

Welcome back LadyT

All the family still asleep - we must have been very good in a previous life to earn a bank holiday lie in!

Spot I meant to ask, was the pulse oxymeter probe a clip one or one that they tape on? We tended to do overnight monitoring at home as that way we got a better idea of the child's real sleep pattern as they will be more likely to sleep the way they normally sleep at home than in hospital. But to do that your area needs a good community nursing team to drop off the oxymeter and go through how to put it on etc with you, then pick it up the next morning. Are you guys still thinking of moving? How is DP?

Unfortunately the utility company did send a letter telling us to pay or they would take further action and, well DH hadn't even opened it. Even if you don't read dutch the letter was quite obvious. We could argue that we had only missed two payments so they shouldn't have sent the debt collection people in until next month, but in all honesty we wouldn't have done anything anyway until after they had them in then anyway because DH wasn't opening the letters. The only good thing is they are over charging us by heaps per month as they are estimating what we use and we actually use way less. Hopefully in the next few months they will work that out as we have now been here a full year and they will have drop our monthly payment by heaps. It is annoying that they are after us for money that in reality we don't actually owe them but that's the way it is with this direct debit monthly estimate system.

Spot your night with the monitor sounds terrible! Dd had her sleep obs done on the ward in hospital. Dh said she slept really well. Typical! Except we then got a letter saying due to "techincal difficulties" they hadn't been able to download the results from the machine so we are waiting for another appointment. Urgh. I'm not sure I see the point anymore.

ZJ like ours ds would get terrors in times of unrest so dd being born started a HUGE long phase of them. they started a couple of months before she arrived and went on for around 6 months I think after. If you search on here you find all sorts on them. Generally the advice is to not wake them since they occur in deep sleep unlike dreams. Terrors are linked to sleepwalking and often the child can appear to be awake so yu can have tried to wake them, think you've done it but actually they are still asleep. Some people find if they cool the child down it breaks them out of it so they take duvet off and ope windows, as a general rule avoid touching them but really you just have to feel your way through and find a way to get through it be it sitting by them and talking to them or cuddling, whatever. ds usually responded to having his feet and legs massaged, he would get very stiff. Also taking him out of his room helped, he seemed to notice the change in environment so taking him to our bed (which is somewhere safe for him, mummy and daddy's bed is magic :)) calmed him.

When they were at their worst though he could get a terror in every bloody sleep cycle all night long and the only way to break the cycle was to wake him up completely, cuddle, read a story and resettle. The only way we found to consistantly wake him up and know that he was actually awake was to take him to the bathroom and pour cold water over his head. Sounds mean but remember they are in deep sleep and pretty oblivious and I honestly don't think he ever realised he had had water poured on him, he would just come to and look a bit confused at being in the bathroom!

Terrors are usually more likely if the child is very tired and while they don't remember terrors they do disrupt sleep so they can be more tired when having terrors. For us routine was the only way out. I suppose because ds was feeling vunerable and routine was safe. Plus routine involved a nap to avoid getting over tired. WE had to be absolutely anal though and since the only way to ensure a nap was to get him upstairs as soon as he finished lunch we had to be home every day for lunch at 12. If we tried going out for the day and he didn't nap he would have bad terrors and be grumpy next day and sometimes actually have a terror during his nap.

It passes eventually though :)

Congratulations again to kayz. Had a look at some of the snaps of you on FB, you look lovely! Glad that it all went well.

ZJ DD1's night terrors sound horrible for you...hopefully it's a phase that will pass soon.

Vag Arse about the utility bills! Oh and DS was horizontal Tesco's this morning for a good few minutes as people maneuvered trolleys round him. Part of me wished someone had pushed one right over him! Still I managed to win him round with that 'perfect parenting' technique...bribing him with chocolate. He's now hiding in the laundry basket, best leaving him there for now.

indith I hope the snot buggers off asap for you all.

Have made DH a lovely tarte au citron for his birthday cake. Alas it is also tarte aux doigts as I grated a bit of my finger in with the lemon zest. Ouch. Microplane graters are so sharp. Came over all wobbly and had to sit on the floor. OK now happily.

Beans, BRILLIANT news on your dad. You must be so thrilled. Yay for papa H!

Am awaiting A's return for his birthday bits and bobs. Have said kids could stay ip for 1/2 hour and now regretting. They are over excited and not looking like bed any time soon. I have scallops and steak to attend to. Bah!

Just a quick post. Just had a 4D scan. Baby is awkward and we need to go back at 3. But they've worked out she's already almost 5lbs at just 29 weeks. I'm terrified at what it means for giving birth as they think she'll be at least 11lb if not more

Kayz those scans are only something like 20% accurate, relax. Besides how big was DS2, 10lb + ?

Exciting you'll get to see her little face on the 4D.

The woman said its an error margin of 2oz but I've read since its about 10%

Ds2 was 10lb 5oz but I think as we know she's going to be big it'll be harder to argue my case. We had no idea with DS2.

What would you like to do Kayz?

Kayz you managed to pop that last 10lber out with just gas & air. You will be fine.

I am thinking about seeing if I can have her in the MLU as then I can still use pool but if she's too big and gets stuck I am at the hospital.

Good idea. Also remember your body has been there before. Trust your body.

What Jam said.

kayz I second what Jam & vag have said. But also wanted to add that my friend had a 4d scan because MW had said she was having a HUGE baby, ie 10lb+. Scan concurred what MW said that baby was going to be big...he was 7lb something.

I'll repeat what Jam said again because its fab advice 'trust your body' [busmile]