Sept 2008 - no witty title as we're too busy dealing with stroppy 3 yr olds.

[MrsArchchancellorRidcully]

Hello all. Couldn't see a new thread so thought I'd do the honours. Sorry for rubbish title, I'm no good at witty! :)

Bless you and yours Carrie.

Carrie :( how sad.

I'm a proud mum this week as dd1 has been recommended as a potential competitive swimmer for extra lessons :) she's not particularly sporty or fit so it'll do her confidence and stamina the world of good.

Carrie, I didn't see your post about the funeral. It sounds so moving. I'm sure they have appreciated having friends like you around. I'm not religious at all but I think any community is incredibly valuable and I know a lot of friends who gain strength through their faith and the community that comes with it.

Am thinking of you and your friends carrie

God bless you x

How very sad carrie - so good of you all to be there for the grieving parents.

F waking twice a night for the last few nights. We introduced a bedtime routine three nights ago. Bath the boys together, then I give F his feed in our quiet bedroom rather than downstairs in front of the tv while DH does stories with ds1. So far so good. Hoping it means F will learn to go to sleep easier than his big brother did. Put him to sleep on his tummy last night at 9:30, he stirred at 12:30 so I flipped him onto his back and he slept another hour.

bookmarking.....

Hi everyone!
Had a lovely weekend away with friends, sooo tired now though but worth it!
ninja that's great news about your DD, well done!
DG your hard work will pay off I'm sure, you're doing really well!
Better go hang the washing then time for a quick before school pick up. Then this afternoon's job is to create a costume for DD to wear to their 'ugly bug ball' tomorrow, to round off their topic on minibeasts

Thanks Carrie

Anyone else had lovely weather today? I was working but it made me cheery just to see the sun outside :) We managed a picnic tea outside with our next door neighbours too which was fun

Can I have a moan about how awful my kids are at the moment . I can't control them anymore and have no idea what to do. They're ok at school and nursery but for me, and recently for my family too, they run riot. I know all the 'rules' of parenting but they just don't care, if I talk at their level they spit at me, yesterday DS was trying to headbutt and bite me all the way round the supermarket, I give them advance warning of what we're doing so they have time to finish playing etc but they still kick off, reward charts work for a few days then they say they don't care anymore . I despair of them.

I had the parent support lady from school round to my house and said the reward charts (that she suggested) didn't really help DS and all she could say was 'oh, he's obviously not a child who cares about rewards then'... you don't say .

I'm taking the little tykes to London this weekend in the desperate hope that taking them out of their comfort zone will help. Sorry for being so negative but I think I've run out of energy, ideas and hope at the moment. I've started smacking but as I (obviously) don't smack hard they just laugh, and it means they hit me back.

In my defence as a parent they do happily eat their greens and are bright little things. I haven't ballsed everything up yet.

Oh meglet you poor thing. DD's teacher pointed out to us that reward charts don't work for her, I felt like such a muppet that we'd been using stickers and 'incentives' for so long and getting frustrated that they didn't work and I hadn't noticed why...doh!
You are doing a brilliant job, being consistent is absolutely the best thing, lots of praise for 'good' and clear warnings and consistent punishment for 'not so good' and it will get better. Kids go through phases of testing all the boundaries just to check the boundaries are still there...which they are!

Thanks carrie .

DD bit someone at nursery today and had to go to The Office. . Nursery were very nice about it though. DD knew she was in deep trouble when we got home as she sat next to me on the sofa very quietly with a serious look on her face. We read a book about Being Friends at bedtime, DS scratched DD on her leg and she kicked him.

We've had a busy month really, mum has been away a lot so I've not had much help and everything is getting on top of me. I'm off next week so I only have to hang on until the weekend then I'll have 12 days off to catch up.

Fingers crossed for the next few days!

meglet sounds really really tough. Hope it's just a phase and the time off with them helps. Wish I had some words of advice but A is going through similar at the moment. I'm hoping we've passed the worst of it now that I'm more mobile and able to run off some of his exces energy. But being overly tired brings out the worst in him too.

In contrast I'm having a mini-celebration this morning. F slept 9.45 till 4.45 had a 20min feed then back to sleep till 7.15. Our little bedtime routine seems to be helping him gradually extend that first chunk of sleep. And he's in his cot all night too after we co-slept on and off the first 4 weeks. If any if you remember the sleep hell we had with ds1 (who's still waking and turning up in our bed) you'll know how lucky I feel!

DG that's great news!
meglet hang on in there, your break is coming soon! You do such an incredible job on your own, and without your usual help too.
If it helps DS2 is currently howling in bed having woken up far too early, and on our weekend away DD carved our names in the dining table of the holiday cottage using her spoon handle
I've just made flapjack, might just eat it all myself!

digi I remember your sleep hell, lets hope DS2 doesn't try and repeat it!

carrie At least my 2 have only damaged this house . They've discovered they can scratch ball point pens into the (cheap) dining room table. Hope the flapjack was good!

Only 2 working days to go this week!

Somebody spare me from the box of flapjack...I have a glass of and my evening plans have been cancelled so I'm on my own and unsupervised. Self control where have you gone?! Nom nom nom...

Can I have some flapjack??

Meglet that sounds tough, but also normal. I can't imagine how hard it is coping without any help, you must be exhausted. Good luck in London, that's very brave!

Also they eat their greens, that's a miracle! M gets all her vitamins from baby sweetcorn! Expensive and I hate to think of the air miles. It's a trial getting her to eat any main course at all. DD1 is constantly grumpy and shouting at me, she's always tired but I struggle to get her to bed or to sleep. She can be loving but is as or more often telling me how she hates me :(

Flapjack all gone
ninja so :( for you having DD1 tell you that :( Is she expressing her anger at what has gone on recently and not sure how to channel it? I hope you are able to get some time to talk to her and talk it through.

Today i've heard of several kids in DD's year (reception) who can swim 50-100m and are doing front crawl and backstroke. DD did several years of baby swimming, and has been going to proper lessons since January, but is still very much dependent on arm bands. I have no idea whats realistic at her age, I guess the amount of time they've spent swimming makes a big difference and she's not had a great deal of practice lately. DS1 is starting lessons in September but he's so tiny I'm not sure he'll have the strength to move very fast, and he doesn't have the technique that DD picked up at baby swimming. Sorry its an inconsequential thing, but it just got me worried that DD is behind her peers in this respect!

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50-100m is amazing in reception (and probably more normal for 8-9 year olds). I think DD1 could do 15m in her lessons, but she never did it for me - she's now been picked out as a potential competitive swimmer (and there were plenty of years that she didn't have lessons). I guess what I'm saying is she sounds fine.

DD1 is getting better, she's calmed down a lot since christmas and I have fewer outbursts, but they are upsetting.

My friend has invited me to dinner at hers along with a single bloke tonight :)

THank you for making me feel better ninja. I know that swimming is like all things - teething/talking/walking/reaching puberty....they all get there but at wildly different times. I had a chat to her teacher on saturday which made me feel better about how they do the lessons, and DD said the lady in the water said something really nice to her about how well she was doing, so that's really boosted her.

carrie DS (also reception year) has been at swimming lessons for 18 months and only in the last bloody month (can you tell how annoying it has been!) has he stopped hopping along the floor, spitting water everywhere and started making an attempt to actually swim. Now he can push and glide and do some flailing front crawl style strokes for maybe 4/5 metres, then he splutters up for air. He hasn't perfected the breathing while swimming thing yet. But he can swim underwater through a hoop.

What made it 'click' with him seemed to be learning to push and glide away form the side. They only practised it for a couple of weeks and he got it and realised that he could make his body stay afloat.

It's going to be a long time before he can do a width of proper swimming but we should get there in time.

There are younger kids than him who swim in the big pool and bear in mind there are a lot of children who won't learn to swim until much later than 5yrs old. It's definately in the same list as crawling / walking and talking, they get there in the end.

And I have just realised I'm taking DD swimming tomorrow and my bikini line needs doing. Bugger.

carrie ds1 is 8 and got his 20m badge last month. I think 50-100m at reception is pretty exceptional tbh.

meglet I have no advice, but am sending you lots of sympathy {hugs} My 2 dont repsond to reward charts either and never have. I am pretty
brutal strict when it comes to discipline If you are really fed up how about cancelling the london trip? I know it seems harsh and of course you will miss out too but sometimes kids need a shock to realise how bad their behaviour is. Whatever you decide to do wrt punishment - and bad behaviour needs to be punished IMHO - then stick to it and dont back down.

Do you have a good relationship with school? If your dd responded to being "in trouble" at school perhaps the school would have a word with her wrt her behaviour at home? Just a thought.

Toby is really ill He had been ill since may day really (turned out to be hand, foot and mouth) and then got a cold and on friday night he had a 40 degree temp. Took him to the walk in centre on sat am and he has got a chest infection and an ear infection He is on ABs (which give him the runs) and this morning ds1 has woken up full of snot and coughing...sigh.

So. Looks like France is off

On the plus side the Rev at my church has asked me to be a foundation governor at ds1's school And there is NOTHING the HT can do about it!!!! Mwahahahahaha...

Great advice there badvoc. I did the thing of making a threat I couldn't/wouldn't carry out last week, felt so silly coz DS1's bad behaviour continued and he knew my words were meaningless. Sticking to it and not backing down is good advice and something I need to remember too!
And hooray for being a governor, I have so much respect for people who give their time to make our schools the places that they are, the likes of me are very very thankful!
Last night I went to asda and got lots of jubilee tat merchandise for the DCs as they have jubilee parties at school/playgroup this week, and we're going to the river pageant in London on Sunday

badvoc well done! I bet you will bring loads of good ideas to the table .

carrie I have so far resisted Jubilee tat, but I might crack tomorrow and get a couple of the naice biscuit tins in M&S. Ooooo, you're off to London! You will see the Queen!!!!!!

re: my small people, The thing is they don't care what they do, so any threats to not have a day out fall on deaf ears, they don't want to go anywhere (they never ask) / the park / swimming etc. When I've taken away their toys they just play with the cushions in the living room or twigs in the garden. Mind you, this is a strong case for selling all their junk and making the house tider.

A cell- plain white room might bore them into submission, but they would only start making up songs about poo and would be quite happy . I suppose they might win the odd battle but I should win the war eventually.

Anyway, I'm off this week being a SAHM! I went to the gym earlier and managed to read some of my OU book.

Lol at "making up songs about poo"