March 2005 part 5 - Can't believe they're almost 1!

[busywizzy]

This time last year, we were all enormous, waiting for them to arrive - now they're almost 1

Busy - I meant to ask. Do you live in Hook near Chessington or in another Hook? We went through it today on our way to Chartwell House (Churchill's place) and thought how close we live - if that's where you are.

Pidge, you must be mad I can't bear it when there's mess in the house (decorating mess that is, not normal two kids mess ) Glad to hear you had such a lovely time in Wales.

Cristina, no I live a bit further out, in Hook near Farnbourough, on the M3 on the way to Southampton.

Well Harrison has been snuggled up in bed since 6.30, having spent most of the day asleep and only being awake since 4pm. Who knows what sort of a night we have ahead of us

Aha, another Hook, I thought you'd be further out as you're not in Surrey.

Cristina, was Ice Age 2 any good. I was thinking of taking Hannah.

Cristina - Thankyou very much for your sponsorship, but best of all thankyou for you comment about me looking so young in my photo! In reality I think it is the soft focus on the camera that is helping me out cos Freya was only 8 weeks old at the time and I was suffering from sleep deprivation! P.S. - Actually I'm 34, but wish I was still 24.

BW - Although I have always enjoyed sport (played netball, went to aerobics etc.) I never really started running until after I had Ethan. I started off with a 5k race and got up to about 16 miles before I fell pregnant with Freya. About Nov 2005 I started running regularly again and somewhere along the line I signed up to do the marathon - not sure why or how now! TBH the hardest part is finding the time and motivation to go out and actually run (esp if it is raining, snowing, sleeting etc.). If following a marathon training plan then you really have to do a long run every weekend and increase this run by a mile a week. I am not a quick runner, so this can take up to 4 hours. DH has been very understanding in looking after the kids. I think he has got loads of rounds of golf owing to him during the summer .

Pidge - From your description Iris seems to be at a very similar stage to Freya. Freya too can stand well and is a complete demon with her walker, but if you encourage her to walk towards you she just laughs at you! She has done the odd unaided step, but they are very few and far between. Glad you had a good holiday, and good luck with sorting out the chaos in your house! Are you back at work this week?

Leo - Very kind of you to mention about sponsoring me, but I know it is difficult for you with exchg rate etc. Whereabouts did ou do your marathon? I would be grateful for any last minute tips!

BW - Hooray for Harrison's sleeping. Long may it continue.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Mum is having Freya for the day and I am taking Ethan out for the day. Will be great to spend some time with him, easy to forget what a fantastic kind he is when I am chasing round after Freya and trying to fit a million jobs in. Will also be nice to be able to travel light and not take a huge bag, buggy etc. with us.

BW - I also took Ethan to see Ice Age 2 and he loved it. He is only 4 though and I know Hannah is older, there were children her age in the cinema and they seemed to like it aswell. There is a song in it called 'If you're Extinct and you know it' - Ethan though it was called 'If you're stinky and you know it' and being a typical 4 year old boy he was falling all over the place laughing while 'grown up' 8 year olds were looking at him like he was mad! . I explained it to him later and then had to go through a big discussion about what 'extinct' means - and this just lead to him asking loads of questions about dying. I ended up just wishing I'd just left it!

Went on rare night out myself on Friday to see Derren Brown. It was a gift for DH's birthday. Don't know if any of you have heard of him, but his show was amazing and worth going to see if you get a chance.

Anyway, rambled on again. Am off now!

P.S. DH is watching the Masters Golf. I have been banished to the study - hence my long posts - sorry!

DS liked Ice Age 2 and I didn't get bored with it either.

Jo - 34?? You look so, so young. I was telling myself that your youth must be a factor in your taking up running (all the excuses I go through!). I'm 40, so of course everyone is younger than me, but even so.

Christina, did you get my e-mail?

Jambot - No, not yet. I don't know what's happening to some of my emails, though. Could you try cristina at augood dot co dot uk? DH changed our emails recently but the old ones are supposed to re-route to the new address, but not all of them do. Sorry about this.

Jopg - It was Ticino Marathon in Switzerland. I also trained for Zurich up to 6 weeks before but got injured and couldn't run it :(, all that hard work wasted!
2 tips are both obvious - make sure you keep drinking and eating all the time (only things that you have been eating and drinking while training). Be really careful if it is a warm day.
Don't get carried away in the first half, its so easy to do, how ever good you feel discipline yourself to stay within your target BPM.

Hope you had a nice day out wiht Ethan today :)!

Cristina - I did London to Brighton. You should do it, its not that difficult and a lot of fun.

Busy - how is Harrison? Was there a reason for his mammoht sleep?

Pidge - have you started Iris's new sleep routine yet? How is it going?

Niklas is going through a growth spurt at the moment. Eats like a horse and I can almost see him growing. Must remember to weigh him tomorrow.

Hope everyone else is doing well :)!

Hi all!

ahrry had his hospitak review today from when he had the lumps in his neck and was given the all clear and discharged!!!

They also weighed and measured him - 11.3kg which is almost 25lb (bewteen 75th and 91st centile) and 80cm in helight (91st centile)

Big but lighter and taller than ds1 at this age:)

sleep trainging starts tonght..

Lauren almost identical in height and weight to Harry. She's probably about 150gsm's lighter but that's not much. Aren't you finding he's getting heavy to carry around now? It seemed that as soon as Lauren hit the 11kg mark she suddenly started to feel like a lead weight in my arms.
Good luck with the sleep training. Hang in there.

ds1 was 26lbs on his first borthday so ds2 is comparably lighter:)

Harrison seems better this afternoon Having spent most of yesterday asleep, he went to bed at 6.30pm and slept through until 7.45am - unheard of Still running a temperature this morning, horrible runny nose, hacking cough and generally grotty Put him down for a sleep at about 9.30am and he slept until just after midday When he woke up, it was as if he'd never been poorly and he's been happy and smiley all afternoon.

Good luck with all the sleep training.

Leo, Harrison had a growth spurt about a month ago and just suddenly didn't fit into any of his clothes. He's a big lad and everyone always comments on what a sturdy thing he is. He weighs almost 27lb and is about 90cms long so I totally sympathise with how difficult it is carrying them when they get bigger. Unfortunately, he isn't remotely close to walking so carrying him is ongoing at the moment

Harrison is such a big lad! Sylvia is only about 70 cm, I think. I haven't had her measured and weighed in ages. I need to have her MMR jab and will do it then. She's just come home from nursery (my Dad picked her up), she was so happy to see Dominic and Laa-Laa (her favourite toy at the moment). I took her in to nursery late today, i wanted to go to the LLL meeting but it wasn't on, so i went with someone for a coffee (she didn't know the meeting had been cancelled either).

Leo - did I mention sleep training? Can't for the life of me remember if I did. Must be going mad. Wish I did have a sleep training plan. Iris has been up like the veritable lark at 5.10am two days in a row. We don't have a strategy - we just stumble about in the dawn light, cursing and grumbling . Yesterday we took turns to rub her back for about 40 minutes at which point she went back to sleep for ... wait for it .... 7 minutes!!! Then she was up again. This morning, we did let her cry, and she kept crying for 5 minutes then going quiet for about 5-10 minutes, and repeated this till 6am at which point I gave up, fed her and she went back to sleep until I had to get up to go to work at 6.30am and woke her up.

Other than her early waking, she is a marvel.

Hi Ladies, hope your all doing well.

leogaela, thanks for your message on the'other' thread

Time certainly doesnt dilly-dally around does it?!

Really hope you and Niklas have a fab Easter, as does everyone else

Tam x

Tamula, how about some new pics of Ava on the Photobucket?

I was also thinking about Norash, Kieran was the last of the March babies on the pre-natal thread to be born - 10th April I think. I wonder how she is doing.

Pidge - you said that you were changing the routine before Iris goes to bed. I find that when Niklas wakes up in early in the mornign he is usually just hungry, this morning he woke at 5.30 had a big bottle of milk and slept until 6.45 - pure luxury!!!

Niklas is 10.7Kg now!!!! He has put on over 700g in about 7 weeks , although all his clothes still fit him (except they pull tight around his belly) so I think he is just getting fatter not taller :o!

Cristina - I too did the London to Brighton cycle ride a few years ago (before I had Ethan). It was a great day. I did it with some friends and we just pottered along. No need to rush. if you decide to do it I'm sure you'll love it.

Freya weighed 23lb at 12 months. Ethan, on the other hand, weighed in at 28lb at 12 months, so he was (and is) and big lad. I have just bought him aged 6-7 clothes, and he's only 4 - he's very tall. Difficult to still get my head round that Freya is average size, it seems funny to buy clothes for her that equate to her age!

Quiet afternoon. Freya is asleep and Ethan is playing with the little boy next door. Am making the most of it!

Aha Leo - yup, you're right. But the only thing I've changed is that now I breastfeed Iris and when she starts to nod off I actually wake her up by brushing her teeth and then read her a story. So I'm putting her down more awake than before, when she was half asleep from feeding. I'm not convinced it's hunger that's waking her in the morning unfortunately, as she doesn't go back to sleep even when breastfed lying down in bed, under the warm duvet in a pitch black room. Oh no, she is like the bionic baby . Often she only sleeps a total of one hour during the day too!

Ho hum - I've said it before, but I do think we're gradually resigning ourselves to our dawn wakenings. Though it's so much more manageable if it's nearer to 6am than 5am.

JoPG - I thought of you last night - I went for a 6 mile run and it nearly finished me off. I'm so in awe at your 26 mile effort. It's coming up soon isn't it - is it this weekend, or the next one? Good luck anyway.

Hello everyone

Another busy week here, which I'm slowly coming to realise is just how things are now I'm back at work. I get up, get the childrens things ready for the day, get children up and feed/dress them, take them to school/childminder, go to work, rush around all day and hopefully manage to eat something, come home and pick children up, eat (if there's time) bath them, put Harrison to bed (milk, story, teeth if I remember) do Hannah's homework, put her to bed (milk, argument about brushing teeth, brush teeth, story), unpack childrens bags from day, wash up bottles, flasks, lunch boxes etc, eat if I didn't have time earlier and then crash out in worn-out heap on the sofa No wonder I've managed to loose so much weight.

Having said all that, I'm really enjoying life at the moment and surprising, relish being back at work.

Now a nice long Easter weekend to look forward to. We've got a back-seat for our bikes for Harrison to go in and DH bought him a helmet today so we're all off cycling tomorrow. Fingers crossed it doesn't rain.

Happy Easter everyone

Happy Easter guys,

I'll put a few recent pics of Ava into the photobucket and catch up on all the other babes too

Busywizzy - your day sounds quite full and it's great you're actively enjoying all of it. We're also going through a phase of being pleased wtih life, we have good health, warm house and sufficient money, things are good. Enjoy your bike trip, i hope you get good weather.

Hi Tamula - nice to see you back.

We are going to the park this morning, then to a pub in Molesly later for lunch (DH said it's my kind of pub and I'll like it), Tower of London tomorrow. Not much planned for Sunday or Monday as Dh is away to his sister's to help her with her new house, she needs a boiler, radiators etc. We aren't going as there's not much space to sleep overnight, she's just moved a couple of weeks ago.

Off to have some egg & sorrel. I'm trying a no-gluten diet, going well so far (3 days).