June 2008 - we're back!

[PrincessOfWails]

Here we are after a prolonged break! Before we start chatting, I suggest a quick recap. Here's mine:
I used to be called Essie.
Iestyn born 16/6/2008.
I still live in north Wales.
I'm currently unemployed after a dreadful time where I was very badly treated but I can't talk about it for legal reasons.
But the best news is that I had a second boy, Goronwy Cwyfan, born 8/7/2011!

Sorry to hear about all the post baby damage, I seem to have escaped fairly lightly fortunately. I am going to have at look at your MuTu link wails sounds like something I require, although I doubt it can do much for the post baby boobs!

I remember you telling us about your cousin wails, I'm so sorry to hear about her prognosis.

amber best of luck finding your certificates!

I am off to my grandparents house today to celebrate my Mum's 60th birthday. I have made her cake, which was stressful, as C was desperate to 'help'! Hopefully it will taste good, that's the important thing, isn't it!?

Wails, hmm, that sounds like some v odd info you've been given about being 'too late' to have a repair. If you don't have it done right now, you could still have it done before the 10 year time limit that has been imposed. From the thread I linked to, there seem to be lots of odd things that women are told about repairs. I can totally understand waiting until you've decided about another baby, however, there are MNers who have had surgery and then gone on to have more children by c-section.

abdn My experience of physio was that I waited ages for an appointment, got assesed by the physio, who found I could do the PFEs perfectly, and sent me away to do them for a few weeks. They can provide machines etc if you can't do the exercises, or can't do them properly. However, no amount of PFEs were going to help with the internal tear that I had, and the physio was v quick to refer me onto a urogynae.

Hope the birthday party was good Dots.

Wave to everyone else.

Wails I'm very sorry to hear about Karen's prognosis. And your poor friend whose mum died.

I had physio and whilst she saw an improvement in muscle tone there was no corresponding improvement in my symptoms. I'm contra-indicated for the cone things you can use yourself. The only way forward is the TVT. I did a lot of flapping about it - I didn't like the thought of a strange thing inside me and the side effects and risks are all things I don't like to think about. But it would be lovely to not be so leaky.

I'm also thinking (fairly seriously) about getting my tummy fixed! We'd need to put a lot of planning into both operations as it would mean me being out of action for while and I'd need to pay for the new tummy myself. It's way beyond being saved by exercise - 4 finger diastasis, umbilical hernia and an awful lot of loose skin, and general weakness and some pain. Oddly enough, after spending a week in critical care when my Dad was dying, some of my daft body issues have stopped bothering me so much. So if I get it done it will be for much healthier reasons.

Good luck with the documents Amber! Much as I love my own children, I would rather eat my own arm than spend my day with other people's!

Buffalo what's the 10 year limit all about?

Hi, goingfor3 here.

wails really sorry to hear your cousin is unwell again .

PrancingBuffalo Ds is a crap sleeper too, still in my bed!

DD1 starts secondary school in Spetember. She seems grown up for primary school but she is going to feel tiny at secondary school especially as she is one of the smallest in her year group - up until about 18 months ago she was on the 50th centil now she is on the 15th - am hoping she will grow one day!
Nothing much is changing with DD2.
DS starts primary school in September. He has some speech issues which does worry me. He is going to the same school as the girls who are/have done very well at but I have not had any experince of what they are like with kids who need extra support.

Come on people, we're not doing well here with our revitalised thread!?

Are any of you in the vicinity of the Essex Lion?

We are of for a trip to the dentist this morning. I'm sure Dorothy will enjoy it.

.Hello! Apologies for the extended delay- in London, not on the computer much! Also I do copyediting in the evenings- in the absence of a proper job i'm freelancing as proofreader and copyeditor.
Still in London and off on a pirate fun day on the Golden Hinde this afternoon!
Week 3 of MuTu now and I can already see an improvement in my pf ( Rolf, the system is also supposed to help with diastasis, but I don't have one).

Back on a regular basis once i'm in Wales again!

My children LOVE going to the dentist. She is very young and trendy and wears bright trainers. They all race in, yaddering away, and only stop talking when she's looking at their teeth. She's fab!

Wails the MuTu system looks good. What is the nutritional advice? Are you finding it worth the money (it's quite pricey isn't it)?

Well, C loves the dentist because she gives her stickers of Rapunzel. Dot refused to open her mouth until I remembered to tell her that her beloved Peppa opened her mouth for the dentist. Job done!

Happy back to school for everyone down south - and good luck to all the reception starters! We've two new kids in DS1's P1/P2 class from the English system and they're both "repeating" a year due to their birthdays. It'll be interesting to get their mums perspective on how much was new and how much wasn't, so far it seems the one in P2 isn't really that much ahead of our P2s (I wish we had an All-day play based curriculum like Scandinavia here!)

I've just signed up to do a 50mile charity bike ride at the end of the month. Eek! I haven't ridden that far since before DS1 so I'm a bit nervous. I did 25 miles yesterday and it was lovely but this is twice as far. With my luck I'll probably have to pee the whole time (seriously one of the things I'm stressing about). Anyways, now that it's been 4 years since I was pregnant I'm feeling like I can't use the mummy-card to explain my lack of fitness so I am trying hard to get back to my pre-kid shape. (with the help of a good bra - not naked pre-kid shape).

Hi all! Back to school for ds this morning - he went in OK but we had an hour long screaming / scratching meltdown last night - starting year 2. But his teacher spotted me arriving carrying him and made a point of welcoming him and straightaway giving him a 'job' of looking after a new boy, plus someone gave him a birthday present (was his party Sunday), so fingers crossed the day started all right for him ...

Caitlin's first day not till Monday, the Reception teachers spend this week visiting kids at home, they are with us tomorrow lunchtime - I fear I will be up till midnight hoovering!! I'm looking forward to her starting, getting a bit fed up of constantly playing schools at home (she was doing it outside ds' door last night when he was screaming, which didn't help much!)

In other news, inspired by all your MuTu, bike rides etc talk, saw a personal trainer at the work gym yesterday in my latest attempt to retrieve just a little of my pre-children fitness. Just questionnaires and chat, first real session Monday...

Abdn I'm impressed at your cycling, and agree with you about schooling. Especially for summer-borns, they start far too young in the UK.

Systems poor you dealing with that tantrum. DD1 has had a couple of massive meltdowns recently. On the one hand, it's really exhausting, on the other it makes me realise how much better she is than she was 18 months ago . DD2's teacher is visiting tomorrow and the room Thea wants to take her into is really dusty!

I don't think I'd let DS1's teachers in my house- way too stressful!

Fraser's been sick again with a respiratory thing whuch was scray and work's been busy - I need a beer (i gave up wine after my mother drank me under the table over Easter and I had to spend the next day completely hungover with my parents. If my tolerance is too low to drink with my mom- I shouldn't be drinking. On the positive, I've lost four pounds since I gave up wine).

I should go clean my house- its at the desperate stage for clutter. Hope this thread doesn't die and we can keep it going....

Well Caitlin has had her first morning at school and it sounds great - apparently they had real live dinosaurs and she rode on one, but the tigers weren't very friendly!

Caitlin's school sounds AMAZING

Abdn do you ever do any skiing in Scotland? We're thinking about trying some cross-country skiing there this year. Hope Fraser's feeling better.

It is a pretty amazing school actually - we had an, ahem, interesting morning getting ds into school today (fortunately one of my friends stepped in and was the cavalry, taking Caitlin while I dealt with ds, but I still ended up covered in mud and nearly weeping) and his teacher, teaching assistant and deputy head this year all said very helpful, creative, supportive things about trying different things to put in place to help him. So, feeling the usual ongoing worry about him but very positive about the school!

We see the child psychologist next week sometime to discuss various assessments he had before the summer. I never thought I'd say this but I am hoping for an ASD diagnosis, it would just make sense of so much and would help a lot to have a label that the school could understand and work with.

I remember your worries about dd1 Rolf, glad to hear she is doing better now most of the time.

Fortunately, Caitlin trotted into Reception perfectly happily (though she did have the screaming abdabs for an hour last night - knackered and processing it all I think). Hope other new schoolies are settling OK!

If you want to have a chat/email about some of the strategies that have helped with DD1, let me know . Although right now I feel as though we're back to where we started, we're not really. We've had help from a child psych, ed psych, speech and language and the behaviour support team (who worked closely with the class TA on setting up a friendship group). We've had a lot of help and been very lucky but it's a really hard slog.

Drowning in studying at the moment, hope all of you with reception class starters are coping! I have 3 more weeks until my final exam, so just waving really.

Quick in and out- bad week last week as absolutely everyone except Iestyn caught a bug!
Also- might as well just come out with it. Karen died on Sunday.

I'm so so sorry to hear that. I hope Karen's family can find comfort and peace.

I'm sorry to hear that. May she rest in peace.

Sorry to hear your news - hugs.

Rolf, last year we had no snow but the year before some friends of ours did quite a bit of cross country skiing around here. I'd say the snows not great for it but I've been spoiled where I've lived before.

We're all healthy at the moment which is great - after Fraser was sick for two months solid last year I tend to get overly worried about him now so it's nice to see him bounce back this time. Dh and I were out last night at a show seeing a favourite cdn folk singer that's actually touring near us (this never happens - we're pretty far off the normal track). It was a great show, we were right at the front, and he even took a picture of us with him at the end saying it was nice to meet canadians and have a few fans in an audience that otherwise didn't know him. He was probably just being polite but it was very cool!

So sorry Wails x been thinking of you

How's school going for the new starters? I am finding getting 2 of them in in the mornings on time something of a struggle I must admit, especially towards the end of the week when ds has had more than enough!!

Sorry to hear about your cousin Wails. xx

After my initial post we went on holiday and I haven't been back to catch up. I've written a website so tend to be busy tinkering with that when I'm on the computer, book lovers take a look: bookiio. I'd be interested in any comments, and if you can submit any book reviews then I will love you forever!

J is loving being back at school. Full time now and he seems to be coping very well. I was expecting him to be shattered by the end of the week but he's even managing to go to sports club after school on a Friday.
It really helps that it is a foundation unit in the school so he has been there for a year already just doing mornings, and he is still in the same classroom with the same teachers. Have any other kids been to a foundation unit? H can't wait to start there in April (roll on April!).

We've all got colds here, there is a constant torrent of snot from H's nose, lovely.

Hello there, nice to see some familiar faces:) Haven't had a name change either. DD Fleur was born 30 May after induction because of high BP. Not living in Gran Canaria anymore but in Netherlands. DD started school in September and is loving it. Me, I am still a teacher but now in university teaching. Currently 37 weeks pregnant and this one is going down same route as last. High BP and doing 24 hr urine at mo cause protein present so looks like we could have another little girl very soon! Great to hear from you all