December 2011- <Haddocks> are in the deep freeze as we won't be needing them, no, siree! Grab a <cuppa>.......

[Aethelfleda]

Shiny new thread: we forgot to discuss the title this time!

Thanks all. DH said its good to see me smiling again, and DS is happy and his behaviour seems to have improved dramatically this morning. Which makes me feel awful for how much my stress has obviously been affecting him. Must wash up then Hoover, then we're having a DVD day. Though I may make banana loaf to use up the manky old bananas if I have the other ingredients :).

mopsy how is Minim doing?

Finally on the mend! No vomit yesterday bit I didn't want to say in case I jinxed it... Slept through til 5am. Is now happy and laughing and eating toast. So it's looking good. I am so relieved. Last week was stressful and exhausting.

Dashing through but couldn't read and run on the good news - congratulations seven I'm not in the slightest bit jealous

Also good news Mopsy, fingers crossed she'd well on the mend

I can tell it is payday weekend I have spent about £100 on Danny in the last two days between winter clothes, hat, a stupidly expensive noisy tambourine/shape sorter and now back from Tesco with a bloody baby Walker I'm going to have buyers remorse for the rest of the month. Thank god for my eBay selling last month and I'm pretty sure I have a pile of expenses still to come through.

Ooh, fab news seven . that will give you an 18 month gap: busy but not completely insane. How lovely!

Glad to hear MiniM's a bit better, mopsy. Hope you both recharge soon.

Backache today (and most of the week actually). Bleugh. Ibuprofen is my friend. Am contemplating inventing Baby-Tak. It's like Blu-Tak but pins your little darling to a convenient floor, wall or ceiling so you can get on with your day without constantly having to fish them out of unsuitable places.....

Put me down for a 70kg bucket please. And I'm in if you give me 50% of the business, for an investment of 16 bamboozle Stretchies and a bag of maltezers. - hey, Hilary Devey ain't the only bird from Bolton who knows a good investment when she sees one.

Hi all. I have a shiny new phone and am testing the tinterweb access.
Congrats seven I am definitely ready to start trying for the next one now. Very very jealous...

I hve said for the last 9.5 years that babygros ought to come with a velcro strip down the back so you can stick your baby tithe carpet without worrying where the little sod will roll off to!:o

I am waging domestic war, the living room is running scared. I haven't even got the binliners out yet!;)

Congrats seven!! Very pleased for you!
Hoping I get my BFP soon so I can tell people over the christmas break, and buy loads in the Jan sales!

aethel LMF, I'd buy those babygros. DS has learnt how to walk using his walker, so now believes everything is a walker...including the rabbits, they are not impressed with him atm.

figgy, we've been on a babyfree minibreak this week & went abit mad with the spending. Not expecting a healthy bank balance when I look tomorrow.
Although MIL has bought loads of autumn weather stuff so we don't need to spend much more.

Just a quick rant.

Being considerate landlords, when we moved back here we didn't kick out our tenants (DH's neice and nephew and neice's boyf have been renting out house) but rented somewhere else, telling them we had rented this place for 12 months, so we woudl discuss them moving out or us extending our lease at Xmas this year.

So now Nephew and his GF have rented a house, and neice and her BF have rented a house. Not sure about the nephew, but neice has collected her keys today.

Aaaargggghhhh. We are now pressumably going to have an empty house until we move back into it, and we are tied to paying rent here until the end of March.

DH's response, "they're paying rent until Xmas"..

Hmmm. What about council tax etc? If we can't afford rent and mortgage how can they afford double rent?

Good job DH is in lettings. Think we'll see how quickly they move out, then approach our LL and see if we can break our contract if we find new tenants...Poor DS will have lived in 3 houses before he turns 1 at this rate

Squuuuuuuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Ahem.

Congratulations seven, that's brilliant! Will you be joining the June? 12 club, staying here or both?

And congratulations on your nephew DSM, that's lovely news too. Hope your sis recovers OK, that sounds a bit traumatic at the end.

And I am so pleased to hear MiniM is non-vommy Mopsy, that is good news, you must all be knackered.

We're ending the week on a very positive note, about time too given the horrors of we've all been through

How did you know about my sideline business aethel ... though I love the idea of yours/ LMF's about pinning the little blighters to the floor somehow. I thank Bob for our babycage play pen, as it at least means we can have brief ten minute periods to have a shower, stack the dishwasher, etc, in safety.

This weekend we have mainly done sod-all. DP has been ill, DS has been snotty (oh, so, soooo snotty...I was picking his crusty bogies off the bottom sheet of the bed this morning, yum), and although I've felt like death during the week I've been the healthiest of the three of us. So all I've done is housework and sleep, with a bit of TV, and look after the other two. Am bloody shattered and have to go off to an all-day conference 80 odd miles away tomorrow, urgh.
My treat to myself is to sit, do my nails and watch Time Team...it has been a weekend of glamour Oi could only dream of!!

Thanks all! I am now making chicken, spinach & black beam gyoza as a Sunday evening treat. Hope they're nice, I invented the recipe... So they have the potential to go either way. I also made a yummy elderflower martini for which I also invented the recipe ... Elderflower cordial, gin, dash of vermouth, lemon juice. Yum yum yum!!

I am having sofa rage >_<

Enjoy the booze:o

Those babygros sound fantastic!

mopsy so glad she's finally on the mend!

AWCH I can understand the rabbits not being impressed! I really hope you get your BFP soon.

northern I think I'll be due late May/early June. I've already joined the May group as the other 2 were a month early, but of course I'll be staying here unless you all want me to bugger off before I make you all broody

We had homemade pizza for tea, I even made baby pizza fingers for Eva, essentially cheese on toast with tomato purée, she loved it so will definitely be doing it again.

Congrats seven

In my experience northern, conferences offer many opportunities for a lovely nap

Really pleased to hear MiniM is on the mend now mopsy

Had a busy week but now feet up with a whisky . DS is adorable with his waving and clapping. He rocks backwards and forwards when you sing row, row, he does twinkle star hands when you sing that, and does 'clap, clap, clap' on wind the bobbin up, it's so cute! Still nothing on the moving front though, although that makes life very easy for me. He seems unable to decide whether he wants to bum shuffle or crawl at the moment, so does neither and just sits there getting a bit frustrated. He still isn't a huge fan of eating, although there was a marginal improvement this week and I discovered he likes kedgeree - finally a meal we'll all eat.

Fingers crossed next week continues for us all in the positive way this one has ended

And of course we don't want you to bugger off seven. Really pleased for you, but I'm not broody in the least...two DC's are enough for me!

We have something close to clapping, even if it is only when she has food in her hand I forget that she's a month younger than most of the babes here though.

Not much going on in the crawling front either. She does sitting circles and eventually ends up where she wants to be... or ends up laying down, rolling onto her front and then does some weird sideways crab shuffle instead

Still just the one tooth too! I think the second bottom one is imminent but not actually through yet.

She has her hospital appointment on Friday for tongue and lip tie and then first haircut in the afternoon. Saturday we're off to a wedding sans kiddies and I'm feeling a tad guilty if I'm honest - I don't see her all week and then we're leaving her from lunchtime Saturday until Sunday morning

Hope the house viewings are going well Aethel and that you find something suitable soon - or that dream house suddenly becomes available again!

I really need to sort this place out - it looks like a bomb has gone off. Any chance you want to do mine when you finish yours LMF?

The snot picking sounds delightful Northern Was sorry to hear about DP's bosses being arses though

Ooh no, don't want you going anywhere seven, we all get to have a vicarious pregnancy through you! I'm sure you'll act as a good luck charm for all of those wanting to get a BFP, and it'll be lovely hearing all about it. Plus you and the DCs are an integral part of the Dec '11 gang

Yep, the snot-mining was luuvverly MissRee, the things you end up doing as a parent...

Right, off to bed and praying DS sleeps through til 6!

I love the glamour of snot-mining, but BOi HATES it.
But he likes sardines. I have yet to find a food that he won't eat. I 'll have to bring some pickled herring back from Copenhagen.
He's been v v obstinate and has not walked on demand for the phone cam. He's barely done 3 steps all weekend. -independently, that is. He's covered miles with his walker though, he's obsessed.
I've been sorting clothes and trying to pack all day , in between lots of play and cuddles.
I really hope I can leave on Thursday, rather than Friday. Not looking forward to going away again.
He currently has 5 teeth through, and the 4th top one is very close to breaking through.
He doesn't do hand movements to songs though Kate. I'll have to encourage that more. (I'll have to learn the movements myself first!) he's had great fun today smashing the hell out of banging a drum.

Octoboy is still reversing everywhere. I may have to buy him a rear view mirror... :o

Bleurgh crap night 12.30 realised I hadn't put the skunk to bed and she was scrambling around underneath my bed and 2.30 Danny woke me up coughing then 5am more coughing though he didnt wake up before finally 6.15 uptime. He's playing on his bedroom floor I'm currently sprawled on it with a blanket over me. Was going to work from home today but have realised have left my mobile phone in my desk drawer so will need to go in after all......crapola!!

Wow, the gods of sleep muct have been watching me last night. DS slept from half 6 to 4 had a bottle and then slept till half 7. Then was happy to snuggle up with me untill 8 chatting to himself and not climbing on my face.

I think someone must have swapped my baby, i can't remember the last time he did anything other than wake up multiple times per night!

Yay BJR - long may it last! Your description of him climbing on your face made me laugh, DS likes to bounce on the bed hanging onto the headboard and sometimes his little feet do stamp in awkward places.

Figgy so annoying re: your phone! Can you work from home tomorrow instead?

seven congrats!! We're not TTCing on purpose but not taking any precautions either, other than sleep deprivation and working a lot. We both think a 2 year age gap would be ideal, but won't be too upset if anything happens sooner than that.

Speaking of working, I'm coming to the end of my first Monday off on my new part-time arrangement. The mundane things I suddenly really enjoyed: I dressed and fed DS, went to a baby group, made lunch and ate with DH and DS, read thomas the tank engine and watched Gangnam style videos with him... I did have a conference call at 2pm that couldn't be rearranged but it was only 90 min while our nanny took him to the supermarket and I don't have to do anything else till tomorrow. So far, so good!

xiao that sounds much better than being at work! I've haven't worked full-time since before I had DS, I can imagine it must be the silly little things like getting them dressed and eating lunch together that you miss most that I probably don't appreciate enough! Good luck with the non-ttc, I think having a 9 month old is a pretty good form of contraception! Ironically we've been trying since DD was born, I've worked out from my dates I likely conceived when we were in London for the Paralympics without the DC's!

missree Eva is the oldest on here, she waves but is still nowhere near clapping, I think because it involves sitting still

DS slept til 4.45... We both woke and DP went to him, but it didn't work, so I went down about 5.30 and took him, and I think we nodded off together in bed for a bit.

Then had a 2.5 hour trip to conference, and a 2.5 hour trip back, on foot, by train and by car, and no chance to sleep.

Am very, very tired, as it's been like this for several days and being ill and having to work. Will be off to sleep at 9.30 in the hope of getting a bit more sleep, so I hope your gods smile on me BJR.

DP, being the very very PFB one of us, insisted on taking himself and DS to the doctor's today to get checked over. I was gentle- said that although I was sure it was just a heavy cold that DP must take him if it would reassure him. It is indeed a virus...
But then poor DS split his lip on the radiator at home, and wailed so much he passed out face down on DP