Brooking no argument for babies who sleep, eat, smile and behave perfectly at all times. Yeah right!

[scarletfingernail]

New thread, here we go...

Nope sadly not pomme. DS is tucked up in bed nice and warm at PIL. DH, DD and I are in our icy cold house. DD is in bed and has the electric heater on so her room is a toasty 18 degrees. DH and I are on the Internet looking at boilers . Yep, ours has died completely and we need to get on the case first thing. We decided to stay here knowing that DD would have a warm enough room, we'll manage ok tonight but will probably stay at PIL from tomorrow until when the new boiler's in. Should be in for Monday at the latest. My mum works nights and my Dad gets up for work at 5am so we can't really stay at theirs. Our skint month/year has just become even more skint. DH's credit card is taking a hammering here too.

I hear you Too

and i'm not frivolous either. it mainly goes on food. i just don't earn enough to make enough of a stab at paying it off. I could go on.............

oh scarlet how shit. Poor you x

My offer still stands if you need day or night respite from the in-laws scarlet

I'm scared our boiler will go soon too - it is a bit iffy. We really can't afford a new boiler! I paid £477 for new brakes on my car Plus we've had a new washing machine and toaster. And the tumble dryer looks iffy, the dishwasher is quite old and the iMac keeps crashing

In other news though (because I am being sooooo budget conscious ) I ordered this today and am unreasonably excited about it arriving. I'm so fed up of having bottles drying on my washing up rack and filling it up

Eeeek! I had no idea I hadn't posted in so long, but you've just fallen off my "Threads I'm on" list!! Sorry to be so rubbish, it's just been a hectic few days.

So sorry to hear about all the super-stretched overdrafts and credit cards. Budgeting is so stressful (for you sensible people who actually manage it - idiots like me with our head buried in the sand are just living in fear of one day discovering the account is dry!) Christmas is always a crazy expensive time of year. In the New Year, after that first paycheque, hopefully the evil skint-monster will slink back into his hole for another year.

Also lots of for those of you in super cold houses! Too I'm so glad the oil delivery came really quickly, and hooray for the lovely plumber. Scarlet you poor thing, what an evil time for the boiler to pack it in!! Fingers crossed you'll move so much stuff around whilst packing to stay at your PIL's, and again when you move back home, that you'll come across your rings!

I really can't post alot today because I have TEN hours of continuing professional development (really boring annual homework that is required to retain my professional qualifications) which has to be completed by 31st Dec. DH has DD all day and night so that I can get it done in one blitz today.

DH has had DD since last night (while I went to see Hobbit ) so I gave them a call this morning to see how she's getting on. Firstly, DH claims she slept from midnight to 7am without so much as a peep! I literally cannot make myself believe him, but he swears it's true. He didn't have to settle her once!?! At 7am she had her milk and went back down until 9.30! When I go back home after Xmas DH will be on permanent night-duty...!!!

Secondly, when I rang DH put me on loudspeaker, and as soon as she heard my voice little A said "Mama"!! Now I find this almost as hard to believe as the sleeping-through (despite actually hearing it myself!), because DD has shown zero signs of being an early talker. She includes the sounds "Dada" and "Mama" in her usual babbling noises, but there has been nothing specific about it until now. She doesn't use any of the signs I've been trying to use with her for weeks now. She's only 7.5 months though so I've had no expectations on the language front, plus she's been working so hard on her walking I kind of thought language was on the back burner. I know she knows people's names though, because she looks at the correct person if you say "Where's Mama/Dada/Nana/Auntie/Grandad?" Anyways, I nearly fell off the bed when she said "Mama" on hearing my voice! We tried to get her to say it again, but she went silent for a bit. Then we gave up and carried on talking (still on loudspeaker) and while I was saying something to DH she suddenly said "Mama" again! It wasn't part of a long babble, it was a separate word!!

I'm not convinced she'll do it again any time soon though, because there's been no build up to it. She's never tried to call me by name when I'm in the same place as her. It was soooooo exciting though! Like Christmas came early!

Scream - little A is an actual superstar! Of course I would expect no less with her being related to you

I'm just going to have a nice before fetching DS......

Gah help. I've ordered dh's Christmas present yesterday but its on a 5-7 working day delivery. Which means it will arrive between Thursday 20 and Monday 24 but we're heading north on sat 22. I could reorder on next day delivery and get it delivered to my mil's and then return one after the new year. What to do?

Can you cancel the original order and reorder it? On amazon you can go in and change the delivery method if it's not yet been dispatched? Is that an option. What about if you give them a call? Which shop is it?

House if Fraser. Its not a ridiculously expensive present si I could reorder then return one but seems a bit silly. Will give them a call

Scarlet, so sorry about your boiler :( How utterly rubbish.

Our boiler is on its last legs. We knew it was when we moved in, but made the decision to get the kitchen and patio doors done first (all desperately needed doing) - which came in a little more expensive than expected, so we haven't managed to do the boiler this year. Hoping it'll survive the winter, and hoping to put a little money away each month to help us pay for it. I've managed for the past couple of months, but once the maternity pay runs out, I expect it won't happen...

I'm completely with you all re 'adult life'. :( I'm currently disliking the looming decision over what I do about going back to work. It's weighing up whether the little extra money per week will be worth it - will that actually make much of a difference to us financially? Argh. We're lucky that we have no overdraft to pay off, but DH does have a Career Development Loan that sucks up some of our income every month, and we still have a bit of a balance on a CC from when we moved earlier in the year.

Scream, how sweet of A! . I think it is a proper first word! Iz does Mamamamama and Dadadadada - I don't think she properly associates them, but Mamamamama tends to be when she's upset, while Dadadadada is when she's playing - hmmm!

Excitement of excitements here - we have teeth! One poking through, and a second one about to join it. She seems ok during the day, but pretty miserable at night - hoping that'll stop soon!

Christmas party for old uni friends tomorrow, so I'm spending most of my afternoon/evening making gingerbread, marshmallows and other equally yummy things!

Once again I can't remember what everyone said to reply (sorry!), and the thread has flipped so it's the wrong way round. I seem to be constantly having this problem.. :(

All these amazing talking babies! DS2 still has shown no sign of anything resembling a word. Hey ho, no doubt he'll get there eventually. Ds1 wasn't early talking. I can't quite imagine how my brain will cope processing the amount DS1 questions x2

Hi all,

Still miserable here, though I gave up putting s back in bed at 3am and let him stay with me- no further waking from b, so hoping without s he will sleep better. S was still horrible but at least I wasn't roaming the house. So travel cot is up, boys separated. Going to attempt sleep training with pick up/put down. I'll feed him twice in the night tonight, then cut to none over the next week. In theory anyway. Wish me luck.

How rubbish about the boiler scarlet, timing is terrible.

And about the cafe too. Totally agree about pretending to be an adult. And I'm a rubbish cook and i can't bake- seriously, who thought you could be crap at those things and have three children?!

scream if its used in context its a word. Amazing. We don't even get babble like that yet. she's so cool :)

I've finally chilled out about my boys though. I've accepted I won't have early developers but they'll get there, and doesn't mean they won't be very intelligent adults . Dh was also a late developer, was in remedial groups at school for his first few years but did medical school with no problem and to date has never failed a (much harder) post grad exam. So finally, despite still no sleep, I'm not worrying about them. Just about how on earth I will persuade s to sleep!!!

Hope you're ok if you're around jaggy

I'd try and change your delivery hawthers, then if not, re-order and return one is genius.

How'd the night of separation go. dream? Hope it was an improvement for at least one of them but preferably both

For the first time since April I am finally only 'overweight' by 0.1lbs rather than obese

Woop woop go biscuits!! That's awesome, no need to talk your achievement down .

PILS here this weekend. Grr. MIL totally ignored any instructions on xmas pressies (not many, very small as we are moving to Italy 3 days later...) and has brought massive bin bags full. I feel most sorry for my mum who listens and then looks like a meanie becasuase she's only got them a couple of things. She also made a MASSIVE mess in the lounge yesterday, seriously, toys everywhere and just sat and watched the Gruffalo with dd1 while dh and I tidied it all up. Apparently she'd done the same to dh in the pm with baking things in the kitchen (I escaped to work!).

She drives me mental. GRRR. Rant over!

How was the night dream?

A few 3 hour blocks of sleep which is a huge improvement, up for 90 minutes around 4 though. Been putting him 3/4 onto his front too, so he rolls onto his tummy- as he doesn't like being put on his tummy, so maybe that helped too. Disappointingly b still up twice- maybe just as strange travel cot, strange place? .

Hooray for your weight loss biscuits, marvellous!!!

Bloody mil pomme what a pita she is. Why, WHY bring all that stuff when you're moving? Moron.

I need . M treated us to a lovely screaming fit - seriously hysterical, wouldn't take the boob at all, completely inconsolable - at 12, so I took her into bed with me, and then she did it again at 4.30. DH had to get up and walk her around singing to her before she would calm down enough to feed. I have absolutely no idea what was wrong. I gave her Calpol just before 12 because she was so unsettled and her nose was runny, so she'd had it before the first screaming fit. She finally deigned to sleep lying diagonally across my chest, with me on my back propped up with pillows. This turned out to be surprisingly comfortable, and when she stirred in the night I swapped her to the other boob and she settled again. So I actually wound up with a fairly decent sleep. I am worried I've undone months of insisting she sleep in the cot, though. I hoped it was teeth but none have appeared yet. She also wouldn't eat yesterday except a tiny bit of yoghurt.

Yay for your weight loss Biscuits - blooming marvellous!

Good luck with the sleep training, Dream! Might try putting M on her front - anything's worth a try, right?

Pomme, grrrrr to your MIL! What a pain in the arse.

Scream, did I hear you say you're moving back home with DH in the New Year? Hurray! Well done the two of you!

We had a rubbish night here. F treated us to wide awake shouting between 2.30 and 5 and then up again at 6 and shouting swim at7 exhausted doesn't behind to describe it dream hope things pick up

Dog has run off again, grr! I'm not stressing this time because if he does what he did last time he'll come home for dinner at 8. Bloody animal DH went out to look for the Christmas tree stand in the garage and left the gate open.

However, we have a free Christmas tree! It's not nicked, promise. It was growing in a little back garden bit we have behind the proper garden. It's nice and glossy and bushy. Is it reasonable for me to lash it to the mantelpiece so M can't pull it over? This morning she tried to climb up the coal scuttle while I was busy MNing and tipped coal all over herself. I picked her up black as a sweep. If she hadn't been howling so loudly I would have taken a photo, but I think she got a bit bashed by large lumps of coal landing in her lap, plus I shouted No and scared her. When she gets up from her nap we'll decorate the tree.

Hawthers, have some mulled . Being exhausted is horrible.

F is running a bit of a temperature and is all out of sorts going to be a long night

Oh no hawthers. Has he got any other symptoms?

Hope the dog turns up soon Too.

You'll soon be in Italy. Will PIL be visiting while you're there?

Yay for teeth at last musical

Well impressed with the talking babies Scream and Too. Lots of babbling going on here but no distinctive words.

Congratulations on being overweight Biscuits . Seriously well done though. I have to say that there's no way you looked obese.

Dream sorry to hear you had another bad night. Do your boys have teeth yet? Could that be the problem? I remember you saying not long ago your night times had improved, sorry to hear there's been a relapse.

As of 1 hour ago we have central heating and hot water. I have the best plumber. The boiler died Wednesday night, he came Thursday to try and fix and then cancelled all his jobs on Friday to get us a new boiler and get it in. He then cancelled his day off today to get it finished. He said he always prioritises people with small kids, so great for us but not great for whoever got cancelled. We are £1800 poorer though

Yay for heat and hot water, Scarlet! What a nice plumber. Ouch at £1800, though.

The dog is back - he was found by some nice people who were walking their own dog, but they couldn't read the number on his collar without their glasses, so they took him on a 2-hour walk and then went home and phoned us! Must be the Christmas spirit at work. I wish I had some Christmas spirits of the alcoholic kind

Sorry for not name checking more bloody visitors today.

F just seems generally unwell. A bit of snot but nothing else. Has been teething forever but am really worried its going to turn into something serious like before. Believe it it not DS1 has only ever had one temperature and f never has. I don't know what is normal and what is extra concerning. I just can't shake the feeling we're going to end up back in intensive care. he's off his food and has hardly napped today so he's pretty bright and alert just unhappy and crying/whinging a lot which is so unlike him as he is normally so happy.

Am taking deep breaths and have put ni big girl pants on but I need some brooking.

P.s. glad that you dog came back too and the boilers fixed scarlet well done on the weight loss biscuits its bloody hard to do. Also pleased dream git more sleep but boys come on now chuck a few all night sleeps in for your poor mum. F has got the night shift covered so you guys can take a break and have a sleep

Brooking for you, Hawthers. Hope F is all better by the morning.