December 2011: They're one Jim, and highly illogical!

[LittleMissFantabulous]

I went with Gary's suggestion, as it was quite awesome and indeed factual!

:o

Onwards?

Xiao sympathies on the teething!

Seriously, why on earth is teething so bloody awful?! This surely can't have been in the great master plan can it?!

I've read that teething isn't proven to cause nappy rash, colds, diahhrea etc. but it does! I think it must make the babies more run down and therefore more susceptible to illness and the body is less able to fight off bad germs as it's too busy moving teeth around. Awful! Thank goodness for calpol, I wonder what cave people did?

Afternoon everyone. Well I know remember what it feels like to have a good nights sleep and boy is it good! We have been working on getting Freya to self settle (well I have not DH!) for ten days now and I think we may have just about cracked it. She went down in her cot awake at 7.15 - cried for 5 mins and then settled. Then woke at 12 ish and cried for about 2 mins and self settled. I didnt even have to get up to go and lie her down. Let's hope it continues. Life seems a hell of a lot better with sleep! Her self settling has gradually been getting quicker and if I do go in I can just lie her down and go again. Her day time sleep has also been longer as she has broken her 45 mins and wake cycle.

If DH would just stop being a twat as is usual, then life would be good!

Xiao! Those tights look amazing (and it means I have something to spend vouchers on)....how tight is the waistband? Shall I wait until after pg to buy them?

Thankfully we're taking a break from teething atm, but hoping the last 11 teeth are through before the next one arrive.
Cheung, calpol is king, I can see why so many people in ye olde days would use alcohol, thankfully DH only drinks pricey whiskey so I wouldn't waste it on DS, don't think he's got the palate

jiggle, the progress with the sleep sounds excellent. Well done on cracking it (fingers crossed/wood touched etc).

Hope everyone is having an ice free day? Pavements are sheet ice but roads are lovely around here!

Well done, jiggle! Treat it as a two-front war: time to Defeat the DH next!

Cheung, I recently read an explanation of the "effects" of teething: excessive dribble swallowing upsetting stomachs and the rest of digestion. Made sense to me!

So glad I washed my hair last night, xiao! It wouldn't have been at all nice yesterday, not a nice return for the kindness!

P.S. Northern, I didn't mean to come across as all Glaswegianly threatening with my typos! But really no need for a firm to do the carpet cleaning, if you want to control costs.

I've no idea what was going on with DS last night he woke at 11, 2,4 and then 7 i only had to go in at 2 and 4 to make sure he had his blanket on and then at 4 i picked him up as couldnt resist a cuddle when his arms came up.......hanging today now!!!

Had a 4 hour meeting this morning am now famished and eyeing up the 5 cartons of cakes i brought in for the office today, there is hardly anyone in unfortunately so have sort of gone overboard.

Gary the waistband is perfect - wide, soft and stretchy and not at all diggy into my soft equatorial regions. They'd probably sit nicely under the eventual bump as well

Just seen on FB. AirofHope been admitted to hospital. Hope she's better soon.

Aw no poor air seems wrong to say I hope it is the flu rather than anything else that's sent her to hospital.

Yep admitted with flu x

Hooray for jiggle and Freya. Sleep truly is a wonderful thing.

Hope air is much better soon

Great minds Plu! I had already at the cost of getting someone to do it, and had found hss last night; we've just booked to hire a cleaner for the whole weekend, plus cleaning fluid, for £25! Half price sale as well.

So we have a thrilling few nights of prepping the room, cleaning carpets and then painting his room. We'll re-paint the hallway (and re-hire the cleaner to do the downstairs as it needs it) at another point.

DS had not been a happy boy today- been at home with Daddy (so of course Daddy is favoured parent and I am ). His temperature's gone, which is great, and so he'll be back to nursery tomorrow. Still out of sorts, and has spent the day wailing despite the beloved Calpol effing teeth.

I am hoping I get some of your good sleeping dust jiggle, yet another night of crapness here!

Poor air, that's horrendous...

Poor AnAir! I hope she has a good, long rest, gets a bit of cosseting by the nurses, and feels better soon!

NorthernChinchilla, I'm so glad you didn''t go ahead with getting someone else to do it! So much more flexible (and cheaper!) to DIY. Did you know there were upholstery attachments, as well? Given all my fightin' talk about the muddy oven, you all may find this hard to believe, but we actually own our own carpet and upholstery cleaner, and a steam mop. They both got used the last time but one that DS was sick everywhere (last time was actually this morning; poor boy has been sweating and shivering on the sofa today).

Hope you've made it to bed by now, figgy.

Are the hireable wotsits as good as the professional cleaners? Hmmm...

Saying that, the only thing that would be recommended for the carpets in DH's house would be petrol and a match. - He has a house which he used to live in with his mate. For the past few years, his mate has lived there with his girlfriend and covered the mortgage and all costs as a kind of rent. DH has the main share in the house. The friend has just gone working in France and wanted to rent out the house. DH hasn't stepped foot in it for years. What a shocker! I can't believe someone lived there. The carpets are rank. the house is horrid. Really run down. We've just spent £500 getting a friend to paint it all through (inc. materials). It's still a pig sty. The question now is do we put in new cheap carpets to aid a sale, or just sell as it is? We've had a couple of months of costs, but luckily have a friend in need of a short term rent(2 months) until her new house becomes ready. She thinks its rank, but has no other option. I'm going to go round this weekend with whatever curtains etc I can muster and bleach articles to do my best to make it more habitable - she has a 18mth old child. I'll look for some cheap rugs too.
We need to get estate agents in and get some advice. We can't consider long term renting. It's 25 miles away from home, we only have one car, we have a baby,... DH is not handy - we struggle keeping our house maintained, never mind one we don't live in!

oi i guess it depends on how bad they are and how much a cheap carpet would cost to put down/whether you would get back what you spent? Maybe deep clean them and then the new owners can rip them up at their expense? Better than you put cheap ones in and they rip them up anyway if they are not to their tastes?

Was woken up at 4am this morning with chatting and knocking outside looks like some ned maliciously got a ambulance and police car out to the house opposite as she was stood at the door in her nightie telling them she was fine.....why do people do such things? Of course i then couldnt get back to sleep for ages ....brain just wont switch off.

Had to drop off Ds at CM again that is 3 days ina row i dont know what has hit me, god i am so lucky she usually picks up!!! have been thoroughly spoiled so far with her. She thinks he is a great communicator as apparently yesterday he had a poo and then walked up to her and pointed at his nappy as if to say "come on woman get this off". She is also convinced he says her name when she is out of the room. I guess talking is the next milestone?

Oi that's why I'm SO glad we don't own a property. Since we moved into this house three weeks ago we've had:

• the plastering on one entire floor stripped and replaced in full - when the plaster was taken off we discovered half the bricks are like swiss cheese and the other half are not actually bricks, they are brick-shaped pieces of wood shoved into the gaps!!
• all double glazing removed, and all being replaced
• all sash windows were in a terrible state - half have had to have their frames and cords repaired and two of them have had to be removed entirely, boarded up, and new ones made to measure and installed (the one in the nursery cracked in half when it was opened!)
• the worktop and kitchen sink and faucet will have to be replaced at some point as the particleboard has rotted through
• the surround to the velux window at the top of the house is rotted through and leaks heavily

At least the College is doing all the work - I can't imagine if we had to pay for all that and organise it all. I think ownership is not really all it's cracked up to be unless you are really proactive and stay on top of things, and also the market is rising. All we are responsible for is paint and carpets/flooring and that alone has cost us £2500 so far.

Can I just not-so-stealth boast here: when I crawled back into bed at 4.45am this morning in the middle of another nightmarish night DH turned to me and said "you need a break, why don't you stay in town tonight and get a good night's sleep". So I am staying tonight, on my own, in Mayfair, and hopefully having dinner with some friends if they are free at this short notice. I need some sort of anti-haddock for him - any suggestions? beyond the obvious, you and your filthy minds

Figgy, that's great communication! I seem to remember that the period approaching 18m was the language track, and the first explosion happens about then. DS had an early "terrible two" period because he wanted to communicate more and couldn't, but reached one of the "critical mass" thresholds at about 19m, and the tantrums ceased. He had the rest of his TT later, at about 2.6 (well, "terrible twos" is plural, after all!).

Oi, why not do a power hoover and try the carpet cleaner (several passes will be needed for such a carpet! makr sure to buy plenty of the liquid) before deciding to strip carpets? You're risking maybe £40 for hire, cleaner and petrol to get there, but possibly saving ££££ on flooring. BTW, it does you credit that you don't want to be accidental landlords with do many constraints on your time & resources.

Anti-haddock! What about a wine and Wagner evening for him agsin?

plu you have the memory of a flipping ELEPHANT. How did you remember that DH loves a sing-a-long-a-Wagner evening!!?

Xiao - how lovely of your DH. Maybe dinner & tickets to a concert or something.

How could I have forgotten?! You told it so movingly....

We aren't talking the X-Factor Wagner, I take it? (More my level, I'm afraid!)
Treats for DHs, other than the obvious...? Nah, mine would just want the obvious! Or a day out with the family, no stress. Maybe you and DS could take him to the zoo or science museum, something active/interactive and cool.

There's a modern Wagner?! How exciting. A bit like there being a modern Strauss, even if Hitler did like his music.

All fine with the scan, for anyone who hasn't been on fb we're probably having another scan, though not certain as the little monkey wouldn't uncross it's legs!