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?

Its been a horrid day.

Air has nits from school

Pil we horrid at partu

"That" chold picked Hope up and throw her in a ball pool and made her cry.

Im not a happy fucking bunny.

Am back from up North and sooooooooooooo much to catch up on!

Have spent the evening up a ladder painting coving so will do so tomorrow

Thanks Faffin. Really glad your DD did so well, and that you survived the experience too!

Urgh for nits air, hope tomorrow is a bettee day. Have you got one of those nitty gritty combs (use them with super cheap conditioner, wet combing is much nicer than nit shampoo and works well if you do it right... And if cash is tight and your GP nice they can be obtained on prescription.)

Boo for babies under the weather and yay for all those TTCing. I am very happy for you, while smiling and nodding I know our three are very definitely Enough!

The nitty gritty comb is my best friend right now. We got a txt from school last Thursday telling us that a child in Aarons class had nittys and to check our children. Grandparents did it on Thursday night I did it again on Sunday night anf both of us found no nits. In the party tonight I could see five on the crown of his head. He must of got them at school or from one of the children st the party. I denitted him as soon as we got home and I will hot wash his clothes tomoro :(

Also dh has been given the all clear regarding the snip so no more children for us. I would like more children but we.have no space and no money for another child such is life.

Morning!

Someone was asking up thread about telly/tech.
We foUnd that the "x hour a day" rule was hard to do as there would iften be a time when eg 20 mins of telly was a useful peacemaker when the baby needed changing/feeding, but letting them have telly/tech in the morning led to strops befor school. So we switched to "ground rules":

If mum/dad say enough telly for today then it's off. Same for nintendo DS/computer.
No telly/tech before school.
15 mins at a time allowed on asking, mum can "forget" exactly how long (ie no real timer) but you must finish up without a fuss if asked (end of level/end of episode).
Take turns: first gets 5 mins, next turn is 10 mins, next turn is 15 mins. (promotes waiting skills to get linger turn!)
Some days are Tech Free.

Oi, buy yourself some internet cheapy tests from Amazon/eBay & if you use your final test, promise yourself you won't test until they arrive.
It helped when I was going POAS crazy.

Air, oh no! I hated the nit stage of childhood (having two sister 5 & 7 years younger meant it lasted a long time!), hope you manage to get them all asap!
I'm 'glad' DH has the all clear, but sorry that you want more....is there a possibility of him freezing some incase your circumstances change in the next few years?

So excited for all the new (and potential new) babies! We're done, happy just us three, so I shall have to get my fix of newborn snuggles elsewhere (eyes Oi pointedly).

Air nits are grim, hope you can get them gone quickly!

Faffin so glad it went well. Bet you're so relieved now!

I'm really busy at work (absolutely not mumsnetting while I should be sorting through the billion emails I've come into). And DH is away for the next couple of days. And it's snowing. Much tea will be drunk today I think. I did do my first training session for my 10K last night, so I'm feeling a bit sore but quite smug. Monkeyboy slept well last night too, which is always a pleasant bonus, though he did throw a strop this morning when he came downstairs to find the cat asleep in his pram. Cue much wailing and shouts of 'CAHH! CAAAAAAH! NAAAAH!!' and frantic pointing and flailing.

The sun is out now, so fingers crossed the snow melts off and it warms up in my office! Must go and do some work drink some tea and hunt for biscuits

(Gah! Just lost my post again!!!) I'm going to have to learn to save it or send it if I'm interrupted, as that's when it all goes wrong.
Anyway, I was saying that I'm snowed in, and that even though it is granny's day off and her birthday, we've had to encroach... She can get out in her car, we can't. So we got our wellies on and walked to the top of the street (hard work for me, nevermind the BOi!) to meet her.
I am touched easily that you want to snuggle my newborn-to-be. Of course, I have to get pg first... but we are trying! Well, whenever the BOi will let us. He ended up with us in bed again last night, he was not for settling, all night. I used to wonder how couples could say "he/she was conceived on X night". I used to think, they can't be having enough sex if you can pinpoint the occasion. Now I know why!
Apart from the not sleeping thing, he is a genius. Did I tell you? () He knows so much, animals, shapes, he can do animal sounds, he understands so much that I say. Pure genius. My pfb!
And he's so funny. He tickles himself (I mean physically tickles himself under his chin as he knows its funny). And he blows a mean raspberry on your skin.
I hope number two lives up to his absolute perfection! (ha ha ha!)

Oi when you were posting last week about going off the booze I SO NEARLY told you to POAS because it really did just scream "pregnant" to me but I didn't want to overstep any marks If you and Queen get good news soon we can go over to the Oct 2013 thread and stamp out the txtspk toot sweet.

Figgy we hadn't been actively trying but also not actively doing anything to prevent it. My periods came back when DS was 9 months and I'm still BFing so who knows really... It wasn't until this month that we really properly discussed the fact that actually a 2 year age gap means I'd have to get pregnant quite soon...

Writing my business plan for my fantasy bookstore on the train is keeping me going - work isn't bad, I just feel totally numb and indifferent to being here and I don't have any work to do today so far which isn't helping. Going rates for rent on our high street appear to be around £10,000p.a. which seems like nothing at all...the trick is to find a shop though, although there seem to be lots of empty/useless shopfronts the two that have come up recently have apparently been let within 5 minutes of becoming vacant.

Xiao - that was another reason why I thought about POAS - because when I got pg last time, I just went off the taste of alcohol completely. Now I don't know whether it's because I've had a month off, or because I may be pg (although unlikely), or maybe even because my body is in the mindset that now is the right time. Whatever the reason is, I embrace it. It must be saving us £20 - £30 a week in wine costs - because when I don't drink, DH can't be bothered either. We haven't been actively trying, but we've stopped preventative measures.
Business planning - very exciting! So, it's a bookstore, with a specialism in kiddies books that can't be bought online easily. What else can you not buy online easily?... Although, you might have to set up an online store - which I'd recommend. If you promote yourself as a kids book specialist and write reviews about the books, detailing age ranges, the mechanics, thickness of pages, destruction testing, etc., you could be onto a winner. I want to buy more books for BOi, but need to visit the bookshop - but don't have the time - so if i knew of a trusted site like yours,... If you have a coffee/play area, you can be a regular stop off for local cms/mums to meet, you can visit Surestart centres to give presentations, have book reading afternoons... - what's the quality of your local library like? Do what they AREN'T doing, do it better, in nicer surroundings. Get David Walliams to visit - or Madonna, or Fergie - any celeb who thinks they can write kiddies books. The Telegraph loves a good, nice middle class setting up a business story (!) you could get some good publicity fairly easily. (I really must do some of my own work. Stop distracting me!)

Sounds lovely xiao, I hope you're not feeling too sick.

Still no cigar at this end....

I've always wanted a home-lovely-things shop. I'd set it up and get it running, and leave it in the hands of lovely people while I travelled the world looking for lovely things to sell in it, making friends with crafty types and doing some fair-trading.
Seven this country needs real craft/haberdashers! I hate the big chain types hobbycraft that sell kits that have already done all the work at horrendous prices, and fill their shelves with all kinds of horrid tat that does NOT belong in a craft shop! grrrrrr! And where's the bargain bucket of odds and ends?

oi I agree, and their wool is the bargain basement rough cheap variety, not the sort that people who knit lovely things actually buy.

Maybe we should all open a department store together and each just have our own section!

Great idea!
We could call it "the Lovely Shack", or "house of lovely", or some other such lovely name that everyone would want to come to, and be a part of, and work for, and Liberty's would be jealous.

Thanks seven, the kick seemed to dislodge a bit of the paperwork!...
It is possible things may now get moving and at least have a chance of it working. I hope it's all in time.

A shop of nice things you say? How about AllCoves (it caters for all coves, me hearties) and have alcoves in the shop for each niche item
(a knitting alcove, a crafting alcove, a fingerpuppets alcove, an Effnic gifts alcove). We could seperate the alcoves from the centre of the shop with a little fence to stop sticky toddlers trashing the gifts (the outside wode enough for buggies though! And inside the fence have a cafe and toddler Soft area for playing.

Though I must say the only softplay/cafe bookshop I've seen recently had huuge signs saying "don't trash the books!!!". The bookshop owners said it had transformed the business as they tripled their talings by brining the mummy/kiddy crowd in.

Yay aethel!!! All fingers and toes crossed like crazy and I'm sure the paperwork blockage will move through the digestive system of the Land Registry and be expelled with a swift whoosh just in time for completion.

Oi what great ideas and I like your thinking on the online site. Now that I'm looking down the barrel of another mat leave I could use that time to first set up an online bookshop website that I can run from home (am quite good at techy stuff so building and running my own site doesn't scare me). Expenses I can foresee: inventory, website, advertising, subscription fees, taxes, materials and supplies, postage. Could easily do my own legal and bookkeeping.

Then once I've got the bit between my teeth running my own business I can bide my time and wait for the perfect retail space to sell all kinds of children's and other books with space for a cafe, storytimes, reading groups etc (our local library does a rhyme time but it's like a total madhouse and the surrounding smaller branch libraries have useless opening times so a shop could really fill the gap). We're a wealthy town with a single rubbish Waterstones on the high street and no other bookshop. There are two primary schools and a pre-school literally on our high street as well as a GP surgery, a couple of drop-in breastfeeding clinics and baby classes like music with mummies and it looks like a "natural baby" store of soft toys and decor is opening up soon.

I have a niche in mind for a website which I have to turn over in my head a bit more, but I can't find anything like it in the UK - there is one in the US but the website is shockingly bad and they don't ship internationally. I wrote to one of my best friends who works for Walker books so can hopefully pick her brains. I know there is a MNer who runs a successful kids bookstore in Sittingbourne so I might also go and visit and maybe see if she'll be a mentor/give me some work experience.

Now to write a business plan - aaaaghhh it is really exciting!!!

V exciting. The costs of setting up an e-commerce site (finding a payment partner for credit cards) might also be worth investigating. However, quite a few retail sites have recently introduced the opportunity to pay with Paypal. (You don't need a PayPal acc as a customer you can be a "guest"). I wonder if the Paypal route is cheaper/easier/safer.

When will I ever learn not to mention anything to my fucking mother. I didn't even tell her what the idea was and she's already pissing on my chips.

"If it's a children's idea pointless. As soon as your kids leave infancy your interest will disappear. When DS is a teenager you won't want to be thinking about stuff. Women who have a lingere or baby biz dime a dozen. Women who know what a stochastic climate model rare."

I should have remembered this is the woman who refused to come to my Harvard graduation because she thought it was pointless rewarding me for just doing the work I was supposed to do

Wow. Xiao I don't know how you haven't actually killed her

kat I'm feeling pretty murderous right now, trust me. Good old DH has tried to put a jolly spin on it which is sweet.

I don't know why I never learn about asking her for advice or support - it's like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the fucking football.

Congratulations btw. I don't really like the Aug 13 thread either. There are some sane people on there (me and Gary ) but a lot of them seem a tad hysterical. Ho hum. I sometimes think I'm too pragmatic for m own good.

Faffin glad monday went ok, was thinking of you. Om a completely unrelated note, can you remember if any of the shops in MK stock the maternity ranges? Shopping on Sunday for jeans and tights. The glamour!

Yes and figgy hope figgyboy is feeling better now as well.

I went in to school and read monkey puzzle to Airs class. So I tell a story of a monkey and answer questions about sharks and crocs - ya got ta love 3/4 year olds

Teacher was impressed that I know the names of the other children in his class and Air liked it because his friends liked it.

Think the Teacher might ask me back and maybe I should look into teaching. I had a great time :)

Your mum has a strange line of logic. I have never had a personal need for shot peening or foundry equipment, but I love marketing it. As long as I'm serving a need, earning respect, learning more, getting better and being paid, I'm fulfilled.
Air - glad you had a good day.
Aethel - i hope progress continues with the house. It's starting to sound positive.