October 2011 - Learning to accept our babies are toddlers

[ClimbingPenguin]

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I've hired someone to get all our babies to sleep while we go get sloshed in the corner

Gosh pen that sounds scary! Hope they stop soon

Sorry yes still around. I'm staying away with work and had 8 hours straight sleeping last night.

Busy busy but we're all well and getting ready to love close to my work. Quite upset about moving the children's nursery though

Quick update before bed..

Pen that sounds awful! Hope you and family are safe x Can't imagine living in an area where there is the risk of earthquakes.
at how fast your pregnancy has gone by! It must mean the birthdays are coming around again! 9 weeks on Monday till S . How frightening

Yes to bump photos of all your pg ladies

Not much happening here.. S dad got in touch the other day again asking to see her. I told him I need time to think it over and decide. Kinda not holding my breath as he has said this before and nothing has came of it. Thinking if I do decide to, it will be in the park or something, for a very short length of time and strictly on my terms. I think he has it in his head that everything is going to just fall into place when he see's her. I can't get it across to him that she doesn't know him from any other random guy she see's! I don't know, I'm not rushing into anything.

Apart from that, all good. Her speech is just crazy, able to have proper conversations now. She seems to have a very good understanding of everything that's happening around her. It's been so long since I worked with kids her age, I forget what they are able to do/say. She did impress me one night by saying 'mummy my best friend' . Next night however when I asked her who her best friend was, she replied 'the kitties' (our 2 cats!). Lovely..

What's everyone thinking for birthday present ideas? I'm a bit stumped thus year, she seems to have everything!

We're home, got back yesterday after not quite so bad a drive. A week with five adults seems to have done wonders for W's talking, he's got one three word sentence now 'Billy did it' which is very cute and is used whenever anyone drops anything! He putting two sets of two words together a lot though like 'cassie gone' pause 'kitchen dinner' for Cassie's gone to the kitchen for her food.

Hope the earthquake's have stopped pen

Can't believe it's only 9 weeks until S's 2nd birthday duck we've got a set of Harry and his bucketful of Dinosaurs we got a while ago when they were on offer but no idea what else to get him!

Glad you had fun strawberry and yay for the talking!! Well done B!!

I'm looking at this and wondering if I should get it. Will go well with the Mickey figures I got her on sale in Disney shop

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B002OSY2W8/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?qid=1374952722&sr=1-4&pi=AC_SX110_SY190

Duck did you decide what to do re S's dad? Maybe a short meeting somewhere public like you say would at least allow you to test the waters. It's such a tough situation though.

Earthquakes have stopped these last few days and things feel normal again thank goodness - thanks for your nice messages

For A's birthday I've got some additions to his duplo set - he loves duplo and has the blocks, but I've got some add on zoo animals to add to the set. We got given a few a while back, but got some more. We have also got him the New York car set below as he has the London one and LOVES it.

www.letoyvan.com/garages_cars__planes.html

That may be it for him, except for a token book, which I get every birthday/xmas. Any ideas for a good book?

I don't think I will get DS anything, u less we are getting stuff around then anyway.

Do you slinky malinky?

Dear Zoo (with lift up flaps) is a favourite book here at the moment pen

Dear zoo is a big hit with S too. Other books she still loves to read through are any by Julia Donaldson. Not sure if its the pictures or the rhymes, but she loves them. Also has found a new liking for the 'that's not my...' books. I got her a frog one (free with the organix fruit pots!) and she would happily spend a bit of time just going through it to touch all the 'feely' bits. I like the idea of a token book each year. Do you write a message in each to keep track?

I need to remember that I have bought her quite a few new things recently that she's using just now in the garden with the good weather so I won't be buying anything else 'big'.

I have decided to meet up with her dad, somewhere public and for a few hours. I haven't told him yet, said I needed a bit of time to think and decide what I want to do re situation. It's hard, I really don't want to do it, I don't want to see him but I need to say I at least tried. I just don't believe his heart is in it 100% and that makes me sad. I think I'm just so used to it being me and her, I'm not happy with letting him back into her life when I'm sure he will just disappear again.

We are staying at my parents tonight as I'm working early tomorrow and its so warm! S has been tossing and turning, I doubt either of us are getting a decent sleep

Seb's gone off his books at the moment, but usually loves the 'That's not my..' books. He's also got a Waybuloo hide and seek book which he loves and 'where's Spot" (remember that?), although all the flaps are coming off.

We might get a garden slide or something for his birthday, although it's a shame it's such a crappy time of year he might not be able to use it until next year. We should have done what you did mummy and get something he can use now.

Pen glad the quakes stopped.

Mummy good luck. i hope for S's sake that he is serious this time and actually adds something positive to her and your lives. But if not you've tried your best for her.

God knows what we will get P, seems too far ahead at the moment to think. We are taking her to In The Night Garden Theatre at the end of August so if she REALLY likes it I guess we could get her a character or two from that. I like the animal idea Pene too, might have a poke around Amazon for some animals.

I had a chat with nursery the other day because bizarrely P has learnt the word spider (I presume at nursery) but is scared of them. She was trying to get out of her hair chair and panicking the other day because she thought the funny shaped leaf on the floor was a spider. They did have a Big Man come in a couple of months ago but it was on P's day off so they have said next time they will make sure she can attend and they will get the plastic bugs out they have and talk to her about them. I don't know if she has got the fear from another child or it's just something that would happen :(

She also told the woman in Co-Op today that she had been to How Do You Do (her toddler class) and seen snow. Which was all true bit I don't think the cashier knew what the hell P was on about (she did humour her though) .

New random words are "toe nail", "I see you" "no poo poo" "funny" and "noisy car" (when the alarm was going off). Baffles me how much she must pick up at nursery because we totally know if it's a word we have never said to her.

The earthquakes sound scary Pene and having to work in a building with cracks. Hope it has definitely stopped now. I have done my bump picture so need one from you and Ips now

Mummy has he moved back to Glasgow now then?

Hope moving goes okay Climbing.

I know, I hope he is serious! I haven't seen him either since she was 6 weeks old and I think I was still in that haze of new motherhood. I don't even know what I would say to him! It actually saddens me as we're were such good friends for years prior and had a good relationship before deciding to leave things to be as he was moving away. I don't know if becoming a dad has put a fear into him and he just wasn't able to 'grow up'. I don't know. I asked him directly if he even acknowledges who S is and if he tells people he has a 'daughter'. He assures me he does and also explains that it was through his own choices that he doesn't see her . Yeah chesh, he is living here now, other side of the city but still much closer than he was before. I plan to text him this week and put it to him that if he wants to meet her then he can. I'm also tempted to ask for the past 22 months child support that as yet, has never reached me

Best of luck with S''s dad, duck.

Thanks for the book recs! I think we may get Dear Zoo - we got it from the library a while ago and A really liked it. He's quite into books at present but tends to read the same ones over and over - at present it's a daft book about animals that get caught in the rain. Thank goodness it's a library book and can be returned soon! Another fave is Giraffe's Can't Dance.

Oh and I'll do my bump pic soon, promise! My most recent one didn't work very well so will do another

Hi everyone!

back from holiday last night and had to search through the talk board to find you as all my threads had disappeared. Don't think I've been off MN so long since I joined

We had an amazing trip. was lovely to meet up with pen and A, even though M decided to show off how "independent" he is by running off cackling loudly into crowds of strangers at every opportunity

We felt the morning quake pen but were up in Napier when the evening one struck. Glad the damage was so limited and no one was hurt.

M adapted really well to time change and doing so much driving. I was the one with jet lag when we arrived as I barely managed one hour of sleep in 48 hours on the journey over.

Was so lovely to see my Dsis and meet her BF and to get to hang out with my best friend and her fiancee.

M's talking has really shot forward from being with DH and I 24/7 for 4 weeks.

Will take some time to catch up with the thread before the weekend - I'm still a bit shell shocked at being home!

Glad you all had a great time Engels. Hope jetlag settles soon!!

I have a question, are any of the babies showing a lot of emotion for things? S likes watching Aladdin, but there is a point in it where him and jasmine fly up and the tiger is left on the balcony and S is breaking her heart at it! First time I told her that he was staying there to have his rest/sleep etc. few times after that she still shows emotion over that same part. Doesn't cry but says about how he is having a rest, but she is holding back the tears!
Then last night we read a book 'Barry, the fish with fingers' and there is a part about another fish who almost gets squashed but is saved. She got upset again with it! I told her he was safe and happy and at the end they have a party! She seemed to accept it but is still mentioning it this morning. Is this normal would you say? I'm worrying she's going to be very over sensitive!!

Not quite the same duck but W is getting 'stuck' in ruts a bit like that at the moment too. He spent 10 mins yesterday telling off the sheep in his postman pat book who was eating the letters. He was sat point pointing his finger at it saying 'naughty sheep no' over and over! So I think the asking over and over is normal and he does say 'uh oh' if anyone falls over etc on tv but it doesn't seem to overly upset him.

Sounds about the same strawberry! I didn't really think they had the skills and understanding yet to show that much emotion. When she hears a baby cry, she will ask me 'baby a little sad?' And I'll say yes, so I guess she is maybe associating being sad/hurt with crying. Interesting!

Apparently A gets upset at nursery when the little girl he's best friends with gets upset, but haven't seen that myself. Like W, he does 'uh oh' a lot though, including when we watch the news which is slightly mortifying when the news article is about something really horrifying like the footage of that train crash in Spain. If anything it's a good reminder to stop watching the news when he's up and paying attention

engels glad you had a good trip in NZ And I am sure that any running off M did was just due to excitement at being in our national museum.

Duck have you made plans to see S's dad after all?

Pen- we finally text him back today and told him I would arrange something but it will be on my terms and he needs to prove to me first that he is serious...and that he can start by paying some child support! I thought he would kick up a fuss but said he will transfer money into my bank next week. Not holding my breath yet as its been said many time now!
I'm thinking I might set something up a few weeks before her birthday, maybe just an hr or so initial meeting and see if he even twigs that its her birthday soon (I'm not convinced he even remembers the date ). Or I'll wait to see if he suggests anything for her birthday and take it from there!

I really wish this wasn't happening, but its going to take me a long time before I'm happy to hand her over

Jetlag is killing me right now duck. have been awake since 3am and finally gave up at 5.30 and got up. At about 6/7pm I'm tearing my eyes out with tiredness and desperately tryig to stay awake. M has been waking at 4/5am crying and eventually going back to sleep the last few days, but I really have to wake him up from his afternoon nap and he's super cranky. I reckon a few days at home with proper nap times (for all of us!) should sort us out. Went to see ILs down at their caravan yesterday so M wouldn't sleep during the day until we got in the car to come home. I picked him up out of the car and laid him on the lounge floor and he didn't even flinch!

It's been 35 degress here for the last 2 days. Hoping for a storm today to clear the air.

I think you're doing the right thing to test the water with S's dad first. Sounds tough. x

Wow, M is nowhere near as advance language-wise as some of the others. He's improved massively the last month with so much attention from us on holiday, but he's still only using single words and he can't express emotions/feelings verbally yet (like tired or happy). He is a total parrot though and we have realised rather late that we mustn't say shit in front of him as he started repeating it at us the other day!

Hello all LittlePebble here finally decided to name change as my nickname is really obvious for anyone that knows me. (Mainly prompted by posting on a thread about orgasms this morning and I though 'oh my god if my mum read this' and she does MN!)
Been awol for ages as its the silly season here so working lots.
Still TTC but we're so busy and DH so stressed and tired we aren't DTD very often.
Will try and catch up on thread and come back :)

Engels, that sounds tough! I remember reading that sticking to his home routine of eat/sleep times as best you can and plenty if fresh air and natural light. Fingers crossed a few days and it will be better.

Good to see you back lp