Now they are two! (new thread for the April 2004 lot)

[hewlettsdaughter]

So - dolbear, you said you were starting to get broody? Not me - I took my pram and a load of baby stuff to a local charity shop the other day (did get a bit sad when I handed over the pram though - the woman in the shop didn't help when she said "think of all those walks you did with that!"). Hope you are all doing ok.

mrs D, were you planning to go back full time? do you want to?

dd3 is my least whingey, so far. plenty of whingeing goes on in then fennel household but dd3 isn't doing it mostly. perhaps she's a late developer.

my nearly 5 year old appears to be finally growing out of regular toddler tantrums. hurrah! it's been a long time (she started young).

No I wasn't planning to go back full-time atall.
The university is making redundancies, it has no money. Anyway, my boss said that she didn't want HR to think that my position wasn't necessary, and they might if she reduced my hours, so she said.
An all or nothing situation really. To be honest, I don't want agro over it, she's a lovely manager and I've got a 18,000 word disseration to write.
I'm far more likely to get it done if I have the kids in nursery full-time!

it sounds a dodgy argument by your boss. there are laws against discriminating against part timers, or those on maternity leave. and working in a Uni there are ways of dealing with employment problems - unions etc. but as you say you might get more time to write your dissertation this way.

and you can presumably go part time once the redundancy round is over if you want to?

I hope

How long have you got before going back MrsD?

I'm thinking of going back to work now that ds is not having naps every day. Its a bleeding nightmare trying to entertain him every afternoon - esp in Scottish pissy weather! I don't know how SAHM's do it!!

Persuade him to have "quiet time" after lunch, tracyk - this worked on our two the other day (well, dd didn't last long, but long enough for us to have a cup of coffee!)

Ds is starting to cut out naps too - it makes the day so much longer doesn't it???????

We introduced quiet time with my mindees, even though they were turning three they weren't ready to cut out naps, yet wouldn't go to bed until 11pm if they had one. So we had a video/dvd every afternoon (at mums request). I may have to do this with ds, although not keen on a dvd every day, but I spose if it's only 45min - 1 hour tops then it won't kill him.

ds is watching Monsters Inc at the mo. Only prob is Ineed to watch him later in case he dozes off at 5pm!

Entertainment in pissy weather

• games like bingo, dd loves it colours, shapes, counting leap frog do a good one.
• cooking, peeling helping prep dinner, it takes 3 x as long but hay if you're trying to kill time.
• make some playdough...I can get 30mins on the spin bike while dd plays playdough
• crazy dancing, action songs on a cd etc. I just have to join in every now and again and dd gets right into it. -puzzles, we get them out of the library -draw around them with a big piece of paper and get them to colour themselves in...

Sorry bed time I'm running out of ideas, at playcentre the other week we did these really cool concrete decoration tiles. We filled up a plastic plant saucer (you know those things that go under a pot plant) with concrete then the kids put all sorts of things into them, shells, bits of broken mirror, small stones, those prety coloured stones that you put in vases, all sorts really when they dry they become like paving stones and look really cool. Love the ideas we get from playcentre of stuff we can also do at home.
Take care all got to try to get some energy before guzzly guts starts feeding again

for mine, when they grew out of a nap we'd put a video on after lunch. and if that doesn't keep them quiet for an hour, it's time for full time nursery....

(but then I find 2 full days a week at home with toddler more than enough. even in good weather with amenable child. partly cos it's 3rd time round and there's only so many toddler groups and activities you can go to in life i think.)

ds2's still definitely a nap boy at the moment - is even more impossible when he doesn't have one. Both boys seem to be outside all the time at the moment - in our tiny yard, which gets cram packed with children from over/down the road (I think because we feed them ice pops...), or ds1 goes to play outside - gulp - on the pavement. Gives me palpitations but he's growing up... Fortuntately ds2 isn't tall enough to reach the gate handle yet so he's trapped in the yard - for this summer at least.

no naps till 4.45pm yesterday and today!! I leave the room for 5 mins and when I come back - ds is slumped on the beanbag!
Start new job on Monday that is till 1.30pm - pick ds up at 2pm and hopefully he'll be tired enough to sleep in the car on the way home!

HD, it's DS1, honestly And Deal Or No Deal.

HM

oh good grief. Ds2 is going through another insisting he doesn't wear a nappy phase... It'll only last until he does a wee somewhere, but he's very taken with flushing the toilet and all by himself has managed to work out how to put the toilet seat on the loo, get the stool, sit on the loo and then get off saying "all done!" and then flush away to his heart's content.

Dp's gone to work so that'll be me doing the mopping up any minute now...

dot hopes it just a small one

dd has just started taking herself off to the loo which makes as she says ' mummy so proud '

She now refuses to wear a nappy at night. We had quite a few good days in a row, then we had about a week of wets every night and when I was about to give up we have now had 2 dry nights in a row. Pretty stoked.

Have a naturopath appt with ds as he eats so much and doesn't seem to put on hardly any weight still only 15lb at almost 7mths. Hope you are all enjoying the heat, it has been the most miserable rainy day today

Chuffed - think I'd rather be there than here. It's 35 degrees where I am today!

Your dd seems very advanced re toilet training. We had a 'poo on rug' incident yesterday - dd was having a bit of nappy-free time and suddenly there it was...

Montage
These are great!

(Dh says "pass the bucket!")

That's lovely MrsD - there are some beautiful photos there - nice to see the chickens too!

Link to pic of Dot and Juno on their wedding day (hope you don't mind, Dot! Congratulations again!)

Thanks! Can't believe it's already a week ago that it was all happening. Certainly was a wonderful day and ds2 was in his element - 60 people all making a fuss of him!

Poor thing's got dreadful nappy rash at the moment - I think it's the heat, but it's never been so bad - he's refused to sit down in the bath for the past 2 nights... It only flares up on his nursery days, which are Thursday and Friday, so is already calming down and will have disappeared by Monday. Strange - I'm not sure if they maybe don't change him as often, or he gets hotter playing there. Anyway, roll on cooler days - and the end of nappies?!

Maybe they use something different to wipe him with Dot? What do you use? (I still use cotton wool and water most of the time with dd - I try and avoid fragranced wipes).

How are you settling into married life?

We use Pampers sensitive, but not sure what the nursery use - we used to take our own wipes and nappies in for ages but it didn't seem to make any difference, so we stopped...

Married life is good - especially when I can say things like "Wife, make me a coffee!" (cue dark mutterings from dp!)

dw, shouldn't that be?