Dec 11: Not tonight dear, I've got a haddock.

[PerilousStiletto]

I liked this one. :)

Oooh nice one on house northern!

Yeah Minimopsy said her first three word sentence today. Mr. Mopsy asked her where mama is when I'd just pulled up outside and she was at the window and she said 'in the car'. She had a couple of two word sentences e.g. 'mama stairs' (for mama is downstairs)r 'bye bye dada' (when she wants me to put her to bed or read her story ) so this is a new improvement! She had several new words this weekend too: 'door', 'coat', 'star'.

Ugh I am tired. The commute is about one hour ten if I time it right (which I did today... left home at 6.20 am and work at 6 pm). It is busy but mainly free flowing it seems at those times although there were one or two queues on the way. Will have to go a few more times to really suss it out though. Still nervous about it though and the bloody sat nav falls off every single time. So irritating.

Right better go finish washing up!
Enjoy your time loop north Northern and Turkey Peril (but you're not leaving til Thursday right?)

Argh posted too soon. Hope you are feeling better Queen.

Hope you guys are getting on OK seven

Are you feeling any better about stuff today hinky?

How was lunch xiao?

aethel have you started the job hunt yet?

Sorry if I've missed people out. I am really tired. Driving is knackering anyway I'm sure but I think even more so when you are unused to it.

for northern's house... And agiant blob of for mopsy's satnav!! Hope the commute seems easier soon.

We have decided to try a local smallish nursery for DS... It's not ideal in that it's a few miles away from the school but would be in the area I plan to seek work so would make dropoffs easier. We visited and DS loved the toys and room, they seemed calm and friendly, I think it could work. Gulp.
Have been updating my CV, the nailbiting thing will be actually getting regular work to offset the childcare. I won't say much more onthread but feel free to PM me if you're curious!

Ps I have a ton of paint. Paint R Us. Brilliant white in spades and some Buttercream for the kitchen and bathroom.
Painty painty paint paint.....

whoa congrats northern, fingers crossed for tomorrow and hope it's all plain sailing from here!

queen glad you're feeling better! Made me laugh when you said you did no cleaning at all the other day except bleaching the loo multiple times

peril shame about DH's house but hopefully like northern something else will come up quickly and you'll be able to jet off to Turkey with that off your minds.

mopsy good luck for the drive tomorrow!

Lunch went really well in the end thank god, though DS woke up from his nap while we were having coffee (or perhaps never actually properly fell asleep). Following genteel laughter at an erudite joke about geological formations and financing of fracking operations, we suddenly hear this THUMPA THUMPA hahahahheheeeeeheheheheeee THUMP THUMP as DS escaped from his room and rushed around upstairs, copying our laughter about 2 minutes later after we all finished laughing. DH went up and caught DS red-handed dragging his lamp (again!), a pair of rather nice headphones and the box of clean nappies into the bathroom

He's got great language skills, but he cannot do a jigsaw, struggles to put stacking rings on a spindle, and still shows no signs of any ability whatsoever to feed himself with a spoon or a fork!! He just tips it straight down his front, over his shoulder or onto the floor.

DS's new favourite phrases are:
"how eeeenteresting" (with the singsong cadences of a rather raddled victorian grand dame looking at you through a lorgnette"
"geddout of it!" (while dipping into something forbidden)
"don't squish it, eat it" (usually chanted multiple times while squishing and not eating something)
"don't eat the bean" (while trying to bite uncooked beans through the packet)
"I - AM - DA BESST!" (while bouncing on the couch, our bed, his bed...)

But my favourite was this morning, going into the kitchen:
Me: "DS is it a sunny day?"
DS: "no, cloudy day"
Me: "in fact it's actually a rainy day" (said half to myself)
DS: (points triumphantly at the rain) "exACTly as I THOUGHT!"

Everything is either "on holiday" when he knows he isn't allowed to do something right then, or hopeful requests to do something "afterwards?" eg. ("play with the train set?" "no it's bathtime, come on" "trainset afterwards?") He knows loads and loads of songs with their words and verses - all the nursery rhymes, but also random ones like Singing in the rain, Froggy went a courting, 'Tis a gift to be simple, and spirituals like I'll fly away and As I went down in the river to pray.

aethel paint is good, we like paint - paint will not land you in A&E. Long live paint. And really hope the nursery works out too.

By the way everyone aethel actually brought me a WHOLE LITRE of maple syrup back from Canada. We had pancakes yesterday and it was the stuff of dreams, I tell you! As DS would say, "SHE - ISS - DA BESSST!" (while bouncing)

PS anyone heard from kat recently? Hope you're ok out there.

And hinky too, have been thinking about you since you posted the other day.

wow xiao, that is very advanced. They do say they develop either motor or vocal skills first although minim is developing both at a very average rate! I guess by the time they go to school they will have all more or less averaged out. But maybe baby xiao will be a linguist

DD1 is probably average on vocal skills, loads of words but only just starting to put 2 together. She's always been forward with physical skills, she's constantly running and bouncing around and rarely stops. She's only now starting to do simple wooden puzzles, and has no interest in books other than a book of 100 first words which we read about 20 times a day and is being slowly destroyed.

We booked a holiday last night, North Somerset for a week in November. We've had 3 holidays since we've been together, and that'll be 10 years in January, plus 2 of those holidays were awful. It'll be cold but still good to get away, feel like we desperately need something to look forward to.

kat put a very cute picture on fb the other day.

So glad you've found another house northern!

seven great news about the holiday booking - is it somewhere you can all be cosy and snug? Like a cottage with a wood fire or something. I bet that will be absolutely lovely.

mopsy I'm convinced he'll be the kid handing in the note to skip PE lessons so he can sit on the sidelines and read a book Like mother like son!! I forgot to ask, what course is it you're lecturing this year? Is it first year undergrads? Remembering with guilt falling asleep in lectures in my first year - I was just so tired but I must have really demoralised my lecturers

thanks for those thinking of me. am here lurking and feeling a bit better - still struggling with the balance of it all but letting it wash over me rather than wind me up.

horrifically a fairly close relative has been given a very short time to live which has put things into perspective.

will pop off again before i bring the thread down even more but will be back and more positive soon.

p.s. seven thinking of you lots and hoping that you are doing ok. fwiw i think you are doing totally the right thing (saw your other thread as well)

xiao did they not check to see you were OK? Or were they huge lectures?

Thanks hinky you were obviously hoping nobody else was having the same problems as me! Glad you're feeling better, when I'm struggling I remind myself I don't need to be the perfect mum, good enough will do. Sorry to hear about your relative :(

xiao there's a log burner, looks nice and cosy. Can't wait, feel like we really need to just get away from here and everything that's been going on.

DH has someone hand-crafting us a nice wooden door sign with our names on, it'll be better than my felt-tip scrawling of BIL does not live here!

Big (((hug))) for you hinky, I'm really sorry to hear about your relative. Please never feel like you're bringing the thread down - speaking for myself, this place has been an absolute lifeline when things have been tough so please post whenever, whatever, negative as you like. Virtual and will be here for you whenever you need them.

mopsy I think when 90% of the lecture is hung over asleep then they just assume if you're still breathing you're fine

hinky yes do post whenever you need to. You can't possibly bring the thread down as much as I have lately, but having somewhere safe to talk about it before it was public knowledge when i couldn't talk about it to anyone in rl really has helped to keep me sane.

Hope no one falls asleep in your lectures mopsy!

Seven if I was you I think I would just change our surname. If you are happy living there, dont want to move and are happy MIL and BIL will not contact you or the kids, changing your surname should help stop anyone harrassing you. It might help DH form his own new id from his family. (((((hugs)))))

Xiao your cooking always sounds sooooo good, can you recommend me any cook books pls? Im looking for two new (to us) main meals for winter as im feed up of cooking the same thing all the time!

Sorry you are feeling ill Queenie but please dont get seterilised yet. You are only 30 years old you still have 15 years left for things to change and want another child. There is the implant that lasts for five years or the copper coil. I would not make a big dession when not 100% well. Also its easier for a man to get the snip than for a women as the operation is more intrusive for a women. Even if you wanted to reverse it you could still end up with fertility issues from it.

Aww Air you're sweet! I do use a couple of cookbooks regularly which I will list below but if you have an iphone, the "how to cook everything" app is really useful and I use it all the time. Don't know if it comes in an android version though. I can also highly recommend the [[ In terms of cookbooks, my desert island general family cookbooks are:

Nigel Slater - Appetite (the best for British basics, this by itself is worth its weight in gold. it will give you the standard master recipe for eg. sausage and mash, and then at the end of the recipe it will give 4 or 5 variations which you can try if you want something with more of a twist or a slightly different flavouring.)

Nigel Slater - Real Fast Food (this one's great for super quick "recipes", as well as meals that barely warrant a recipe because they have 2 or 3 ingredients but are still really great ideas, eg. 30 things to dollop on top of a piece of grilled fish and make it look like you've made an effort, 10 things to put on top of a jacket potato etc. No pictures, just really useful ideas of things to make and/or assemble when you need dinner on the table, fast.)

Cynthia Lair - Feeding the whole family (this one's American but the measurements are easily converted. It's really good for whole foods, grains, beans, super healthy stuff and has lots of suggestions for allergies, gluten free, vegan etc. Also has a page of healthy lunchbox ideas for kids.)

I don't like watching Nigel Slater cooking on TV, he makes me cringe - but his books are much much better than Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson or even Delia Smith because he wasn't a chef before, he was just a food writer so he writes like someone who cooks for himself from home. His recipes tend to have very short basic ingredient lists, unlike JO whose "basic" beef stew recipe in How to Cook calls for dried porcini, whole cinnamon sticks and a sprinkling of gremolata before serving

Air if you don't want to buy a book I also find Felicity Cloake's recipes on the Guardian really good. Online (although American so you have to convert the measurements) The Pioneer Woman is fab and she has a great blog too. Books wise, I agree with xiao that Nigel Slater is great. I also like Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's books and I loooove the Leon books for fairly simple but yummy yummy healthy and hearty dishes.

Okay, I really like cooking. I've done a fair amount of it in my time with only the odd disaster here and there. But what on earth is "gremolata"??!!
My cookbook collection consists of "good housekeeping basic cookery", Leith's cookery bible, Indian Delights and the Encyclopedia of Indian Cookery, "Bread " and a write-it-yerself journal. Oh, and "how to cook on Babylon 5" beyond that I just Google what I want to cook with....

Isn't gremolata a sort of herby topping? I know it has parsley in it. Not sure what else. I've never made it. Tonight improvised a pasta bake with leftover sun-dried tomatoes, bacon, little bit of cream and the end of a parmesan wedge. It was quite delicious if I say so myself! I might have a biccie from the tin if Danish butter cookies now. Nom. Oh BTW I've lost 4lbs so far (in 3 weeks). Slowly getting there...

Great news about the holiday 7! You certainly need it! The log burner sounds ideal.
Northern - congrats on finding a new house. Great news.
Xiao - ask anyone from MLMS Salford class of 95 for their class memory. I can imagine a fair few would cite the tale of when I fell asleep in class and woke up rather loudly. Hee hee hee!
Hinky - sorry about the relative. And as xiao said, pls come on here to vent or have a good moan. It's what we're here for.
Half a day left at work before I start my hols! Haircut tomorrow afternoon in preparation. Hurrah!

Gremolata is a kind of condiment of minced garlic, lemon zest and flat leaf parsley. Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely wonderful sprinkled over a beef stew but to include it as part of the recipe in a cookbook called "how to cook" which purports to be one that teaches you the basics is taking the piss a bit IMO! Can absolutely endorse the pioneer woman blog as well. Made the bacon mushroom pasta from there the other day, absolutely delicious and ready in the time it takes to boil the pasta.

Had a funny turn earlier and went to hospital - luckily all was well but I still feel quite sick and ill so am in bed and will take tomorrow off. Wonder if that's why my brain has been all over the place and I nearly chopped my fingers off cooking the other night.

Oh no xiao! Hope you feel better soon...

Air...i'm going for all out sterilisation because it would help me medically so other reasons why, long thought out decision but is the right one and DH agrees