July 2005 babies - we are one!

[mrsdarcy]

Hooray for the next year!

And a happy birthday to all our readers

I want to stop celebrating my birthday really, but with a twin you feel you have to make an effort. Having said that we are having a party on the 2nd Sept for me and dh so the whole world will know how old we are!

Well only 4 more days of school hols. Just as well I was screaming at the kids yesterday - they were driving me mad! I think we've done everything - swimming, beach, soft play, park, birthday parties.... I am exhausted! I am sooo lucky with ds2 though who continues to be such a placid baby. Just as well as ds1 is so irritable a lot of the time and finds dd annoying although he did say he was going to marry her when he grew up!

MB - what lovely photos. Am v jealous though as I am not sure we are going to have a holiday this year.

Belo - glad your dd is better now - what a horrid fright that must have been.

Slovenian they speak, Belo. Lots of X's etc. Got the hello-bye-thanks-basics quickly enough and stopped in the attempt after that, not easy those Balkan languages I'm afraid. However, they all learn English from age 6 in school, compulsory to quite late in life, so pretty cool for us. I hope you have a lovely time. I hear Montenegro is just as lovely if not lovelier in parts!

Saw the sweetest young woman interviewing nannies yesterday, but she nearly broke our hearts as she told us about losing her premmie baby a couple of years ago. Am having to restrain myself from instantly offering her the jobs in fairness to the others lined up today and tomorrow.

I am not looking forward to how much I'm going to miss ds when I go back to work on Monday. This is a lovely lovely age isn't it.

Ah well, young man has woken from morning nap and I need to go and preen at my cheekbones before we head off clothes hsopping for him this am. Thank you mrsD for the entirely unexpected and lovely compliment!

Quick poll - is everyone's baby still having morning naps like ours? I am beginning to wish he would drop them so we c ould get out more. He is a weak sleeper in buggies.

Ooh! Ooohh!! Buggy fiends!! We just bought buggy number two, a quinny zapp which ds really seems to like. Our micralite is going on loan to nanny. It was a great basinette/pram but weaker as a buggy. Ds also sat in it in a very collapsed way, and dad kep[t kicking the wheelsas he strode along at 6ft3.

Naps? Naps? Pah, DD scorns sleep at any time of day. She is, as I type, screaming in her cot. At moments like this someone in the house usually says "I don't Hattie is enjoying her nap!". She had a reasonable night Wed night but otherwise is waking up 2 or 3 times in the night. Her daytime naps are equally irregular. Some days she has a long one, some days a v short one, some days nothing at all.

MB, speaking of compliments, a friend told me recently about going to a school reunion and chatting to one of her old (male) teachers when she was pretty drunk. Apparently she said to him "do you know, we all used to fancy you... .....oh, actually, it was someone else..."

We're very lucky with dd2s naps. At nursery she has an afternoon nap only. At the weekends, if I want time to get stuff doen then she'll have a morning nap. If we go out, she's happy to miss it. She just sleeps longer in the afternoon. And, she very rarely wakes up at nights. Maybe none of you want to know this.... dd1 refused naps and was generally hard work. Maybe dd2 is my reward?

Hi Pamina, work is definitely good for Mumsnet. I'm sitting at my desk now working very hard!

Oh hello there Pamina, nice to see you again! Glad all is well with you.

MB, nice photos, how lovely you and ds look. We have a Zapp, and funnily enough have often thought I'd have preferred the micralite but ds2 really likes the seat in the Zapp and tries to climb into it when I leave it up in the house, so it must be good! Good luck with the nanny also.

ds2 still naps once a day and I'm lucky that it can be either morning or afternoon depending on what we are up to. He is generally quite good at night too.

It is dd's 4th birthday today, so I will have to be off in a moment for more presents and cake!

hi all

got dd her first shoes yesterday. she's soooooooo proud of them. enjoys throwing them downstairs as well as trying to put them on.... i mainly got them to stop her taking her socks off now it's a bit colder. but am hoping they encourage her to walk a bit more.

she had her mmr today. all ok so far. ds had his boosters too, was most put out that he had to have 2 jabs to dd's one.

dd needs about one & a half naps a day... she only has 1 at nursery, after lunch. mostly she has a morning one at home, & then after lunch too. if she sleeps too late in the afternoon she doesn't go to bed 'til 9... in our bed, natch, & snacks through the night. i wouldn't mind stopping bf now, but not quite sure how to go about it.

i'm having a bit of a miserable day, generally pissed off with having diabetes & feeling self-indulgent. am officially on a diet & investigating gyms.

hope you're all well. xxx

oh, & i had dd weighed yesterday for the first time in ages. 9.2kg which is about 20lbs. on the 25th centile. she looks like a tiny dot to me though!

I feel the same way about bfeeding, HC. I was looking at theatre and concert listings the other night and realised that DD doesn't reliably stay asleep for the whole evening and that she would freak out if she woke up and neither me nor my norks were close by. A friend who is less soppy than I am said that I just need to get on with it, book a babysitter and if the babysitter has a terrible evening she needn't come back - but DD would probably be fine for someone else.

sorry your diabetes is getting you down hc.

we can support each other in our equal crapness mrsd .

According to the boys, DD's main acheivements to date are that she is now taller than Yoda (0.66m according to Top Trumps) and may soon have hair like Ronaldinho .

Aha, so not just me with the somnolent (?sp boy I'm whacked out with one day back at work) baby. Always a joy to have some healthy comparison.

I hope you are feeling better HC. Have your symptoms been worse or are you tired of managing it, or a bit of both?

I'd forgotten about the MMR. Wonder if the surgery will write or if I need to ring in to sort an appt. I'd like to get young man covered before all the baby groups start up again when the schools go back.

Have chosen a new nanny, who lives closer. French this time, same cost. Going for slightly longer hours this time as I was getting in quite late (me slow out of door, talking). Her current 2 day a week employers mighty peeved when we called for reference, as they paid a fortune to get her through an agency. We felt guilty. Why?? Weird thing.

Anyway, hope she works out. Current nanny doing so well even though now um....almost 35 weeks pregnant. She is aiming to work to 38 weeks, and is mighty put out that PG is such hard work - she says everyone in South Africa just gets on with it til they drop - and she can't figure out why it's such hard work for her. I reckon its because she is so fit normally, that being slowed down etc is a shock to her. We are pondering giving her a thank you bonus of about 300 quid, which is a small chunk more than a week's wages (part-time, we're not slave drivers!). Do you think that's the 'done thing', anyone know? Or is it overdone, underdone? Not that can we spare anymore. We are going to miss her, I'm glad she's having her baby here and staying a while so we can see them.

I'm off to tell dp about Yoda now. I love this website and you lot

mrsd, am lol at Yoda - glad to see that mine is not the only son who has memorised Star Wars Top Trumps in its entirety .

i am looking forward to top trumps when ds starts school (2 weeks ) - you have to be able to read don't you?

diabetes is just a bit all-consuming. or it should be, & i have been essentially ignoring it since having dd so need to get my arse in gear. have vastly cut down my chocolate consumption which is definitely a step in the right direction.

good news about new nanny mb. i think your bonus idea is a good one. maybe buy her a little keepsake from ds too?

HC, sorry, didn't mean to ignore your other post. I hope you manage to get your head round the whole diabetes thing again soon - it must be very difficult. Yes, you do have to be able to read for top trumps - dd is very annoyed that she can't play yet. I can't believe she will start school in two weeks time either . I have been busy sorting out all the uniforms and need to get around to name taping them and ironing (!) them ready. ds1 is pleased as he will wear a blue shirt and a tie this year as he will be in year one. dd will wear a white polo shirt in reception (infinitely easier in my opinion as they don't require much ironing ).

ds2 has been toddling about with a wooden brick trolley looking very pleased with himself. He still can't walk by himself though.

MB, well done on the new nanny - that must be a relief for you to have found someone so quickly.

v organised bagpuss! so far we have one pair of trousers.... we're going up to my parents next week so can get stuff in the frozen north.

Will catch up with thread later, but wanted to say anyone who can get to North London on 2nd Sept is welcome to join us for a picnic. See this thread .

MB is coming, and probably some of our RL NCT friends with same-age babies too, as well as mates with and without kids etc. HC - would be lovely to see you again too, and if you can't shall we do another Hampstead meet one day ?

Lovely holiday scenery, mb.

Glad everyone sounds like they're more or less hanging in there, LOL.

dd crawled on holiday ! (13 1/2 months). It's fab to watch her begin to explore the environment according to her own desires IYSWIM. We will have to run around childproofing this weekend I guess !

Can some wise old bird who's had a few (children, not pints LOL) please advise best way to handle stairs: should they be taught to go down backwards ? dd is keen to dive head first... and should we encourage stair climbing so she gets better at it quicker IYSWIM or just let her sort it out at her own pace ? Also, are stairguards obligatory, or is it possible to avoid A&E and keep the hall clutter free etc. ?

hub - bad mother alert here. Not got round to putting up stairgates yet. ds2 crawls up them all the time and never attempts to come down them, just 'shouts' from the top of the stairs. I'd say that your dd is too young to learn to come down them - they can only really do that when they can walk properly and have proper balance, much more dangerous going down them than up I'd say.

Need to catch up with teh posts. Been busy with start of school!

Erm, Hub, I sold our stairgates when I was pg with ds2 . I kind of figured that with two older ones I wouldn't want to be getting up and down to let them in and out all the time (thus reducing mn'ing time ), plus I broke my toe on one running through it at top speed about 4 years ago. ds1 also fell down the stairs at the age of two and hit his head on the bottom gate - if it hadn't been there then he would have been fine. ds2 hasn't even tried to climb the stairs yet, and even if he did I would be right behind him, so I do't think it is much of a risk not having them at all tbh.

Oh, the proceeds of the sale of the gates went towards a nice Skip Hop bag in Camel cord, which has been far more use imo .

dd started climbing stairs as soon as she could crawl at 9 months. by 10 months she could come down them too. we just taught her to turn round at the top & slide down on her tummy. we've had a couple of tumbles, but nothing serious at all. we've never had stairgates with either child. you do have to keep an eye on them (& our house has 3 floors so it's good exercise for me!), but much better to learn early i think.

thanks for the invite hub, 'fraid we'll be away but hope you have a great time. a meetup would be good, but i can't think beyond ds starting school atm.

dd has definitely got the hang of walking. hooray.

Forgot to say, we have one gate on the bedroom door for when ds2 is older just in case he decides to climb out of the cot in the middle of the night! Now, door catches, I can't praise those enough, especially as I have just caught ds2 trying to reach for an old toothbrush from under the sink (yes, the one I use for bleaching grouting ). Best get the tool box out now I think......

Hub, would love a trip to London that weekend (in fact, we were going to be doing that then anyway) but instead we have booked a weekend break in the Cotswolds so will be away. I hope you have a nice birthday .

Same as HC on stairgates. Have never had one. DD races up the stairs all the time now. She hasn't tried coming down yet, but when she tries to get off her bed I encourage her to slide off on her tummy, and will do the same with stairs.

When DS2 was little we had v steep stairs (townhouse) and he was fine on them. As long as they come down on their tummy, imo they are pretty safe. On the other hand, I fell all the way down them when 38 weeks pregnant but that is another story!

Hope you have a good birthday Hub. I don't get exit passes very often so will be stuck up here (sympathy please).