June 2013 Commando crawlers vs Baby slugs

[SunnyL]

Hi all - the old thread was about to run out so I started a new one.

Little Miss was up to mischief last night. Thankfully it's DHs day off today so he took her into bed with him while I slept in the spare room. She is just so excitable when she wakes up at night. It can can 90 minutes to scrape her off the ceiling.

Sunbeam - yes! Clarks say 7 steps unaided to buy shoes. Wow.

Only tip, buy the cheapest shoes in the shop, they need new ones in 6 weeks time... (and yes, feet will have grown and you will need to get a bigger size in that small a time frame )

You might get away with little leather pre-walkers for a bit as the weather is nice.

Mary we are north london. You can pop in here:-)

DD isn't too bad with travelling, thankfully. Maybe because she's used to the journey to my parents which is about 3 or so hours. It was 7.5 once. Hell on earth!

She's done long train trips too, and was ever so good. :-)

Sunbeam, walking is amazing! Well done DS! :-)

Mary, hope your trip isn't as bad as you're expecting it to be.

Walking? Oh heck - that's another thing I keep burying my head in the sand about. Lots of people keep saying that they think Lil will walk before she is 1 - that gives us a month.

Re travelling we can do 2hrs but not 3hrs in the car. This is a bugger because the inlaws live 3hrs away. We now plan our journey around sightseeing things to do on the way south. My brothers kid can do 8hr trips tho .

Sent a job application off this week. Fingers crossed!

See, DS was great with car and plane travel, he just giggled on flights for take off and landing (not sure with DD, we've not flown with her yet, that might be fun later this summer!) he was fine with long drives and we bought a lie flat car seat for him and powered down to my parents holiday home in France when he was 7 months with no trouble (it's 8 hours drive once you're in France). DD does seem completely different, and other than not having done the France trip (I couldn't face it!) I've had her in the car about the same amount doing long journeys. Oh well, I'll do an early lunch and then set off. What's the worse that can happen?!

Still only a few steps here still, I'm hoping DD stays that way for a while.

Now, 1st birthdays, can we talk cakes? I was thinking of making a no.1 cake, I figured I could cook one rectangle cake, with a smaller one across the bottom and a triangle for the point, so this should be fine, but not sure how I'll cover it in ready to roll icing... I might do icing with spots, I figured I could cut out round spots to stick over the bits that have gone a bit wrong... (I have 1 professional cake maker amongst my friends and 2 others who's creations are good enough to be professional, I'm feeling the pressure!). Any other ideas?

Birthday cakes is something I can get excited about. We're thinking a dog birthday cake since she loves our dog so much and wants to be a dog I've found this cake that I think I could do a reasonable job of copying www.belgiques.com/puppy-birthday-cake/puppy-dog-face-birthday-cake-comment-43624-5/

I'll be doing a Waybuloo cake as it's her favourite TV programme! :-)

I bought a hemisphere cake tin from lakeland for DS birthday in April. He had a stegosaurus (with toblerone plates - DH idea he is standing next to me making sure write that). Am now planning on using this for all subsequent birthdays so was thinking maybe a ladybird. Or something. She doesn't have any particular favourites so it's whatever will be easiest. BTW even if you haven't used ready roll icing before it's remarkably easy to use. Especially if you've had practise with playdoh!

Journeys successful!

My husband is baking DD's birthday cake and icing it. We're doing a number one shape. I think DH should use a number one tin but he tells me that his version will look as good. I'll be decorating it (with ladybirds, flowers, butterflies and her name - she doesn't really know any characters yet) - I can't wait. We can't decide what icing to use. I hate the taste of rolled icing but it'll look better than royal (and most people like it I guess). Glad to hear it's easy to use.

well that didn't go well. She was fine on the way up. On the way back, having waited until after her 6pm milk and changed her into her sleep suit, she started screaming as I got on the north circular at Palmers green. Around 10 minutes later she threw up. I pulled off onto an industrial estate trying to find somewhere I could park up, stripped her off, changed again, gave her some water, cuddled until nearly asleep. put back in car, set off again. Got back on the north circular (which with lots of 1 way systems took a while to find again), screaming starts again. Around the turn off for Chigwell, she threw up again, but I was in the outside lane, couldn't get across and took the decision to carry on as didn't have any more clean clothes anyway.

She finally stopped screaming and fell asleep on the south side of the Dartford Crossing.

Wine and eurovision needed.

I'm not doing any long journeys with her again until she's verbal.

Oh Mary, that sounds really tough. Thank goodness it's behind you now. It's very stressful taking a baby on any trip on your own, but particularly driving when you can't always stop. Bet you'll enjoy a quiet day at home today with DD.

Birthday cake wise I've decided to go down the cupcake route... Altho my best friend loves cake making and said to leave it with her, so we'll see! Still fancy doing a few cupcakes myself.

How many are in forward facing car seats now? I think dd has just hit the 9kg mark and so her big seat could turn round, think she would be much happier being able to see.

We've gone ERF with DD, so she's rear-facing til 4 years old. I don't think she's that bothered by it as she just plays with her toys / chats to herself in the car! :-)

We're not, will stay rear facing as long as possible - but M is massive! Well over 11 kgs and height wise he's tall too (will take him to be measured as a birthday present :o ) but the top of his head is still below the top of the stage 1 seat so no rush.

Having said that, he'll probably be forward facing in about 3 months time I'd guess. We're not doing ERF because we already have the next car seat from when DS1 was younger!

We're staying RF as long as possible too. DD is 91st percentile and tall but still has plenty of room in her Pebble (apparently it's too small when the top of their ears reach the top of the seat and she's a way off that). She's happy in it and we have a mirror on the back seat so we can see each other.

Same here, happy rear facing. I has thought 9kg meant swap them forward but John Lewis sent me packing with the instruction to keep her rear facing as long as possible. I didn't realise there was an overlap and you could keep then rear facing for ages. We don't do long journeys that much so not a huge problem anyway.

Birthday cakes; we have the top tier of wedding cake in MIL freezer. I asked her to defrost it and bring it to Polly's birthday. I thought it was implied that I was asking her to decorate. Turns out she plans only to defrost and hand over a week before. So now I have to tart it up. I have not a clue how to do this?! It's an iced fruit cake. What to do?!

Oh dear we're the bad parents that have her forward facing. We've got the Maxi-cosi Axis car seat. It spins which is a great relief for my back getting her in and out of the car. She also seems very happy to be able to see out the windows.

On a tangent - is there a 11 month sleep regression? You know how I was moaning about the 6am wake up calls? Well she's decided anything anything after 4am is fair game. Today was 4.30 and it took a lot of work to get her back to sleep. So much work that I was wide awake and couldn't get back to sleep myself.

We have rear facing. Did with DS till he was nearly 2, though it was a squeeze. I imagine this one will be able to stay rear for longer.

Bean, does it already have fondant icing? You could either take off the fondant and re-ice it yourself if you wanted a different colour, or make some kind of fondant deocration to stick on top. Or just buy a cake topper. Or scatter flower petals or glitter on and stick a candle in! Good luck.

We moved to forward facing a few weeks ago as the first car seat was starting to look snug and my sister had given us the next one up (from my nephew). DS much prefers it, and looking out the window.

Regression? Not sure - we've never really got beyond the 12-week regression!

We're bad parents too. DS will be forward facing. But it will be another month or two before he reaches 9kg so I suspect we'll be RF for quite a while yet.

Sleep regression? Probably unhelpful Is there another wonder week on the horizon maybe?

DS's sleep is a bit better at the mo (he feeds c10ish and 3ish) then wakes for the day c7am. I've just jinxed it now.

Oak is still in the first seat but will be rf once he outgrown it.
Not sure about a sleep regression but usually waking 3-4 times a night apart from last night which was 2, he has a cough and seems to be sleeping better with it, contrary child!

I hope there's not an 11 month sleep regression. DD has been sleeping so well that she had a cough last week and slept through her coughing fits! Was amazed! She hasn't been stirring at all during the night recently.

Bean I've just put a phot on FB of Lily's christening cake which was the top tier of our wedding cake. We just used roll on icing and silk flowers which worked fine. If you go to hobbycraft they have good cake toppers that you could use.

Hmmm, debate re the car seat then... Went out with a friend today and used their forward facing seat and didn't hear a peep from dd unless it was happy babble.... She's nosey and likes to know what is going on. Hmmm, I shall see what happens then.

Isn't it scary this time last year we were all preparing for labour or ignoring it completely in my case and now it's all first birthdays and regressions and stages... I know it's logical, but goodness, how much changes in a year!

Wonder Weeks chart for you. :-)