December 2011 - the one where we do the Twist and Shout

[ifyourehoppyandyouknowit]

New thread.

these babies are nearly two and a half

Good luck with reedery, Aethel. And the tarantula. Eek!
It does seem very complicated. But it's all pretty simple too. It's quite bizarre.
He's going to find a place to rent for 6 months initially. That's decided. He really liked one of the places he saw yesterday. The only niggle was that the master bedroom was in the roof, with a very steep spiral staircase. Boi's bed would be in the main part of the apartment, but you know he'd want to climb up and down the scary stairs...
DH has been making lists of what he'd need to buy, and working out costs etc.
It is happening.
We are getting on better than ever, but that's due to relief from stress, and hormones.
DH has said that it's been surprisingly easy so far, but he fully expects a mini-breakdown at some point.
He's never had time away from Boi.
I do it regularly with work. DH is upset about that. It doesn't help when the Boi starts saying "go back to the shop daddy. I'll play by myself. No I don't love you."
Careful what you wish for, little Boi!

Yeah strings are very expensive too I feel your pain.

Today potty training turned into crying and refusing to go near potty. Decided to stop and wait another month or too. Don't want it turning into massively negative thing. No rush really. I thought she was ready but obviously not!

Oooh Oi! Complicated...

Sounds very complicated oi, what happens if you get pregnant?

We're in a potty training nightmare. She's 99% reliable for wees on the potty but poo is proving frustrating. She knows when she wants to go but absolutely won't go on the potty or toilet. She asks for pull ups, which either she gets and poos in, we have no stress but it isn't helping matters, or I refuse then she gets more upset until she can't hold it and poos on the floor. Any suggestions?

We've started potty use a bit More but nowhere near training properly.

Seven, we're in the same position with poo. We just let him wear them (he won't go on the floor/mess), as everything I've read said it'll take them longer to get poo!
Which is irritating but he finally did a little poo in the potty yesterday..and has decided he prefers it to the toilet. Think we'll push it again after summer/house move.

Northen, would you be comfortable creating a fake profile, using a fake email to have a gander at the fb group? Will send you a list if it's not done yet! Let me know!

Good luck PTP.

We went back to the new house for another viewing today, would like to keep the owner, he's awesome, just need to move in now

The Adventures Of the Dish and the Spoon by Minnie Grey.
Weirdest bedtime story ever. DS loves it.

No advice re potty training. I think what you're doing is right. Encourage and applaud, don't make it an issue.
We aren't there yet.
(... If I get pg, I'd be delighted, and we'd deal with the complication with big smiles. )

mopsytop, we had crying and refusing, too, so stopped as well. She still cannot "get" number 2 at all, although number 1s have her really agitated. She's starting AGAIN to demand nappy changes after every wee again, but there's about a fortnight till the end of school, then we're away, then back and possibly moving, then away again, so I just daren't even start!

TheOnlySeven and DrFunke, DD can now release her bladder at will (though only when she consents to sit on the potty, first thing in the morning and before a bath), but cannot "get" number 2 at all (which is stupid, because surely that should be the Most Obvious Event Ever?! ). Maybe it's more frightening than peeing?

aethel, that sounds like lots of fun. Even the YouTube story is something to dine out on, and better than YouTubing cats falling over or something equally witless... When is your concert?

Hi, NorthernChinchilla! Nice to "see" you, too! I'm glad the "little grey cells" are still in operation: are you getting any Poirot on TV these days? And did you say you were posting by phone for the first time? Have you got a new phone? How exciting!

As for you, Missus... I'm rather disturbed by the phallic imagery of the mediaeval swordplay! No need to obssess over such shapes!

Seriously, though, does it feel a bit like a craving for something like cigarettes, or whatever you've given up for Lent? Is the feeling... er... attached to him? Or is it located in you? I was a teenager when my parents split up, and I did overhear some rather angry post-coital talk, which makes me distrustful of the release of such emotions when there isn't a structure there to support them (in your case, the structure has been "condemned", and would need to be rebuilt in any case). Sorry to be a wet blanket (and for the terrible pun), but... Also, isn't frustration even the slightest bit exciting? Just some of my personal prejudices, I know, but you've made me a bit worried for you!

How are you getting on PartTime?

Feeling any better, Chip? and mopsy?

Went to John Lewis today, and DD screeched so loudly in the lighting department that I'm surprised she didn't pop a few bulbs. She's in a phase in which she is raving mad and inconsolable for a while, then purges the venom in a whoosh then is very sweet and sorry. It probably feels like hell to be in such a rage, so no wonder she's relieved to have it over and done with.

OH dear. Sigh. It's a major screaming overtired meltdown evening for DS. Latest is a 15 minute screaming doodah because I wouldn't feed him raw pizza. Thankfully pizza (cooked) has placated him but he's still very watery... Early bedtime I think!

Just spent the best part of 1.5 hours up a ladder touching up paint work in the living room. We've been kind of waiting to get the built in shelves/cupboards for the living room, but seeing as there's no sign of a quote from our builder I decided 'Operation Homely' should start. The curtains arrived (just an hour before we were away for two weekends on the trot ) so they'll go up this weekend, and we're hanging pictures, etc. We've got my best friend, DP's best friend and new fiance and my Mum all staying in the next month, so need to crack on, make it nice and clear the stuff out of the third bedroom!
Glad all's progressing for you DrFunkes, what's the timescale on moving in? Where are you in the process?

Got some lovely news today, the nursery we send DS to, which is on the same road as our old house and in a just slightly economically and socially deprived area got its Ofsted, and has been rated 'Outstanding', up from 'Satisfactory' from when we sent DS. Feel very proud of the nursery above all else.

Got our anniversary tomorrow too, 11 years, and we are actually Going. Out. on Saturday night, babysitter booked and cocktails and meal out planned

Yep, new phone Plu, have joined the modern age...am mourning the lack of Poirot following the last series, and also mourning his death, sob!

Thinking of you PTP, hope things are getting sorted.

Sloping off to bed now, need to write DP's card as well!

Sorry, don't know wherr my expression of solidarity went, aethel, but here's a belated hope for a long quiet evening!

You are too good, NorthernChinchilla, up a ladder when you ought to be having a glass of wine ("toasting the nursery"?) or playing with your new phone. Have you got the BBC weather app yet? Even just playing with maps is extremely diverting! I like to turn on "satellite" view and marvel at the greenness of the Nile river delta or peer at Russian tundra (sadly, I'm not making either of those examples up).

Re-subbing!

Plu, you are wonderfully bonkers.
PTP - how's it going?
Northern - congratulations on "getting stuff done". (I'll admit here that I'm secretly creating a huge list of "stuff" for when DH moves on. Can't wait to get organised. - no news/progress there, I've been in Barcelona with work so haven't spoken to him since Sunday.
And Aethel, and everyone else, whilst I don't like to hear about meltdowns and non-stop-sobbing, it gives me strength and hope to know that the Boi is normal.
This too shall pass, and when they leave home we may sleep again!
...or worry about them too much to sleep.

I saw the Nile river delta for the first time in a newspaper, when all the revolutionary stuff happened, and felt so foolish for not having understood exactly how green it was , having only seen photographs of desert conditions around various monuments (Valley of the Kings, pyramids,.etc.). I've also learned (from a documentary about the search for the lost city of Tanis - shades of Indiana Jones!) that tributaries in the delta sometimes move about, even flip to another location!

The weather app was virtually the first one I got, with BBC news, Mumsnet and Angry Birds

And don't worry Oi, it's like DS has read the manual...first the eyes go wide and accusing...then the bottom lip goes out...then the tears well up....then the head sinks...then he emits a wail like the world has ended...then the choking sobs....and that's just when I tell him he can't water the same pot for the 19th time and drown it. I just mutter comments about 'spirit' and 'character' when having to pick him off the floor of Sainsburys and sling him over my shoulder fireman's-lift stylee after post-apocalyptic meltodwn....

We don't even have reproach before meltdown. No winning hearts and minds like MiniChinchilla: miniplu (there's an oxymoron!) 's approach is the Shock-and-Awe screeeech.

P.S. I downloaded the DipDap app today: you get to trace something in, which is then used in his adventures. DipDap is brillisnt from a young age anyway, but this is genius.

Ds woke up at 5.45nappy leaked in bed so had to get him up zzzz

Good... afternoon, figster. Are you working today, or is a duvet duck at all a possibility?

I'm being slightly melodramatic (maybe) but this cold might actually be the death of me.
5.45 is a lie in for my two, any day they're up after the start of cbeebies broadcast is a victory for me

Hope he naps Fig!

The weather app sounds amazing, will download it later.

Great news about the nursery Northen, your organisation puts us to shame, sounds like things are pressing ahead!

Mortage offer is through, buyer keen to get in asap (divorce, living with ex h still) but still no date. Dh starts a new role in august (harder to book time off at short notice) so assume it'll be then.

Christ no I'm at work with Avery frustrating computer network where everything on a go slow.....as am I

Hope the go-slow day is now at an end, Figster, and that DS didn't have a nap, or at least not a late one.

My PILs have come over, and DH came home early, so they've gone off to see the new house with the DC. I am currently alone with wine spritzers (and, I must admit, a lot of laundry).

Well, the curtain pole is up.... next step, curtains!

I hear you on the early mornings figster, DS has reverted to 5am wake ups the past two mornings...but dealing with a leaked nappy at that time is far, far worse.

Aegh. DS has decided he loves co-sleeping. We love it too.... But not in our standard double with a space-hogger who pokes and kicks and nicks the exact spot I wanted to sleep in then conks with a triumphant smile....

hi all. Phone dropped and smashed the first evening I was away at my conference. GAAAAH. Need to see if I can replace screen or have to fork out for a new one.

In news, mortgage approved, but everything still sooo sloooowwwwww. Need to have damp survey done on new house to make sure it is all just minor stuff that needs doing (e.g. leaking gutter rather than bigger - and expensive - damp issues). You'd expect a bit of damp in places, it is well over 150 years old after all...

Just started today to try and turn my PhD into a book. AGGHHHH So scary. Have been procrastinating as so daunted by it, but actually started this afternoon which is something... better get back to it I suppose.

Any fun plans for the weekend? I would LOVE to drink half a bottle of prosecco and a few cocktails. Instead it is fizzy water for me. I honestly think I must be such a lush, I am really missing drinking ... :( my poor liver is probably delighted! I never get drunk anymore but I think before I got pregnant I definitely had a nice glass of wine or gin and tonic a few times a week and I miss it! Fizzy water or lemonade just isn't the same. Although I did make a lime and mint-ade the other day which was yuuummmmmyyyyy. Soda-streams are great. Similarly to the ice-cream maker, I refused for AGES to get one on grounds of it being a faddy, expensive thing we would never use. Finally gave in and we use it all the time. Ditto the ice-cream attachment for the Kitchen Aid, use it so often (in the summer anyway).

Hope you are all well anyway! The thread is pretty slow so it was easy to catch up. WRT the whole tantrum wailing thing, yep I get that too. Because I used the wrong spoon, or cut the toast wrong or wanted to cook the pasta (no, you can't eat raw pasta Minimopsy - honestly!).