The 9th Broadly Gemini Bus - the one with first birthdays!

[Lorelei353]

Ooh Inge to start a new thread. So if the last one was the one where they don't sleep, then they'll start to sleep now, yes?

I go back to work next Weds Kitty. DS started properly today. Full day today, tomorrow and Friday. I've just done a lovely yoga class and am using the next few days to have lunches, get hair cut etc. miss DS though.

pear definitely want to hear all TTC details! I'm beginning to accept that I will do it all again but not yet!

DS just loves playing with the bigger boys at nursery apparently - gave himself the hiccups last Friday laughing so hard when he was chasing them - so I guess that's how this boy knew him. One day when I was dropping him off the older toddlers were in the same room and were just leaving to go up to their room and a chorus of 'hi DSNAME, oh hey it's DSNAMe' went up when we arrived. So funny. They seem to like him.

Sounds interesting frus

Wow lor 1!!i can remember like it was yesterday you telling us he had been born
Frus non of us are here to judge, how has he wowed you back???
Pear is kitten older or younger? We are the 19th

Ha, yeah. Like I said, it must have been hormones or something.

Yeah, I'm always intrigued by who my kids are hanging out with during the day. So far the ones I've met haven't been too bad. Although my eldest talks about his "friends" on the playground calling him "bossy" (let's admit it, he is...) but they're not letting him play and are pushing him down the slide. It's a little unnerving not knowing exactly what's going on in his days. It's not all controlled and completely supervised like it was in preschool for him so it's hard to really get information out of him anymore. Jeesh, he's already acting like a teenager!

So glad your little cousin is well and thriving! You are so right. Modern medicine is absolutely incredible. I can't help to think that every time I just even get an antibiotic, how lucky we are in this day and age.

Kitty, kitten is 1 day older

Hope all goes well with doctor Frus . With any luck it'll be a mild intolerance that's manageable.

I'm so pissed off. A few months after i met DH in 2008 I started getting random hives popping up all over my body. They got worse and worse and were driving me insane. Never got to the bottom of what started it but was diagnosed with chronic idiopathic urticaria. It lasted for the best part of 3 years, slowly improving for the last year. I eventually came off the meds to TTC and found they'd disappeared.

Well, now I've a horrible headcold and it seems like it's triggered an outbreak again. Hoping it'll just be temporary and will go when the virus does as I just can't face another few years of this. It's torturous. Also if DH and I do decide to have another, we'll probably start TTC in the next 6 months (I'll be getting older than I'd like otherwise) and I can't take these tablets while pregnant so would have to come off them in which case the hives could be hideous. Feeling very sorry for myself. Can't even have as it's a trigger and makes them worse.

Yikes to both the milk intolerance and the crazy hives! So, I'm not a medical doctor (obvs) but I have learned a lot about gut health through apprenticing with different midwives and how it affects us on our skin and for both the milk intolerance and the itchy hives I would really recommend using probiotics. Are you taking a form of antihistamines or immune suppressions then, Lor to keep the flare-ups to a minimum? From what I've studied and learned over the past few years is that skin reactions like that are due to what's called (over here anyway)a "leaky gut" just meaning that large proteins or particles from the broken down food that is eaten gets through the small intestine walls instead of being further broken down into their simple components and obviously the body doesn't know what to do with these chunks going through the blood stream so it sends immune reactors to get rid of them. Since the skin is a way for toxins to be released from the body, the immune reactors and the "chunks" are sent to the skin to be released and that's why people get eczema or hives. In a non-leaky gut the small intestine is lined entirely with the healthy bacteria (probiotics) to help break down the foods and help keep the body's immune system in-check. So, eating things like yogurt and kiefer are great for the gut, but in instances with milk intolerance-buying capsules with probiotics in them is the best bet. You'll want to empty a capsule into a glass of milk and leave it overnight- if it becomes yogurt then you know that you've got healthy and live probiotics... if not- you'll have to return the crappy bottle of sawdust and pick up a new kind. For little ones, just mixing the probiotics into a small bit of jam and spreading it on toast works great-they have no idea and it doesn't taste like anything. While I'm just over here ranting and writing novels about probiotics and milk intolerances..... the only reason they recommend milk or formula for beyond the first year is because of a) the dairy industry makes more money and b)it's for fat content for young people's brain growth. You can keep a little one extremely healthy without them needing milk. Sneaking avocado (or if they like, just giving it to them!) into foods (we add them to smoothies along with the opened probiotic capsules), things like nut or sunflower seed butters (I know that you're allergic Lor but have you tried "Sunbutter" yet?), cooking with coconut butter or offering coconut cream, adding flax seeds or flax meal to foods or in smoothies, eating rich-fatty fish like salmon or anchovies or things like that.... just adding in the healthy fats to the diet can be just a great or better than giving little Mr Frus milk or cheese. We've gone through a whole diet over-haul because our eldest suffers from allergies, intolerances, asthma AND eczema. It takes a bit of getting used to having to be creative with foods to make sure the whole family can still eat their normal foods and have them taste good but still works with someone who can't eat certain things. I'd be more than happy to send over recipes if you need any ideas Frus!

Thanks for all that bring I do eat yoghurts every day but may start buying some probiotic little drinks or something to give me a boost.

DH did, rightly and every-so-gently, suggest that perhaps my body is belatedly reacting to the fact that I eat more sugar than I used to. I used to go months without looking for chocolate and would only buy jellies or something as a little treat going to the cinema or maybe a movie-night in. But when pregnant I developed a massively sweet tooth which has remained - predictably, given how addictive sugar is. Every night I look for a little treat. I never used to do this. Obviously it's been going on for months but maybe it's caught up with me while my body's a bit weaker from a virus.

I don't take anti-histamines as they totally knock me out. When I had the chronic urticaria before I took fexofenadine hydrochloride which my GP has just prescribed again.

Yeah, a lot of docs just aren't really familiar with intolerances, they only know allergies so it's hard to get anywhere with some of them. And please, please PLEASE just stay away from the HV. They're so crap (most that I've met/heard about anyway). If you've noticed the change when there is milk then it's just best to eliminate and try again in a few months to see if that's really what has been causing the symptoms. It does take a while for all of the milk proteins to leave the body so he may keep exhibiting symptoms for a while so you have to keep with it to really see results.

We tend to cook with almond milk (which is a bit more neutral-tasting) or coconut cream/milk and if there is cheese we will take out a portion for DS so that his is cheese-free or use cheese substitutes. Did you know you can make chocolate custard pudding out of avocados? IT's SO GOOD! Also just checking out vegan recipes and adding in meats (lol, so counter-productive for the pour vegan chefs trying to spread the word) are a good way to find tasty stuff without having to substitute or find ways around dairy-inclusive recipes. I'll send over a few of our favourites on our FB page for ya.

Isn't it sucky how addictive sugar is?! Ugh. I've totally noticed that too. It's super hard to just completely cut it out as one small taste will have me craving more and more. It's tough. You are not alone! Hopefully your virus and itchy-scratchies will subside for you soon!

Ok. I've just FLOODED the FB page with recipes for ya Frus! And whomever is looking for yummy food porn pictures

Ha, you so should have done that! The look on his face would have just been priceless. Ugh. Some doctors just get the God Complex much too quickly in their short practicing lives. Good for you on the dropping a dress size! Feels so good to be normal-sized after all the baby weight is gone. The vain Bring in me doesn't want to have more kids for this very reason. Shame on me

Now I really want a chocolate chip peanut butter oatmeal cookie. Ok. Not one. More like 5.

My mistake! Sorry. I get kinda really judgy pants about doctors. I've met only a handful that I like and feel like they are truly in it to help others.

Funny thing is, in spite of the sugary treats, I'm thinner now than I have been since my mid-twenties when I was dancing 3/4 days a week! I had to buy smaller jeans as my pre-pregnancy ones didn't fit and I'm back in work dresses I haven't fit in in a few years. I did a lot of walking around with the buggy while on maternity leave (plus bf) so it all fell off and the nursery walk 3 days a week plus walks in the park with DS when I'm home mean it's staying off.

No sweet treats at all yesterday (except for Lockets for my congestions/raspy voice). Yay me!

I'm on a sort of sugar detox. I'm not giving up my morning milkshake no matter how fat I get but yesterday I had homemade mostly by Calf! carrot & coriander soup & a homemade entirely by me garlic & parsley roll for lunch & a KFC super healthy dinner with no snacks in between or after. I even refused my usual hot chocolate before bed but I think I'll alternate days for that because I add coconut oil to it & I don't want to give that up or have to start eating whole spoonfuls of it! My current plan is to make myself a fennel tea every time I feel hungry. It's supposed to have appetite supressing qualities so hopefully it'll stave off the snacking & I'll just have to throw things at DH when he suggests a sweet treat after dinner. He could stand to lose a stone or 2 too!

Why can't chocolate be healthy?!

Well done everyone for being so healthy. I've been failing big time. I don't want to admit what I've been eating this week although you can see the evidence as my face is threatening to break out I think I've gone a bit crazy because I know I've got to give it all up when I'm pregnant. Don't want to have the same sugar problem as last time...all because I stuffed myself with 1000 terry oranges Learnt my lesson from that one

Well done everyone for being so healthy. I've been failing big time. I don't want to admit what I've been eating this week although you can see the evidence as my face is threatening to break out I think I've gone a bit crazy because I know I've got to give it all up when I'm pregnant. Don't want to have the same sugar problem as last time...all because I stuffed myself with 1000 terry oranges Learnt my lesson from that one

Just so everyone doesn't imagine me as some big fatty rolling about..I am size 10 in RL

pear I shall forever imagine you as a giant chocolate orange with a head & tiny arms & legs like in Charlie & The Chocolate Factory!