June 2013; Toddling into our second year!

[BeanCalledPickle]

New thread ladies:-) I think we filled about ten threads when pregnant and this is only our fourth post natally!

[HungryHorace]

New thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/postnatal_clubs/2382053-June-2013-Here-come-the-terrible-twos

Finally!

[HungryHorace]

We are asking people to buy pans etc to go with DD's kitchen that we've got her.

I've also got her a Leapfrog phonics thing to help her learn her letters and some other bits that I can't remember off the top of my head!

She's going through a bit of separation anxiety at the moment. She was clinging to my neck crying 'No, no, no!' when I tried to leave for work the other day. It broke my heart. :-( She also follows me round and taps my legs going 'Up, up' so I pick her up when I'm at home.

It got me out of vacuuming yesterday as she didn't want me to leave the room so DH had to go and do it. Bonus!

But it is horrible to deal with as I have to go to work. But I just don't pick her up too near to leaving time now, and am quite casual about saying goodbye to her. It seems to be working so far, thankfully.

It's surprised me as she's normally a daddy's girl (unsurprising as he's the SAHP). Hopefully it's a short phase.

[Mrs81]

whoops. didn't mean to create prezzie guilt! That list is being distributed among several people. It's just to focus their minds really

[SunnyL]

The chute is massive if its any consolation that Lily might be a deprived child

[Raeside]

Sunny we just bought three things on Amazon (I'm assauging my guilt having used horrid Amazon by eating my way through half a pack of out of date biscuits). Some wooden fruit that you can slice and put back together, some train hoohaa stuff (he's obsessed with trains) and something else my husband found. Done. Think we cashed out at £25 max.

[SunnyL]

You're not inspiring me - you're terrifying me. So far we've got her a chute. That's it.

She doesn't get new toys or books regularly either. We've got a library card and thats about it.

Hmmm maybe i should go shopping......

[Raeside]

Ooooh you're all making me feel bad about my stingy approach to birthday gifts.

Mrs - you've inspired me to have a go at locating some of those bead stringer things, he loves all that dexterity stuff. And I remember seeing a wooden fruit and veg kitchen type set somewhere. That might do. He's already got a mega bloody Duplo train set coming from the Italian Nonno for which I am yet to assign storage. I refuse to increase current toy saturating in our sitting room/old dining room so it's new toys in-old toys out from now on.

[cuphat]

I love hearing what other people are getting. Yes, a list is a good way of making sure you don't get things that you already have. As our families live away and don't know what DD has and hasn't got they ask us what they can get. So we just send them links which works well for all of us. DD is also getting stickle (bristle) bricks! She has a load of duplo but I thought that she might get less frustrated by those (and they're for me really - childhood memories!)! You've reminded me that we need to order a height chart for baby's nursery.

Aww poor thing. It's interesting how they're all so different; some are eager to be free and others like your DS and my DD quite like being enclosed.

[Mrs81]

Gifts, even

[Mrs81]

We took a fairly pragmatic approach re gifs and thought about what he's likely to appreciate between now and Xmas. He seems to get a new book or toy every month at the moment but that suits his developmental needs (eg an usborne book of words bought last month hasn't been put down since and is fab for his speech development). Like other, this isn't how I had anticipated gift giving to be for our dc but their needs are different when they're so little. Delayed gratification will come in due course

So there's a couple of books, a threading chunky beads thing, a Melissa n Doug puzzle, stickle bricks, a nice height chart for his room. He really doesn't need much but there's things that we think he'd enjoy that will also be quite educational in some way. We don't need more cars/balls etc and this will hopefully avoid that happening! I think we might get him family membership to the zoo for the year. He goes free but we are 18 quid each to accompany him otherwise. Apparently he's too young to go alone!

I blame ds's separation issues on quite a bit of change over past month (new working patterns means that he sees less of both of us). He cries for whichever parent isn't there but given the choice tends to want me. So DH can wee in peace but I can't. I think DS just needs a bit of extra reassurance at the moment. It will pass.

We tried taking the side off the cot last night. It scared the living daylights out of ds and he spent most of the night in our bed, clamped to me So the side went back on today and he went to bed with no probs!

[cuphat]

DD has never stopped being a mummy's girl. DH is amazing and does so much with her but she still wants me all the time. "Cuddle mummy, cuddle mummy" is frequently heard. And I usually have to read books to her; she wanted a particularly long one earlier and I tried to get her to ask DH but she was having none of it! I'm not sure whether the bf for so long has played a part. If she wakes up distressed in the night DH will go in first but it usually ends up that I'm the only one that can calm her down. It's lovely in a way but can be very hard work. I wouldn't class it as separation anxiety though as she is happy to go off with other people etc.

This baby has to be a daddy's boy. He just has to!

What kind of presents are you going for, Mrs?

[Mrs81]

DS has suddenly hit another round of separation anxiety. Only mummy will do and even things like going for a wee result in a meltdown. He'll howl for age at night when DH tries to comfort him...I go through and he calms down quickly. I'm guessing we're at another developmental leap but it's hard for us all while we're 'leaping'!

Anyway, just had the fun job of making a list of present ideas for ds, as requested by ILs. That was good fun

[SunnyL]

Sorry about Jo - we had horrific nappy rash a few weeks ago that was a fungal infection. Pharmacist was really helpful and gave us some advice including a giant tube of metanium.

And sorry to hear about the mastitis - I never got it but saw the state of my friend when she had it. hope you can shake it off soon.

We're all better here as demonstrated by the 6.45 am rude awakening by thrusting a hardback book up my nose.

[Mrs81]

Ouch Bean Hope things get better pronto!

Rae- the only other thing I can think of for Joe is maybe givig him some nappy free time, just to air everything a bit. Nappies 24/7 must make it hard for the skin to breath...

I'm hiding in DS's room with a cup pf tea and waiting for him to nod off. Today has been tediously filled with endless phonecalls to and from the bank re suspected fraud on my account. Luckily there wasn't, but they blocked my account and the joint one plus my credit card. And it took three seperate longwinded attempts to sort each one out, despite being all the same bank

[cuphat]

Poor boy, Rae.

DD's birthday is 8 days after my section date. Which works out quite well for future joint parties! She won't know which day her birthday is, but having been to a few she knows all about parties. And they have all involved bouncy castles. We don't have a bouncy castle. So no doubt she'll mention that (nothing gets past her!) and be a little disappointed!

Glad you're feeling a bit better, bean. It is horrendous.

That's what I'm (slightly) worrying about too; that a baby in the house will be novel at first but once she realises he's here for good she'll be less impressed.

[Raeside]

Oh Bean that's horrid! Ouch and boo. I hope it's all gone now. And poor Polly, it can only be a big shock when she realises the competition is here to stay!

[BeanCalledPickle]

Poor Joe. I have no experience of baby boys and no words of wisdom in that department. Save for to say he will most likely love the zoo, if you mean London zoo? We are members and go fairly frequently. I'm not a huge fan of the conditions they are kept in but it is what it is and I try and make peace with that. Polly seems to love it though.

Birthdays are all a bit pointless when they are this little; one day is the same as the next:-) that being said if we didn't do something then I'd feel guilty. When is her birthday Cuphat? How close to section date? I wish our age gap had been two years plus five weeks rather than two years minus that, would have been good to get it out the way.

Last few days have been hideous. I have mastitis and have never felt more ill. Ended up back in hospital. Feel better now antibiotics have kicked in but still not great. Changed clothes three times in the night due to excessive sweating. Is hideous! Polly has been less keen on Juno the last few days as well. She's started to realise she's not going home and has started to get stressed that there is always a baby hanging off my boob when it comes to wanting a cuddle etc, great timing!

[Raeside]

I think we are doing an NCT party (ie: some kind of cake for the kids to destroy but mostly an opportunity for us all to stand around undertaking morning drinking) and so I don't think we'll do much else. We were going to take Joe to the zoo on his actual birthday so if the weather is good that sounds like a plan.

He's been waking up with dark stained sheets and it turns out that he's been having silent nighttime reflux since his consultant stopped meds at 5 months old. I AM FULL OF THE GUILT. Poor Joe. Anyway apparently it's very common with TOF kids but I wish I'd known. I think I get trapped into the 'we were so lucky' round of thinking that I forget he has ongoing health stuff of that nature. They don't tend to grow out of reflux like other kids.

And his poor little ball sack is giant and red and sore - he's been waking up covered in giant poos and I think it's been burning him. Poor chap. I've slathered it in metanium and paw paw cream and asked the childminder to keep it up - is there anything else I should be doing do you reckon?

[cuphat]

Glad she's doing better, Sunny.

We're having DD's (family) birthday party this weekend. A couple of weeks early but she won't know any difference and I don't know how we'll all be on her actual birthday. It'll be nice for the attention to all be on her for the last time ever. She's so excited about it! We've already taken her to the zoo for her birthday treat. If we're all ok on her actual birthday we'll probably go out somewhere local then too.

[Mrs81]

Glad she's feeling better Sunny. But yes, they do shrink, it's horrid. DS gets so skinny when he's off food! I'm always amazed at how quickly that can happen.

Parents night at nursery this evening. I assume he'll get a good report

[SunnyL]

After a morning and a fair bit of the afternoon sleeping on the sofa the young lady in question has demolished a yoghurt and is playing with her dolly and buggy.

They really do shrink in size when they're ill though don't they?

[Raeside]

Oh no, poor Lil! I hope she feels better soon (and that you managed a shower!)....

[SunnyL]

Its 8.30. I'm meant to be walking out the door right now to go to work. Instead I'm lying in bed cuddling Lil and both of us are slightly damp and smell of vomit.

I'm actually really enjoying my cuddles. Never in a million years did I think I could lie in someone's vomit.

[AlohaMama]

Sorry Sunny - I hadn't really shopped around when I posted that earlier, then DH found the one on Toys R Us. He's kind of fussy too and didn't like the ELC one so much. I'd have just plumped for that. Love the cop car, but the red/yellow classic was cheaper.

[SunnyL]

Bugger. Just bought her a chute off ELC after that tip off earlier. Hadn't bothered shopping around because I'm a lazy arse

We've already got a cozy coupe though - the police one to match DH's work car