March '13 - The One With The Babax

[Plonkysaurus]

New thread , and I can assure you all, it'll be a corker.

My dad was the same, yummy. It's a relic of rationing, you do not waste food. Except times have changed, the composition and availability of food has changed. I think you're doing the right thing by not pushing DS to eat, because why on earth would teaching him to eat regardless of hunger be a good idea? Good luck getting your mum to see it that way though!

I would be annoyed if anyone pressured DD to eat. They are either hungry or not and I am so wary of ever making the dinner table a battle ground. We have a strict rule of not discussing food at the dinner table in terms of how much is eaten or not - she does not get praised for eating or any reaction if she doesn't eat, even if she eats nothing. We will ask if she is done and if she is we remove the food. Only fruit gets offered after a meal so DD has no concept of a dessert yet so we will see what changes once she does!

worse sounds so tough to juggle it all. Never suffered from snot in newborns myself but now when we have issues we fill the sink in the bathroom with boiling water and olbas oil while we all have a bath together and that really helps.

Dragon cake preparations are underway for tomorrow! Turns out its quite hard to get bright green buttercream icing without a lot of chemicals so we are going for a light lime green dragon - don't think DD will worry too much!

We're rather less strict than that - I do praise Fartypants at the table frequently, but that's because she's been such an awkward bugger with food. We had pizza last night and she didn't even taste it, but I still praised her for looking at it, touching it, and generally not freaking out about it. I'd imagine there's less call for such praise when you have a child who isn't convinced all food is some sort of evil ploy that will result in her doom.

I well remember having to sit at the table, in tears, for hours, because you couldn't get down from the table until you'd cleared your plate, and some tastes and textures at that age made me vomit. I don't ever want to put my own child through that.

In other news, the postman just brought Fartypants some awesome red converse all-stars. She's going to look awesome in them!

Hey gorgeous ladies (now everyone is on Facebook I can say this with confidence ) and welcome to over familiar Friday. I've missed loads. On phone so memory needs to serve me.....

Yummy is at cinema and
stormy's at a gig. Tell us more both. Did you have fun? Dh is working til midnight so I've got a date with call the midwife, a cake icing job and some work.
Shattered you asked about ....what was it now.....letting them self settle was it? We've done gradual retreat. I now do our bedtime routine and then sit outside her door being boring with occasional 'lie down, time to sleep's. If she's singing or chattering I leave her to it.

Something I had no idea about your sister. So she has a young adopted son? I can't scroll back right now so can't recall. Is she nearby to you guys? What's the age gap between the cousins? My sister's children are 10 and 15 and I often wonder how things would have been if they were closer together in age.

Worse hoping the snot factor has lessened. Popping moses basket somehow might help. We put a foam wedge under the mattress I think.

Plonky do swing by and say hi. I can't remember how early days it is. How many weeks do you think you are?

Wotta, that royally sucks. Especially when you're hoping to move. Still, living rurally cars are a necessary evil. All done now. Onwards!

We went to our first party today. Nice and old school. Playing with toys, sandwich lunch, cake with candles, pass the parcel, job done. But it was 1200 til 1400 which is our nap time. It wasn't pretty getting her home afterwards!

Ecotod helped bake a cake after dinner. She stood on a chair at the counter happily for the duration and not too many trade off bargaining had to be done. Pretty chuffed with that. We also sat on the potty pre bath, got off and weed up the bath instead. Less chuffed with that.

Happy weekends everyone. Off to get some dinner.

Gig was excellent. Brian's got hair again! Last time I saw them he'd shaved his head, which is not the best look for a pretty bloke in a dress, and I felt mildly traumatised. But the hair is back! The world is right again, or it will be once I've had a shower.

You saw Placebo last night Stormy? Well jel! Saw them at Leeds c. 2004, they were awesome.

Worse did you manage to eat your cake? I can offer my services if need be.

Something I may be unable to be any kind of decent bridesmaid now but that doesn't mean I don't want to see allllll the photos of your dress!

Food....Ds gets praised for eating everything. Gets offered fruit/yoghurt/sometimes chocolate regardless and we try to convince him to eat as much as he can, without pressure. Yes we're probably doing it all wrong and will scar him for life/turn him into a compulsive fatty but I don't give a shit.

Well I couldn't stay away too long. Rainbow I know you were just trying to help me understand how my sister will be coping with this news. But honestly, it was not necessary and just drove the knife in further. While it didn't happen to me, I am capable of empathy.

Eco love you asked how far along I am and how I'm feeling? I'm 4 and a half weeks, and the poppy seed is beginning to make its presence known. I can't stay awake past 9.30pm and I've got big nips. DS and I are also suffering from a cold and I'm getting rather dizzy, which is great fun as you can imagine.
You've reminded me about naps though. DS' gathering is at 1 tomorrow, and he tends to nap 12.30-2.30. It'll be so much fun to see how this plays out!
Ecotod sounds a lovely little lady. She clearly understands the importance of behaving when cake is involved.

As you can see I'm clearly quite grumpy this morning. I think five days without nicotine or booze is showing itself. You're all bastards and I don't want to know you unless you're prepared to rub my tummy and feed me cake and let me borrow your bath!

I did, Plonk! Their first time in Hull, my third time seeing them. I've lost track of them the past few years (mainly cos they decided spotify was bad) and I think I'd have enjoyed it more if half the songs hadn't been New to me. But still ace, and I was close enough to see the sweat dripping off him.

Only had four hours' sleep though. Bleurgh. Roll on bedtime!

Happy birthday rainbowtoddle. Shattered and plonky do you have birthdays too today? If so, happy birthday to the toddles.

After the birthday cake bake off on fb tonight I am going to be too ashamed to put a pic of ds shop made cake tomorrow.

I'll see your shop bought, yummy, and raise you a shop bought by somebody who isn't me. It is ghastly pink and it has a tiara on top. I'm sure FP will love it (crowns being one of her favourite things) but by god the thing hurts my eyes.

Morning all. We've taken the play pen down. Am I going to regret this? But FP is very pleased to have a whole shelf to herself on the newly accessible bookcase. Left one present on the living room floor overnight. Made a beeline for it the moment she woke up, said, "Look! Present!" and started ripping off paper, so she may not know what a birthday really is but she has certainly worked out presents.

So I believe it's Fartypants' and toddleYum's birthday today. Many happy returns.

We are also celebrating today yummy, but his birthday is actually tomorrow. He's been given a bike, helmet and a whole dvd. Seems chuffed.

Stormy we never had a playpen. No doubt you'll all adapt soon enough.

I'm just rocking ds to sleep in his buggy and hoping to get a quick lie down myself before everyone gets here. DH and dbil were in the pub til 1 this morning so I had to get up with ds today. At 6. morning sickness ok the sissy version, just mega nausea reared is head while I was making a vat of chilli at 8 am. Hope my acting skills are convincing today!

I've sent dh and ds to the park to get him exhausted enough to have a nap at lunchtime so he is upbeat before everyone comes. While they are having fun I am doing decorating and tidying duty. Then when ds is napping we set up his kitchen.

plonky hope you have a good time today and stay away from smelly food. How will you avoid alcohol?

stormy you will adapt to not having a play pen. I never used one but I used to put him in his cot if I needed to keep him safe. I'm sure the pink cake is not that bad. The things we have to do for kids hey.

Happy birthday Toddles!!! I hope they're both enjoying their celebrations!

I saw the cakes in Facebook from the other birthdays. Very impressive! Miss Madam would have loved the Zebra but instead got a badly iced choc orange cake with a 2 made out of raspberrys. Poor effort compared to last year!

I was at a hen do this weekend and thought I'd feel sick as a pig today but instead am just bloody exhausted and could really do with a disco nap!

worse how's the babax? Less snotty? We have snot here again but I'm sure it's worse in a newborn.
yummy how was the party? Any good? Did DS enjoy himself?
betty how was the hen? Did you have a good time?
Cake went down well here. Am loving the pics on FB. Honestly though I do love shop bought celebration cakes. Especially if it has fondant icing and buttercream. DS really enjoyed his party. Was really cute to watch.
Thanks for the advice on sleep eco. He self settle well at bedtime but occ wakes up inconsolable. So we are just going with it at the moment as most of the time we are lucky and he sleeps through. I wonder if he has nightmares as he sometimes seems disorientated almost?
plonk how are you feeling? Did DS enjoy his bike? I have to say giving up cigs and booze at the same time sounds hard. I'm pretty sure you can use nicotine patches in pregnancy though so might be worth checking if you need to. The cake pops looked yum.
Can I have a moan? I'm tired. Not as tired as worse probably but ...my bones ache I'm so exhausted. I'm waking up at least 3-5 times a night as every time I turn over it is very painful. worse you were right I have no idea how I'm going to make it to 36 weeks at work. No advice needed really think I've just got Sunday night blues!

Hope everyone well and has had good weekends!

Belated birthday wishes to various toddles! Totally overwhelmed at fb cake party...no pressure next weekend then!

Hope all having lovely evenings after good weekends.

Happy Birthday Toddleyummy and Fartypants! I've just polished off the last bit of cake from last weekend in their honour!

Stormy - how on earth did you get this long out of the baby jail? DD took to climbing out of it about a year ago so I had to ditch it. Along with my sanity. Make sure you have somewhere safe and entertaining for when you need to hide in the pantry cook dinner et al or you'll get yourself in all sorts of trouble. I have no such place so it takes me three hours to cook a half hour dinner when I have to extract DD from the toilet/woodburner (not lit)/chest of drawers. The other day she reached the front door handle and was just about to make a break for it. I love that she's adventurous but geeeez.

Yes, happy birthday all toddles! And, to mums of aforementioned toddles. Birthdays are to be celebrated for more than one reason. You survived the first two years!

Wotta, I'm with you on the cake anxiety front now. I'm reassessing Harriet hedgehog

Shattered, yes I remember now, it was night time wakes that you asked about. It was these that made me contact our sleep lady again. One thing to maybe consider is what you do when he's upset.....her theory is that if we consistently remove the child from the cot when they're sad we're telling them they need to be rescued and that the cot isn't a safe place. She suggested cot cuddles or cuddles in arms but right next to cot and pretty brief (but she also advocates not leaving them alone to cry so you might bear that in mind if you're doing brief cuddles.....it's so bamboozling when there are so many techniques and you're tired and you don't know whether you're coming or going). Another thing might be to do plenty of daytime play in cot and plenty of laughs in bedroom to reiterate that the cot is safe. Good luck, it's challenging when you get these overnight wakes and don't understand why you're getting them. for your tired aching bones.

I have lost my engagement ring Last had it on on Thursday. This makes me pretty sad as I'm so sentimental. I do
realise this is small fry, it's just it's the only thing of note to say really. Oh, we popped to London for brunch yesterday. You can do that when you live in bloody Bedfordshire. We went to herne Hill. Very naice. Ecotod was fascinated with buses, zebra crossings and pressing the button for the green Man. We could have stayed all day. We're really bumpkiniliscious aren't we?

Any I think we were lucky. Fartypants still hasn't worked out climbing out of the play pen, or the cot. But she really doesn't need the play pen any more - it was mainly for fag breaks and poos in peace and just generally being able to leave the room without her killing herself. Bathroom (and cat litter) are gated off, nasty chemicals are on top of the fridge, she's learning not to put stuff in the bin without checking with me first. That just leaves the fag breaks, and I can keep an eye on her through the window.

Anyway, we needed the space for her new wooden table and two chairs with pirates on. She loves it. I suppose it must be nice, when all the world's clearly designed for people twice your size, to have something built for your own small size.

As for nightmares, they do have them at this age. I remember having nightmares at this age. We just sit quietly and cuddle for twenty minutes or so until she's happy to get back into bed.

Not much else to report. A good birthday was had, much cake eaten, several letters drawn (!) and a new word added to her "recognise by sight" collection. I am pretty sure two year olds aren't supposed to do that.

Thank you all for the birthday wishes. We had a lovely time. Ds loved blowing out the candle and his kitchen was a big hit. Cake no2 will be cut at his nursery today.

stormy ds can recognise the word green but I think that is just he remembers that word from a video on youtube.

eco welcome to my part of the hood you were only 20mins away from me.

yummy our newly recognised word is "baby". After a moment of confusion we remembered just how much Baby Jake she's been watching recently - obviously recognises it from the opening credits! Also recognises one, fox, sky, and cbeebies - all TV channel logos. And people say TV isn't educational!

stormy we also have a few words recognised by sight and we know a few of DD peers who are the same - I think it's down to repetition of stuff they enjoy. some two year olds really focus on language development while other focus on motor skills. DD has no interest in climbing and has only recently tried to run and jump bbut loves to sit and draw and read for hours on end. She also like to pretend to read stories out loud and will sit with the gruffalo book and appear to be reading it out loud when it's just from memory. It all pretty much equalises after a few years at school from what I experienced when I was a school governor.

We had such an amazing weekend with DD birthday. She was thoroughly spoiled and adored her birthday cake and the whole birthday experience. I can't believe what a totally different person she is from last year - just lovely that they are so aware of what is going on. She loved her gifts but the chickens were the biggest hit - she absolutely adores them. Its lovely to watch as she treats them like friends and try to hold conversations with them!

We also went on an official pants shopping trip yesterday after spending three days naked and only one accident. DD kept telling us the she was "big girl now, need big pants like mummy!"However turns out that the switch from naked to pants is actually quite tricky so we are in the process of persuading DD that pants are not nappies and leak!

She should realise pants aren't for weeing in soon enough, I expect, Rainbow. Wet pants and wet nappies feel rather different! So is it really warm down south? Cos I'd love to let Fartypants run around naked (she isn't a big fan of clothes) but it's still winter in the grim northern wastes and it's brass monkeys inside and out.

stormy we are in the grim north but we are lucky to live in a new well built eco style house so warm enough to be half naked. Although from today we are back in clothing, minus tights which we usually wear everyday. Our washing pile will just have to be higher than normal!

I wonder where I got the idea you were down south from! And we're in an end terrace built in the 1880s - no wall cavities to insulate so it gets rather chilly. Especially on washing days, because the tumble dryer's in a lean-to in the yard and I have to run the plug through the kitchen window. Hence I'm hoping FP isn't ready to potty train until the summer.