January 2014- the one where the babies move more, but sleep less!

[AMillionNameChangesLater]

Hope this is ok!

Henry can't stand unaided, even for a few seconds

LOts of walking but v little chat - everything in the world is Dah! or DaDaDa. Boobs are Mummummum which makes me laugh. I swear he said iggle piggle last week but it may have been an auditory hallucination from lack of sleep and has never been repeated.
Where do I find Furchester hotel?

Angel E just cruises around as well. No signs of walking at all. Her new favorite thing is to sprint crawl from one end of the house to the other, so if that's so much fun, why bother. She also calls everything and anything mamamamama at the moment. But she sleeps. Right now at least (everything is temporary right)

We bought a bigger car seat today and the guy who fitted it told us the capsule we've been using since arriving in July is illegal in Oz. Oops. She also passed on the vomiting bug to me so we have spent the afternoon watching the Furchester Hotel on YouTube. Bloody awesome Sun is due back tomorrow so we were planning on heading to the beach, but not sure we'll make it that far from a sick bowl. Booooo.

Thanks guys - people looking v surprised now when I say no, not walking yet...

Sunshine just watched Furchester here too... It's GREAT. Also, it's made in Manchester, so I am especially biased :)

Sunshine I am so jealous of the sun. I usually hate summer and love winter but it's rubbish having crap weather when you have a baby to entertain!

S is still awake. We were out this afternoon and she fell asleep in the pram. She never usually has an afternoon nap. I'm hoping she will go to sleep soon as we have ordered an Indian takeaway and I don't like sharing

Congratulations Sunshine!

L can be very violent too, pinching and attempting to gouge out my eyes She finds it funny when I tell her off, so I've taken to holding her hands for a few seconds whilst doing saying no. She hates being constrained, so it's a deterrent, but it doesn't actually hurt her. No idea if it's the right thing to do.

She is sleeping as bad as ever. Last night I got 3 hours. Tonight it's DH's turn :) She runs everywhere but isn't really talking, although she did say 'Uh oh' today, which is what I say every time she falls over. She decides whether or not it hurts based on my reaction, if I gasp she cries, if I say 'Uh Oh!' she's fine.

Hope everyone gets lots of sleep tonight!

Aware this is bragging, but we are child free! My brother took both boys yesterday and we're getting them back at two tomorrow.

Went out for friends last night, got home and asleep by midnight. Woke at 9. It was brilliant. Today we spent most of the day wasting our time playing computer games and reading. Was amazing! We're watching Breakout Kings now, another lie in tomorrow

Sorry for that, but I'm so excited and we really needed time together. It has been lovely

We are also child-free tonight million. A bit drunk and off to sledp

Ooh Million and Tarka, you lucky things! Glad to see you're both enjoying your time off! We have our first night away from F next Saturday... Hooray!

Million and Tarka I am at child free nights.

DP has gone out on his bike this morning and won't be back until 4ish as he's training for a race. Every time he left the room S sat at the door crying for him (real tears too!) and then as he was leaving she stood at the window sobbing. It was heartbreaking she's never done that before. Now she's in a right mood and probably will be all day.

I had a wonderful weekend.
What was also brilliant is hearing how much my brother and his wife loved having them over. She said they were really polite and well behaved. Even better, they have asked to have them for the weekend in a couple of months. Cannot wait again

Oh Million, that's awesome! What a lovely thing to hear. And great work on getting the next weekend in already

Glad you had a good time million and how nice that your boys are so well behaved

I'm contemplating asking MIL to babysit one night next week so DH and I can go out for dinner for valentines/our anniversary. It would only be for a few hours in the evening (as obviously I can't drink at the moment ) but I feel bad as she all ready does so much for us. But it would be really nice to go out and have a really nice relaxed meal for once. Although my ideal meal (and what I keep fantasising about at the moment) would be baked camembert, medium rare steak and a glass bottle of red wine. Guess I will be choosing something else!

O has started waking at 5.30 again! Really don't know why she has suddenly started doing it. She is also waking once during the night and can't settle herself. Just going to ride it out with cuddles and hope it passes soon.

I know I was really sad about finishing bf a few weeks back, but I am actually really glad I did. O will now come to me just for cuddles (whereas before it was usually for milk) which is lovely. Yesterday we just laid on the sofa for about 30 mins all snuggled up watching nursery rhymes and it was so nice (she usually only does this with DH). I'm so glad I carried on bf for as long as I did, but it is really lovely moving on to the next stage and I no longer feel like just a milk provider.

That's great tarka and million. I am very jealous!

On Saturday MIL had her cousin over, a very lovely and very respectable lady who we are all fond of. N excelled himself. He started off with the usual biting and begging for biscuits and was given a dolly to keep him busy. So what did he do? Feed her? Put her to sleep? No.

He lay her on her back, climbed on top and rocked back and forth saying "ah ah ah". When he was done he turned her over and repeated. I just looked at the ground and pretended not to notice. I couldn't see that anyone else noticed. I swear he has never seen anything like this in real life or on the telly but it was still v . he does like to bounce on his ride on car so i hope it was just that. What have I created?

altered that's hilarious, made me laugh out loud when brushing my teeth! Did she say anything??

tarka/million sounds like you had lovely weekends, hope you didn't suffer hangover the next day

nature I'm sure your MIL won't begrudge you an anniversary night out if you ask. You are lucky to have such great grandparents close, something we are missing right now. In laws arrive at Easter, but week after a wedding in wine country we are going to. Dammit - we don't get to be baby free very often. Though it is self inflicted. Agree with you on the BF point - E has got very cuddly since we stopped last week, she stops playing to come for a quick hug then crawls off again. Cute. I was worried she might be clingy but this is nice.

Sorry altered but that really made me laugh as well!

sunshine she wouldn't begrudge us at all and keeps offering. I just feel like I am taking the mick. I'll suggest it to DH tonight and see what he says. It is fab having GP so close. We moved back to where Dh grew up for that reason as we knew the in-laws would offer full time child care for us. It's lovely though as O is just as happy at their house as she is at ours, and they love looking after her. They have such a close relationship it's really nice to see. How annoying they come after the wedding! Bad timing.

Million glad you had a good weekend and the boys behaved. And nice one booking the next weekend in

Altered that is hilarious

Nature if she keeps offering take her up on it. I bet she loves spending time with O.

We have got the MMR booked in for tomorrow. We were going to get it done separately but when I first looked in to it you couldn't get a single mumps vaccine anymore, and now they no longer produce the single rubella vaccine so that idea is out of the window now. I am dreading it and I hope she's not too bad afterwards.

We have been to play group this morning and S has been a nightmare whinging and crying. She was like it all day yesterday too and DP buggered off on his bike at 9am and didn't get back until 8pm I could have done with his help yesterday and now I'm stressed! S is having a nap so I'm enjoying the peace and quiet for now.

Felix that must be so hard for you, as you are working a full 6 days + I bet no rest on the 7th either! Do you ever get time to yourself where your Dp just has S? You must be exhausted.

I hate our immunisation appointment system here. You can't book appointments, they just send them to you. I was hoping to have O's MMR done next week while I am off but don't know if that is going to be possible. First lot of immunisations were booked for the same time as we had a consultant appointment so had to cancel which caused loads of problems. I wish they just sent a letter saying please book with the contact details to book argh!

altered, that is hilarious!

Jealous of the child-free nights out. After taking a screaming baby around Tesco this morning, any child-free time would be gratefully received. She was so bad that a woman with 2 small.children stopped me and asked me to reassure her daughter that M was ok, because she'd heard her all around the shop and was fretting about her

Felix, what was your reasoning for wanting the individual MMR injections? I hope S is ok with it.

We're going to my least favourite place in the world.this afternoon -- soft play. I am almost phobic about soft play, so it should be fun

Nature that's a bizarre system! I bet people have to rearrange appointments all the time and it just causes loads of hassle. Makes more sense to do it the normal way.

DP keeps saying to me that I need to join some sort of club or find a hobby as I need time to myself, but I don't know what to do and I'm just knackered all the time anyway. It's usually ok when she's behaving but she's turned in to a little monster the past two weeks. I feel bad telling DP not to go on his Sunday rides but he's training for his first race next month so he needs to do them really. I suppose it's not that bad as its keeping him fit and healthy and he could just be going out drinking every Sunday like a lot of blokes I know (although he doesn't really drink so that's a bit of a stupid comparison ). I'd rather have the weekend as family time though as DP is out of the house before we get up and doesn't get back until just before S goes to bed.

Toby gutted for you having to go to soft play Well I wasn't bothered either way with the MMR but DP was concerned. His niece had problems which his family are positive were connected to the MMR jab. Within a few days after having it she developed problems with her eyesight and severe hearing loss (she now has glasses and two hearing aids) when she was perfectly healthy prior to the immunisations. They never really followed their concerns up with anyone though which I find a bit odd I reckon it's just a massive coincidence but PIL's wanted to pay for S to have it done separately so I just agreed as it doesn't really bother me as long as she has her immunisations done in the end.

Felix I know this might sound strange but have you thought about joining the woman's institute? I know it sounds really old fashioned but my friend has joined them because they do loads of crafty stuff, and apparently there is more and more young people joining because baking, crafting, and knitting have become much more popular again. Just a thought.

It is a stupid system I hate it! I'm just worried that they aren't going to send through an appointment, as after I cancelled O's first appointment, my GP's didn't notify child health services (who do the appointments) so they thought she had been given the immunisations so didn't send through another appointment. It's only because I followed it up and got the number to phone them directly that it got sorted!

Well funnily enough I looked up the WI here the other day! I looked at their events for the year and nothing sounded that appealing to me I know there's a lot of younger people who go though so it might be worth it just for the social side.

Glad people had good weekends, my MIL and her partner came up as a surprise, which was really lovely.

For the last 4+ months we've been taking it in turns to sleep on the sofa with L in the pram as she can be rocked to sleep easily. Last night we put her in her cot for 6 hours, then brought her into our bed (when she woke for the 5th time). Tonight we're trying for 7 hours. My anxiety was really bad even though DH was there. I know when he goes away it's going to be about 10x worse, my chest feels tight just thinking about it! I'm worried that my anxiety might be affecting her but don't know what to do about it.

Felix do you enjoy swimming? It's not very social but I've been going every other week for a few hours and I really enjoy the time to think! Wont help with the tiredness though!

Ah that's a shame Felix. Is there a sewing "knit and natter" equivalent. That way you would get to meet people whilst also doing something you all ready enjoy.

MrsG that must be really hard. This is probably a really silly question so sorry if it is, but do you know why you are anxious about it? Are you worried that she won't sleep through, or that you won't be able to get her to go back to sleep? Does she sleep through in the pram or still wake and it's just easier to get her back to sleep?

I'm sorry to learn about the bad times people are having! That isn't good at all.

About WI, I want to join ours, I sent them an email months ago and no one replied.