The 11th Gemini bus - Trudging through the terrible twos

[AGnu]

Well sounds like everything is falling into place pair, the sunshine always helps although ofcourse it's disappeared now it's the weekend

Well... both laceration types involve the same area and they both bloody hurt so I wouldn't get too worked up about interchanging the two! And woah! You do not automatically need a C/S. It's good they're giving you the option if you'd like one, but you absolutely do not NEED one after that. Heck yes, go use those resources, girl! I think the consultant is just trying to cover her own ass by saying there's nothing that can be done for prevention... as of course you can't guarantee anything. But, there are positions or techniques, etc that can be tried. Hope the tools they are offering you are useful and you feel a bit more prepared for it all!

Dropping the skirt in the dress sounds like a good idea too for accommodating the bump. We'll be expecting pictures you know!

Just throw an old sheet on top of the plants over night and the frost should leave them alone.

How's the TTC-convincing going for you agnu?

DH sounds like he's having a blast being a free single man for the weekend. I'm getting it in the neck that I don't sound "very excited for him" It's like, yes, of course I'm excited for you... but you wanting to tell me everything that's happened to you in chronological order for the past 24 hrs over the phone isn't really a good idea right now when I have three kids in the car in preparation to get two on the bus and 1 in daycare and 1 is talking about poop, 1 is talking about red light sabers and the other is talking about how many seeds they counted in their green pepper in science class yesterday. FFS! I can only absorb so many things being spouted at me! Also, he's texting me pictures every 5 minutes. And apparently my responses of "nice!" "gorgeous" and "ok" aren't quite up to par with being "nice text responses" (yeah, I got accused of not being nice enough through text). I don't even feel like working today! I just want to go back to bed in preparation for tonight, all day tomorrow and all day on Sunday. I don't know how single mothers do it all! Jesus!

Bring are you still alive? Is your DH on a work thing? It's mind baffling when they expect you to be super happy when you're not in their shoes isn't it I think my DH would be in great danger of loosing important body parts if that happened to me! Your DH best be on best behaviour when he gets home. You're owed lots of "me time" Let me know when I need to I fly over to NY to slap him with a giant Salmon!!

Ahhhhhh why r MIL so annnooyyyiinnnggg!!!! We've been hit with the...when are we going to start potty training? question. It's only because she doesn't like changing bpears nappy that she's asking

Anyway, DH has gone off to see a client at the airport who's interchanging flights and I'm going to bed

Barely alive. Thanks for asking. He was great last night when he got home. I've been suffering with a nasty cold for the past week and it went down into my chest. I don't know if I just haven't had time to be sick last week or he was home so my body just shut down but I couldn't stop coughing and just ended up in bed by 6 so he did bedtime (it was glorious not having to!).

Ugh, seriously? She's asking about that? Has she completely forgotten what it's like to train a small child to use the toilet!? You could just say "yes" he's potty trained and then send him over to hers with a pair of pants on so he can wee all over the place since she's so against nappies

Frus! Hello! Been missing you lately

So amazing! It's just so so exciting to hear her procedure has worked and that just quality of life in general is getting better for her. It must be so much less frustrating for her to be able to get things across. And for you as well! I'm so happy for you and your DD. You both deserve this so much!

Frus I'm really really pleased for you all too! Such wonderful news for you all after such a long wait! Bring is right, your family really deserve this good and happy development! Enjoy DD happy wave of positive changes going on

You ladies have really cheered me up, I love the idea of sending bpear and frus jnr to the in laws hotel room to wee everywhere! Annoying that they probably have
room/maid service wherever they go

I'm having a very sad week Totally unimportant matters but I'm feeling very low. It's meant to be a happy one as its my wedding anniversary but DH and I can't stop fighting, I've put on so much weight because I can't stop comfort eating and I just feel so low

I'm worried I'm putting on too much weight too. I've gone from a size 10 to 12 jean size and now I'm finding size 12 too small This isn't normal is it? It's not my bump. My arse is a mountain and my hips are literally bursting out my jeans I actually want to rip my clothes off at bpears bedtime. My soft underwire bra is no longer comfy and I just feel hideous. I haven't moved onto wireless bras because they always looked so unsupportive on me the first time and I need the support I've tried buying maternity clothes but everything is too baggy as I haven't got a big bump and just makes me feel more like a whale. Have any of you experienced this in pregnancy? I'm pretty sure I wore the same jeans all through pregnancy with bpear. I can only think that maybe my recent comfort eating is to blame I'm now in a total panic that the test will come out positive for GD in a few weeks. Why can't I just stay away from cake and sugar for a few months? Feeling very very guilty about it all and when I feel guilty I just eat more cake

Just to explain my low point...it's mainly because DH and I have been fighting a lot and things haven't been going well for him work-wise which means he's been in a completely different head space. He never sounds excited about the baby unless I bring it up or makes any effort at all with me. Nothing was planned for our anniversary so we ended up going on a last minute date because I had arranged my mother to have bpear and the whole thing was just so false and disconnected. I didn't even feel nice as all I have to wear is bad fitted jeans. He's gone off to take bpear on a special nursery outing with the other parents today which I really wanted to do but I can't because of my physical state and I just feel so crap about that because it's been me who's been making all the effort with nursery and he just comes along and gets to do the fun stuff. On top of that I've got friends coming over for lunch with their kids tomorrow because I offered to host weeks and weeks a go. I have nothing to cook and now I have to spend my free morning preparing for that when it's the last thing I want right now. I just feel like all I do is give give give with my friends and frankly I'm so sick of entertaining and I think play dates suck because they zap all your energy and make you run around like a loon cleaning the house to prove that you live in a clean dust free environment all the time yeah right. So that's about it in a nutshell. It's very "me me me"! I know I'm feeling bad about that too...it's all rather silly to be tearful over and I'm sure my crazy hormones are not helping matters at all!

Oh and do any of you have experience using Asda photo cakes for your kids? Bpear wants a specific cake that I can't make and he's been asking for 6 months for it!! I've looked into costs and cake makers are charging £55-120 to make it I'm now thinking about getting a picture of it printed on a cake at Asda for about £20 instead. Yes it won't be as fun but I have an issue about spending more then £50 on a 3 year olds cake

Is there any reason you can't make the one he wants? I make quite a lot of cakes - maybe I can help you come up with a simplified version?

Other than that, have a . Saying no to pregnancy cravings is so difficult! Did you have GD last time? Any chance you can try switching sugary snacks for something with a little more nutritional value? I've had some success with munching pecans when I'm feeling pecking... but I'm now having to weigh out my daily allowance because I'm eating too many & putting the weight back on! I'm not battling hormones & pregnancy cravings though, I know I've got it easy!

Play dates & hosting friends are non-obligatory activities. I can't remember the last time I had anyone in my house, we meet up at cafes or the local wildlife place. Make time to take care of yourself & tell your DH to be a little more supportive - it's his baby too!

Thanks ladies

I'm very hormonal. Goddamn female baby hormones I was never near this bad with bpear. DH says I'm a nightmare pregnant wife My mother gets it

I'm trying to "communicate" with DH. Tonight we had a chat about how I feel like our different parenting techniques are tearing us apart and how if he would just take a step back and see how his soft parenting "giving in" techniques is having an effect on bpear and driving me nuts, he might just begin to understand why I feel so rahhhhh! I told him weeks and weeks ago that if we let bpear have our phones all the time, soon he will stop listening to our instructions and surprise surprise bpear now wants to watch the phone and not read bedtime stories which basically lead me to tears this evening. How sad is it when your child would rather watch stupid Ben and Holly then have you read a story to them

So apparently DH is going to remove the phone tomorrow. Doubt it will work because he has no back up distraction plan.

Anyway, it's stuff you've all experienced, maybe in another frustrating way but I'm sure it's common for most DH's to take the easy route and play good cop some of the time or in my case...ALL the fricken time!!

I am fat though. Just to prove it myself I've put on my maternity tankini and it fits perfectly. This is the outfit I brought a week before giving birth to bpear because I decided dreamt that I wanted a pool birth. So basically I'm the same weight as I was at 38 weeks the first time and I'm 22 nearly 23 weeks now OMG!

So I learnt today that Tescos also offer the cake photo printing service. My friend has offered to help me with the design so I am definitely going for this option now. Thanks for the vote of confidence Frus!

Agnu the cake shape is like a model of a car. It would take me a week to prepare and as I've got the hen party close to the birthday I realised that this is just totally unachievable and this year I really shouldn't even try to bake in my condition. What's really important to bpear is that A) he has a cake (he even asked if he was having a cake tonight when he overheard me talking about the picnic boxes to DH) B) It's chocolate and C) It is his toy car. There is a small part of my brain that worried that he will have a fit that it's not the actual model of the car but then my clever brain kicks in and tells me to get a grip because surely the excitement and overwhelming effort I've gone to trying to make it a special party in the village hall is more then enough for him!

Not the best photo but this is the car

I love that he's able to communicate what he wants to you. Runt just agrees with anything Calf says, he has no opinions of his own. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you should be baking him a complicated cake, I was just curious about it & wondering if I could help! Nothing wrong with a printed cake! Another option, just as a thought, would be a basic rectangle cake, decorated to look like a road/car park with the cleaned toy on top. My friend did similar for her DC's birthday & there was much excitement about taking the toy off the top to play with! Totally understandable if you don't feel up to doing it yourself though - you've got a lot on your plate at the moment! I've not even thought about Runt's birthday at all yet. I've got another cake booked for a friend the day before his birthday! That's a fruit cake though so I can make that in advance to give me more time on Runt's. Haven't thought about a party either! I'll shut up about cakes now, it's a bit of an obsession of mine, can you tell?!

Fitting into clothes does not make you fat. I was wearing clothes comfortably in the middle of Runt's pregnancy that I wore at the end of Calf's. Clothes these days are rather stretchy! Try not to stress too much about it, easy for me to say, I know!

Good luck with cutting down screen time. I hope both your DH & bpear get used to the change quickly! Have some in the meantime... Ok, shutting up about cake now...!

Oh no Agnu I didn't think you were saying I had to make the cake. I got that you were trying to help I am just justifying to myself that it's OK that I don't bake this year I really really wish I could bake like you. I just don't seem to have the skills at all! I made cake 1 & 2 and it took a week and my jealous sister helping with lots of late nights! It's such a shame I can't do it with ease on my own I don't think it helps that I only bake 1 cake a year and that I'm a perfectionist! I did think about doing a road cake but any cake stresses me out and we also don't own an actual model of the car. To buy one off eBay would cost a lot because the TV show is 25 years old. This is what happens when you have sisters who're 10 years older passing down their DVDs Your sons are really lucky to have your baking skills I think there is something really lovely about a mummy baking the birthday cake when it's possible!

Thank you for suggesting I'm not fat I feel so fat though

So, found out tonight that one of bpears friends has come down with chicken pox! We fly on holiday in May. Don't know whether to rush to the private GP on Tuesday to get him vaccinated It's just one thing after another at the moment!

I could be wrong but I think if he's already infected then the vaccine won't be much use, sorry! Fx he doesn't catch it!

Ah it's a tough one isn't it! So, I've found out now that the 1st spot arrived on Friday. She caught it 10 days before. The private GP website says "The vaccine can be used to prevent chickenpox developing if exposure to virus from another person (first spot) has been within the last 5 days". So, we're still within the 5 days on Tuesday. I've booked an appointment whilst we think it over. If bpear doesn't catch it from this child then it could be from someone else in May as chicken pox is flying about in our local area. It's basically a risk and we need to decide whether to take that risk or not. Obviously we don't want to spend £220 and we don't want to unecessarily vaccinate him either but we also don't want to miss out on our last family holiday together because we couldn't be even delay the holiday. The holiday would be cancelled and that would be it. What to do, what to do!

£220 is a lot but the cost of missing the holiday is more. I'll have to get DH to double check our insurance. I think my main concern is bpears health because if he's vaccinated I worry about the vaccination wearing off and him catching it when he's older which is a lot more serious. I don't think they know how long the vaccine actually lasts.

Hi. Sorry I've been MIA lately. Busy as you can imagine, plus I haven't had access to a laptop. Bought a new one yesterday.

Been slowly catching up on news. Frus delighted that the hearing is going so well.

Pear I put on SO much weight early this time and couldn't fit into any clothes really early. Everything just moved earlier, even though it wasn't bump as such. All evened out later on and turned into a normal bump.

Things with us are good. E is feeding so well - much easier this time around, with the confidence from last time behind me. He didn't lose much weight at the start although seemed to be struggling to gain it back but we got there eventually. C has struggled to adjust a bit. He just seemed so sad at first. He's delighted to be a brother and loves E but he was pretty difficult with us. It was so hard to see him acting out and being sad. Really broke my heart. Seems to be settling down again now. Having nursery routine to go to has helped I think. It gave him some normalcy and structure as well as space to himself. He's been a bit emotional in nursery at times but they're helping him and keeping an eye on him.

Right, going to attempt to type up birth story...