November 2014 - the one where they answer back.

[MrsAukerman]

New thread.
Hop aboard.

You're a braver woman than me to contemplate 3!

DD has started bottle refusing now. As if she heard me say I was going to switch soon! You definitely forget about the endless 4 month slog - if you remembered nobody would have a second!

Oh not brave Anna it is totally insane that I'm even contemplating it. There are so, so many reasons not to. So many. DH and I first discussed it about 6 months ago and then both kind of freaked out and ran away and said we'd not talk about it again until early 2017. We haven't yet. I have a suspicion he'd be up for it. That doesn't mean much though as while of course he'd need to be on board 100%, it's would still be my mind and body that has to go through hell the delights of pregnancy childbirth and boobing. I'm just in a bit of a hormonal what-if at the moment. Sorry to ramble! I haven't said it out loud to anyone as I think there'd be universal disapproval!

Uff, that's hard about the bottle refusing if she'd been game before. I think I remember that happening with Dd1. All you can do is put your head down and keep mainlining caffeine until solids time really. It's no fun and a bit lonely but soon it will be spring and everything will be a lot lot easier when she's on solids. Messier too though obvs

Wow, Halfstar you are a hero! Although there are so many families with 3+ children and they seem to just carry on as normal.

So yesterday I finally after a year (!) finished off knitting DD's cardigan and was sewing on some flower shaped buttons. DD came over and started to play with them, then got distracted by other toys. I was finishing the last button when she came over again and tried to pick up the button, which wouldn't budge. After some time of struggle I told her that it wouldn't come off anymore. She got really upset and started to cry in full volume and tears rolling down the cheeks. She was so upset she even refused to touch the spare button I offered her
Well, all those funny threads on MN classics about toddlerisms.... That could be our every day reality soon. I have hidden that cardigan now and not sure if I will ever dare to show it DD again.

I think if we hadn't left it so late dp and I might have gone for more, although I say that from the comfort of only 1 so who knows. Not eve started trying for number 2 yet.

Let's have some toddlerisms then! Babydolly was very angry with me this week for not 'make it warm!', I tried to explain it was winter and we were outside but to no avail. It was all my fault.

Ha ha toddlerisms I remember ds1 used to scream to fix a biscuit or banana that broke

Well have booked Barbados for April was so undecided between Morocco, cape Verde, Cuba and Caribbean so eventually booked got a reasonable deal for a week ds1 will miss one day of school. We do have to drive to an airport 3hrs away but will book hotel overnight. So 9hrs on a plane with 2 boys ds1 will be fine, ds2 well I will leave that one there and report back after the event.... So that and turkey imn October will be our hols this year.

Took boys swimming today I am not huge fan so we rarely go but bnoth enjoyed it ds2 cried initially but was soon jumping iin from side.

9 hrs?! Crikey eastmids! You may consider this for your own sanity

jet-kids.com/bedbox.html

Yep crazy !! Those bedboxes look amazing but will be something extra to carry flight back iis a night flight hoping they sleep

A 9hr flight eastmids? That's brave, but Barbados will surely be worth it.

Ha, we are not planning a third child. I think I always thought 2 would be enough and DH thought he wanted more, but a few months ago he said he didn't think we should have anymore children in case we end with another one who doesn't sleep! I will never say never to more children (I might forget the hell of years of sleep deprivation in a few years time and think a new baby would be lovely), but it is definitely not in the plan.

eastmids I am also not a huge fan of swimming, especially as DH won't go swimming and it is a hassle to take 2 DC on my own. DD1 goes to swimming lessons and DD2 then says 'and me swimming?' and I feel bad that I don't take them on a weekend ever. DH suggests it sometimes, but it is great for him as he just drives us there and sits in the cafe drinking coffee and reading while I battle 2 children getting changed, swimming when DD1 wants me to help her practice what she learns in her lessons but I can't put DD2 down and only have one pair of hands, persuading them to get out and battling to get them changed again while trying to get dressed myself.

Oh happy that's a bit rubbish that DH won't go with you :-( why not, can he not swim? My mum forced my dad to learn to swim aged 30 when my brother was born... when it was just me she was happy to swim and save me but she said when there were two kids he had to learn too! My DH takes DD to a swimming lesson on sunday mornings. Just aqua babies type stuff. But she seems to love it.

We were staying with friends last weekend and went swimming in their local fun leisure type pool; with flumes. DH took DD down a flume and me and my friend were waiting for them to come out (from the safety of the jacuzzi), all the mums and dads with kids were coming down really slowly and lifting little ones up as they came out so they didn't go underwater in the plunge pool. Then suddenly someone comes shooting out at a million miles per hour, total blur, and takes ages to come up. I'm thinking, blimey I hope they didn't have a kid with them! Then who should pop up (eventually) but DH and DD!!! I was so cross! Just because, she's not scared of ANYTHING at the moment and I want to preserve that as long as I can - but she was not impressed by that! DH had come down the slide lying down all the way, with her lying on his tummy so he could 'go as fast as possible'. Twat! To be fair he looked absolutely mortified when I made him stand there and watch the other parents coming out at 2mph, sitting bolt upright with toddler on their knee. And he keeps asking me "she won't be scarred for life because of that, will she?" I keep sucking my teeth and saying, hmm, you just can't tell with these things can you... but she's fine really, she didn't even cry, although she didn't want to go on it again!

Toddlerisms -
We've just started the endless questions phase.
"What's that?"
"What doing?"
"What's that noise?"

Anything that is broken 'needs batteries'
Anyone who is absent is 'at work'
Every meal request is porridge and every day is Wednesday.
Odd child.

I too am the designated swimmer in our house but we almost never go as we live ages from a pool. DD1 hasn't had a single swimming lesson yet and I feel we're letting her down a bit as the longer we leave it the harder it will be. In general we have not been an extra-curricular 'activities' family at ALL yet - no outside classes. But we really need to book dd1 in for swimming and just get on with it as that's important I feel. I love swimming but hate the getting changed part and the having to wax legs part My mum and I took both girls once and I wasn't sure how dd2 would react but she really liked it. Going to book lessons this weekend!

Just been reading a thread on here about how people decorate their sitting rooms - everyone's houses sound so naice. How do you get your house to be naice when you have small kids?! I want to know. Even if we suddenly got loads of extra money to buy lovely furniture and pictures, we would still never get around to actually hanging stuff on the walls and putting up shelving! Why? Because we are too busy being panned out in front of our Game of Thrones re-watch binge in the evenings. I think DH and I are a bit crap at being grownups sometimes. Anyone else?

Our house isn't naice. I mean it is in the sense that it was redecorated (before we moved in) in about 2011 I think... so it's fairly modern, white walls and stuff, but eg where they removed their TV off the wall left holes that we haven't bothered to fill in... For me as long as it's vaguely clean and nothing's actively dangerous I'm happy. There's just so many things I'd rather be doing.
My bro and SIL have a lovely house and it's quite important to them that it looks nice with decor etc. They moved into a wreck and did lots of work on it and it looks gorgeous now. Honestly I think it's priorities, they just find time for doing this cos it's important to them. For them, relaxing means sitting on the sofa in a nicely decorated room where the furniture all coordinates and the wallpaper matches the paint. For me, relaxing means sitting in front of my sewing machine and bugger the walls! And I agree when I go to their house it does make me feel a bit inferior and not grown up. But we're all different. I'm just like my dad, my bro is just like my mum - which means I grew up in a beautifully decorated coordinated house that Mum planned, and sometimes I think she is a bit surprised that I don't care more about it / it didn't rub more off on me!!

Oh I meant to add - when we went swimming with friends my muff was an absolute jungle - it never gets any attention in the winter. I put my costume on and I was NOT fit to go out in public so had to go ask my friend whether she had a pair of gym shorts I could borrow to wear in the pool (and told her the reason...). Not too embarrassing but she didn't have any, so had to ask her partner so I ended up wearing his speedo shorts that he had to buy in France on holiday - much amusement from him - but they did the job. Good thing they are very good friends!

Our house definitely isn't naice. It's a dump. We bought literally days before I got pregnant with DD1(!), and, although it was in a perfectly functional state, it had been rented out before, so every room was done in white except the horrible coloured bathroom suite and some greyish carpets. It was all a bit scruffy and needed decorating. That was over 6 years ago, and all we have done is decorate bedrooms for DDs. We are also, as Halfstar put it, not very good at being grown-ups and don't have time for all this as long as it is usable (the bathroom is getting to the point of not being safe and usable, but, worryingly, DH, who has no DIY skills, has decided he is going to do it himself over Easter instead of getting someone in to do it )

DH doesn't swim, because he has issues with the shape of his chest. He had surgery on it 2 years ago as it isn't just a cosmetic thing, but he doesn't think it had the desired effect. I know that no one will even notice, but I can't convince him of this. It makes him sound lazy when I say that he won't swim with us and he gets to sit in the cafe while I do all the hard work of swimming, but I can't really blame him for that.

We are quite good at Adulting. We're constantly fixing things. Our chimney is going to be replaced in the next month and the fuse board is being replaced as it's ancient. I've booked the plasterer for the summer to dryline the bedrooms and even out some walls. We're v good at just getting shit done. So we do have quite a naice house as we've fixed a lot, even since DS was born. It's not so much the furnishings which are basic enough - it's more the big stuff.

Basically we're really boring and have no social life and don't go on holidays....so we spend all our time in the house. We are saddos. I would say almost 100% of our income after bills, food and kids clothes goes on house projects.

I am the sort to get ridiculously excited about command strips - so pictures are hung up just so I can play with command strips.

We are also people who like a storage solution. In our kitchen we have several plastic boxes with lids and all toys are fucked into those every evening. So when we sit down in the evening and watch telly, the conversation often turns to what needs to be done next and we make plans to get what we need.

So our friends think we are very together but I suspect we just are very boring and a bit middle aged.

anna I don't even know what command strips are. I also kind of think that, if we found the time/ money/ inclination to decorate the front room, DC and cats would just mess it up. For example, we could really do with a new carpet in the front room and a new settee, but we've got to get through toilet training DD2 which would impact badly on a settee and carpet, the cats would claw them and vomit on them (they keep eating people foods and bits of plastic or material which make them sick).

mrsA yes to constant questioning. This morning we had "mummy, what doing?" on repeat. Usually it's "what's that noise?" over and over again in a noisy place, which turns into me trying to guess the right answer as I say "a bird?" or "a car?" and she says no and is cross that I am wrong.

I am trying to decide whether to book to see In The Night Garden live show, which is on in the summer just 5mins walk from our house. I can't stand In The Night Garden but DD2 loves it. It is in 6 months and costs a fortune, £15-20 each and DD1 would want to come too despite being too old, and there is the risk that DD would not care about ITNG by then (hopefully!) but some tickets are selling out already. What do you think?

happy that's a good suggestion about ITNG, I think DD would love, she is possessed by upsydaisy. I think I will look into buying tickets, there seem to be two different shows and what's that about premium tickets?

anna another one without knowledge of command strips here, I was about to google it.

I suppose our house is naice, that's what people often comment. I think it's mainly bcs it was nicely decorated when we bought it and we had 1,5 years to get it equipped before DD came along. I think our house scores as naice mainly because it's an old house with lots of character and been converted to have a huge kitchen and lots of space. And me and DH are people who will rather spend money on expensive quality house stuff than clothes etc. I guess that's part of being middle age as well. We have done up one room we weren't too excited about how previous owners had decorated. We got a person to do the painting, but did all the putting up new shelves and paintings ourselves.

We ripped up our carpet a month ago and put down laminate. Cos life is too short to worry about carpet stains. It looks so much more modern.

Behold command strips! You can get all different hook sizes and shapes and I use them for absolutely everything!

Ha ha life after children excitement over command strips ☺

Our house is new build immaculate when we moved in 3.5yrs ago still immaculate up until 18mths ago and now I am always moaning about mess etc carpets need jolly good clean and we need to do a boot sale, send to nct sale or something as we have more toys than toys r us and Argos put together.

Oh and the most valuable thing in our house is ds1 collection of Lego must be over £2000 worth

I am knackered ds2 has been Ill now for nearly 3 weeks had 36hrs in that time with no temp but generally since seeing doc 2weeks ago with temp of 40 we had temps in 38s until Tue this week back to high 39s and generally iin night so back to doc yesterday he can't find a reason but agreed something going on so on antibiotics if,still high temps in a week to go back am hoping not as that means blood tests and thats far too traumatic. I just want my bed back to myself to sleep properly.

oh east how awful for you and ds2. Jeez that's a long time for it to be going on. Poor thing. So hope you get some sleep soon.

WOAH anna you've just blown my mind with the command strips. I need these. I am no good at DIY that involves drills and hammers etc but good in general at getting stuff done. DH is excellent at DIY but bad at getting stuff done. So a lot of the time I'm nagging him to do stuff when I could/should learn to get on with it myself. Command strips may be the answer. I want to hang a load of shit on my walls! our house is old and could be SO naice and character filled if we gave ourselves a good kick up the arse.

House like a toy factory here too. We have toyboxes but they're getting a bit beat up and could do with a replacement. Any storage recommendations? Not ikea as there's none near here.

happy it makes me laugh when I see your sentence starting 'Dh has decided...' I am always wondering what it will be this time oh god, do cats really do that - dd1 would love a cat...

We just use a selection from Home Store And More (my happy place) and Dunnes Home. So.....basic sturdy plastic with lids. Pretty ones are never big enough sadly.

Half star we have one Argos unit similar to IKEA kallax and 4 sets of 2by2 cubes to make total 16 from b&q in our toy room, ds1 has loiads storage in bedroom patterned boxes with lids and wooden trunk styles - seem great but crap as takeup a lot space but can't take better to bench with pull out drawer rather than lift up lid.

Actually now that I have seen the command strips package, we do have them at home and have used to get some pictures hang.

ITNG live show booked. Thank you happy!

This evening I was trying to prepare dinner while listening to DD1 read her school book when I thought 'hmm DD2 is quiet.' I went into the front room to find her drawing on the TV with orange felt tip having already scribbled on her HappyLand house that is the most naughty thing she has done. Fortunately it was a washable pen and I was surprised to find it is ok to clean the tv screen with a damp cloth. I made her wash her house.

halfstar I don't think all cats are as stupid as mine in continually eating things which aren't cat food and will make them ill.

We live in a new build, shit garden, standard outside but naice inside. We painted and carpeted throughout before we moved in a year ago. The key to it is outsourcing, I have a cleaner who is also a handyman so when I need anything doing I email him the details and when I get home on the thursday it's done. I used to think dp might feel weird about it but he doesn't give a fig. We're also mostly good at being adults, we're both very organised so not much slips past us. Also both tidy. Storage wise, I have a kallax (who doesn't?) With doors and toys are in 3 of these cubes. The rest in a wicker basket. I rotate with stuff in her room so there's never too much hanging around. She is obsessed with cuddly toys though, she'd have them all over the house if she could. We swim, the pool at my gym is really warm and she loves it, this is a relatively new development though. (I often go with hairy legs :))