August 2007- Happy Birthday babies!

[JamesAndTheGiantBanana]

New thread. Happy birthday to all our gorgeous girls and beautiful boys!!

Hello. Can't believe how quiet it is on here at the moment. I'm trying to sort out dd's 4th birthday party at the moment. I was going to do it for one of the saturdays either side of her birthday but those are both taken by my friends' kids. I was thinking of having something at home but dd wants to invite some of her pre-school friends but they all live 10 miles away and I don't think it's fair to make them drive up, drop them off, go home and then pick them up at the end. There's not enough room to have 10 or more mums and dads in my living room. There will only just be enough room for the kids. I'm looking into soft play in the same town as the pre-school but it will cost at least £90 so I might have to hope dh's car sells this week, if anyone's got spaces for a party with less than 2 months to go.

Poor Joe. Hope he's better soon. My dd went through a phase of picking up bugs all the time around this age.

hi folks - havent been on for a while - must admit i actually forgot as it takes so long to catch up on our due in april thread (average thread is about 3-4 days long)- by the time i do that, i've usually been on too long and either ds is shutting the lap top or I'm feeling guilty about looking at mn at work.

anyway good to catch up with people's news. shame about joe - funny that he likes his medicine though - think ds is a bit of a drug addict - he quite often gets medicine for his skin if it's bad, but if we dont offer it, he goes and gets it out of the box with a spoon and hands it to us.

my2 - that was our Struan in the paper - well spotted. very proud, although he does the ou et la tete thing too (sorry if I spelt that wrongly, i am partly taking him to the group so that I can learn French) but that was reported as being a 20 month old called Megan that did it.

gill - thats a difficult one about the party - I suppose £90 isnt too bad to hire somewhere, but it still seems like a lot for a children's party when i think about what we used to get - 6 or 7 children in our playroom- but its so different now.

in the last week, ds has just started trying to copy everything we say - he can just about manage pepper, apple, andrew, words like that with p's and b's and things - very cute. not sure anyone else could interpret them, but we can .

only another 8 days at work for me - looking forward to spending a bit more time with ds.

Hi Conker. Hope you're looking after yourself. When is it you finish work?

I'm feeling terrible. I started my medication this morning to wean me off paracetamol. I wasn't too bad this morning but now my headache is almost a migraine and I just want to crawl into bed. When my sister took it she said she felt better than she had in years. I'm hoping that it will get better from tomorrow. I just found out I'm needed for a project starting on Friday so I really can't take any time off work. I'm really having to resist taking any paracetmol. I can't though or I'll be back at square one.

Hope everyone is well.

hi everyone, sorry i've been away my FM has been really bad and i've been in bed for nearly the last 2 weeks (i felt very bad for Callum being cooped upstairs with me-but he is such a caring wee soul and started rubbing my knees [big awwwwww emoticon needed!] Anyway he can now name point to every part of his body and is the morning just before dh leaves for work he turns to me conspiratorially (sp?!) and says " daddy diss mama, daddy diss (and then points to himself!) diss is for kiss and then he signs i love you to dh, which melts his heart every day i could just eat Callum atm he is soooooo cute and edible

meandjoe-ooooh banana medicine i used to love that when i was little and when i needed amoxicillin whilst i was pg i asked if i could have ot on liquid form but they said no

gill-hope the new medicine helps and you dont have to resort to paracetemol or days off. I worry sometimes too as i take a fair bit of panadol and dihydrocodeine on top of my tramadol for pain releif and tend to feel quite restless the day after i don't need it but thankfully doesn't lat too long.

my2-how are you and the girls? did you get the girls christmas presents? conker -has struans arrived yet-the post in our area has been very bad

james and snot-good to hear from you

hersetta-hope travelling to work has been better this week

knickers-i can't see your pics cos your profile has disappeared-how are your 2 wee rascals?

conker-let me know if you want to meet up in glasgow or something?

lol heli, it was amoxycillin that joe was on, it smells vile but dh tasted it and said it was delicious! . Hi ear is all better now though. Callum sounds very sweet, bless him rubbing your knees! Joe does the same pointing thing to every part of his body when we ask him where things are but he has also started using it as a distraction tool for us.... when I tell him 'no' or remind him he's not meant to do something, hee trots over to us and points at parts of our body and looks really interested asking 'was that?', then when we've told him and we are suitably distracted again, he continues doing whatever he was doing before! He is a bit of a cunning little devil really.

He is also really good at copying things we do. the other day he managed to reach my tweezers and put them to his eye brow with a very serious look on his face like he was really concentrating, then he really quickly moved them away over and over til i realised he was copying me when i pluck my eye brows! bless him he looked so serious but thankfully hadn't realised you need to press the tweezers together at the same time, otherwise God knows what he'd look like now!

I love joe at this age too. so much better than the horrid baby stage although i can certainly still see elements of frustration in him from when he was little but he does seem to get happier every day now and has since he turned 1. Maybe he just had the terrible 2s early!

anyway, hope the migrane is better gill. hope everything works out ok and you didn't need paracetamol.

right, better go, joe is trashing my kitchen

xxxxxx

Hello. I'm feeling much better now. I went home an hour early on Wednesday and felt better after a lay down. I've still got a headache but it's bearable.

Helibee that is sooooo cute and very clever to say a three word sentence at this age. Ds sometimes says 'mama more' when he wants more food but mostly it's one word at a time. He was copying us singing along to The Flumps theme tune this morning which was sweet.

meandjoe - glad Joe is better now. Fingers crossed he stays healthy!

Anyone have plans for Valentines day? We're not going to bother. I've bought dh a card. I feel bad about asking mum to have the kids at the weekend when she has them all week and it's really an expense we can do without. Hope everyone else is going to be more romantic than us

Glad you're feeling better Gill.

Hi Helibee. How clever Callum sounds - and a near caring lttle chap. Caitlin is now able to basically tell us what she wants - she runs to the fridge points to it and says 'juice' or 'cheese'. She's also getting that horrid toddler habit of saying no to everything. Caitlin, do you love Daddy ...'no' do you want choccy...'no', when of course she actually does.

She was eating her tea a few days ago and obviously decided she'd had enough so she threw her spoon in the bowl, picked it up and gave it to me and said 'all done'.

Travelling with week has been awful as after the snow, we had heavy rain which caused really bad flooding on my line so I went out for dinner and drinks with some friends on Wednesday and instead of taking 45mins to get home it took over 2.5 hours so I didn't get in until 12.35am so was knacked the next day. only good thing is Caitlin is sleeping really well at the moment - I have only had to get up to her once in the last 7 weeks. Most nights we don't here a peep from her.

hiya, glad joe is better and i know what you mean about them distracting, clever wee things, Callum uses similar techniques. If he tries to put his dummy in during the day we say ok then off to bed cos dummies are for sleeping at which he grabs his blanket, curls up on a beanbag or sofa and waits till you say aaahhh and then does a runner with the dummy still in

gill-glad your head is a wee bit better and hope that it continues to improve

As for Valentines day it's our 5th wedding anniversary today but dh had his wisdom teeth out yesterday so he's sleeping lots and resting but my dad is here for the weekend which is lovely. The moment dad came through the door yesterday Callum ran to his arms and said "aaaaah my nandad"

hersetta-Caitlin sounds so clever, she'd going to be the brianbox and beauty in school Callum does the same thing with his dinner but if you dont get to him quickly enough he throws the plate, fork and knife onto the mat below

Mostly Callum's speak is unintelligable to anyone but us but some phrases he just seems to pick up like the kissing one but for ball for eg. he'll say "awl" but we know what he means. One of his other fav things to say to everything is "errr. . .no" or "errr. . .yes" and he looks so serious in the 'thinking' part of the saying

Hello. I'm knackered today. Ds has a cough and cold and is not sleeping well. He went to sleep initially at 7pm last night but woke at 9. He then didn't go to sleep til about 11:30 and then was awake again and screaming at 2:45, insisting that I take him downstairs (he just points to the door) I think he had a sore throat He woke up this morning in a much better mood.

Dh made a lovely beef stew and dumplings for dinner on Saturday and he got me some flowers, which was a nice surprise.

Ds tells us he's finished his dinner by turning his bowl upside down, sometimes on his head

When ds wants to say that something or someone has gone he puts his arms out and says 'boo'. I think his logic is that when he covers his face, I say 'Where's Alex gone' and he says 'boo'.

Hope your dh is feeling ok after having his teeth out helibee.

Helibee - Caitlin does that too if I'm not watching her.

I was cleaning the kitchen last night and she was munching on pasta with sundried tomato pesto mixed with carrots and olives in the living room and happily watching an episode of the Mr Men. After a while I hear an ominous crash and come in to find her bowl and the remnants on her dinner on the floor. She looks at me with a look of shock and horror on her face, points at the floor and says 'oh, no'. Little minx.

Love Callum pretending to sleep to get his dummy. We are tring to wean Cait off them in the day - she usually only has it for naps or if she's really tired but refusing to sleep and is in that horrible whiney state, but it is difficult as she seems to love it so much.

hi everyone

Gill - I finish work in two weeks time (5 days of work left - cant wait really). We are off to France and Eurodisney for a week in March with purplerabbit and her dh and ds's so after that, will only be about 5 weeks till my due date and sure ds will keep me very busy.

love hearing how all the los are getting on - looks like they are all getting more vocal and able to make it perfectly clear what they want, but in slightly different ways.

think its funny about the errm bit - do you find yourself doing that in normal speech helibee - cause I find Struan says mmm before he speaks sometimes, and I think he's copying me cause I find myself doing it quite often - suppose its similar to joe copying using the tweezers.

dh has ds out at a panto rehearsal that I couldnt go to tonight so am home alone (at least till 7.30) - its quite odd really. very quiet.

oh sorry - meant to say helibee - nothing has arrived for Struan - we got your card though.

would like to meet up in Glasgow sometime - my2 are you up for it too? another soft play place or something? Would be better for me if we wait till March so I've finished work and things have just calmed down a little.

hello all

yep my dd2 is another thrower of food when's she's had enough. it's amazing how far pasta, cucumber etc can be thrown - she'd be good at javelin throwing....

her favourite word just now is 'no'. but she manages to sound like a stroppy dismissinve teenager who is embarrased by their parents

she just loves singing and dancing - it's so funny, if she sees a picture or your say a word that reminds her of something that she knows a song about it (eg bob the builder, iggle piggle etc) she launches into a song at the top of her voice.

she's also discovered how to get the tray off the high chair with her feet when she's sitting in it - so i think that i'm going to have to get a booster seat for a normal chair for her....

gill - how's the new medication working now? have you noticed a difference?

conker/helibee - yes i'm up for it (though does depend when it is....don't work on a friday..however, dd1 goes to pre-school in the afternoon) - so i suppose what i'm saying is that if you arrange something i'll try hard to be there!

conker - look forward to hearing about eurodisney - are you flying/driving?

helibee - sorry to hear your CFS hasn't been good. must be hard trying to look after a wee monkey when you are not feeling the best. i'm afriad nothing has arrived here either.

Hello all.

Lexie is deffinley not a food thrower, I'm sure she feel that would be a complete waste of good food.

It's funny how their little charachers have suddenly appeared along with the starting to talk.

Lexie new trick is to turn away from you with her lips pursed and arms crossed ignoring you when you ask her to do something she doesn't want to do.

hi all,

how's everything going? all the little babies on here seem to be growing up so fast! turning into little monkies by the sound of it too! I love callum pretending to go to sleep lol!

anyway, all ok here. Joe seems to be getting more words by the day although many of them are only understood by me and dh!

He's not really a food thrower either, a bit like lexie, he'd see it as a waste. if i'm not careful and quick to clean up, anything that accidentally falls on the floor when he's eating, he gobbles up when i get him out the highchair .

he is in an annoying phase of wanting to walk everywhere which is fine but then he wants to be picked up, then put down, then up, then wriggles and screetches to be put down again, then tries let go of my hand and run off because we aren't walking where he wants to walk grrrrrrrrrrr. anyway i guess that's wehat toddlers do right???? or maybe just mine .

Hello. It's good to see lots of posts

The dcs are still coughing lots but at least they slept through last night. I don't think dh and I could have taken another night of broken sleep. My throat is still really painful though, especially when I eat.

My2 - I'm not doing too badly at the moment, thanks. My headaches are still quite bad but bearable. The doctor said that it would get worse for 2-3 weeks and then start to get better. Today is the beginning of my second week so I'm hoping to see some improvement soon.

Ds can't say no yet but he does shake his head and frown which is quite funny.

meandjoe - my dd was exactly the same as Joe with walking. She'd refuse to get in the buggy but get tired and want to be carried, and then want to get down and up again repeatedly.

We have the same problem too. She wants to be picked up then within seconds she squirms to be put down and then immediatley raises her arms to be picked up again...

We (me and Caitlin) are flying to Spain tomorrow for 3 days of sun when we visit my Mum. Quite frankly, i am dreading the flight by myself. the thought of keeping her contained on my lap for the flight is incomprehensible to me. I may resort to medised!!

my Mum says the weather is lovely so hopefully we'll spend the days playing on the beach.

hersetta your trip to spain sounds lovely! how nice to be able to get some much needed sun at this time of the year! . must admit i don't envy you for the flight though, i really can not imagine taking joe on a plane til he's old enough to get him a nintendo or other crappy handheld gadgets to keep him still! i'm sure caitlin will behave herself. hopefully she'll sit and have a cuddle, take lots of toys, snacks, books etc and let us know how it goes. hope you have a fab time!

gill, hope you are feeling better and your throat stops hurting. joe is still coughing after his last cold but is sleeping 13 hours a night so really can't grumble.

glad to hear that joe isn't the only indecisive one who wants to walk/ run/ be carried/ put down/ picked up/ run/ pick u[/ wriggler/ put down and up again baby!

hi everyone - that trip does sound great hersetta (at least once you get there).

my2 - we are taking the train - night in london at the start and end so will take lots of jigsaws/books etc for the journey.

we were wondering about going to visit bil in hong kong soon after this lo is born cause until Struan is 2, its so much cheaper, but think we have decided that length of flight with two under 2 might not be a great idea - at least for the other passengers.

we are using reins quite a lot with Struan which helps a little with the walking and going in a direction that we can both agree on, but we have had our fair share of tantrums in the supermarket too when he is too tired to walk but doesnt want to get in the buggy - always feel like people are tutting as i wrestle him into the buggy, but there have been the odd nice older woman who has offered a word of support - guess all parents have been there at some point.

hi, we find Callum does the same with walking etc but if he's in the sling then he's very happy, we have a kozy carrier which is fab but we often uise the backpack for Callum which has a toddler handle and thats handy for giving him space to run without restraining him IYSWIM

dh is a wee bit better

conker/my2-meeting up in march is fine, i'll get onto the post office about the parcels

Hiya everyone,

You lot seem to have been busy chatting

Hope everyone, and los, and bumps are all ok.

hi folks. only another two days at work for me -wed and thurs - am soo looking forward to being off and spending lots of time with ds - although the thomas dvd may drive me slowly mad so may have to invest in another.

struan spent his second night in a 'big boys' bed last night - dont want to count my chickens too early, but the first time he woke was 4.30am and thats the best he's slept since before Christmas (apart from one night on a proper mattress at my parents where he slept all night). I am starting to wonder if he just didnt like his cot, and this may be the start of better sleep to come (please????).

hope everyone's happy.

Conkertree

Well done for getting Struan to sleep in a big boy bed.

We have been trying to get Lexie to sleep in her big girl bed, but she won't sleep in it.

She sharing a room with Lizzie and is quite happy to play and pretend to sleep in her bed, but she won't actually sleep in it. She just walks up and down the hallway with her pillow and 'babbit' until we put her in her cot then she goes straight to sleep.

How are you doing/feeling.

Well done Struan for sleeping in a big bed.

Our trip to Spain was very nice. Weather was in the low 20's every day so Caitlin did get to play on the beach each day - she didn't seem to mind playing by the water which was freezing!

She was surprisingly great on both flights. i made sure she was seriously tired by the time we got on board by not letting her nap and letting her run around the terminal to wear herself out. She then slept for over half the flight and happily sat on my lap munching on crisps or chocolate raisins for takeoff and landing. She was so cute when the plane landed and I let everyone get off before we did, she stood up and waved to everyone who walked passed by saying 'bye, bye'.

Witnessed baby smash and grab at Hamleys at Stansted Airport where Cait would run into the shop, whip a teddy bear under her arm and charge off into the main terminal with it. They never once even looked up, yet alone thinking that we may be shopplifting. Of course I took them all back but no-one even saw me do that!

Hope everyone is well.

hiya pleased the flights went well hersetta. lol at the smash and grab!! ooooh 20 degrees sounds gorgeous .

anyway, all ok here not much to report.

i can't believe they are going into big boy/ girl beds now! joe is such a wrigger he'd probably fall out about 10 times a night. we have a video monitor and we watch him move round and bang his head or bum into the bars so many times that there's no way he'd stay in a proper bed, ever! i'm not in a rush though, he seems to love his cot (touch wood) and has always slept so well that i don't want to rock the boat!

conker hope the nights continue to improve for you. some babies just hate their cots, my friend's ds never slept through til 20 months when he got in a big bed, now he sleeps 14 hours a night!!!!!!!!!

anyway, all ok here. knickers hope you are doing ok and that ds is sleeping ok. xxxx