May 07.The one where the toddlers try to eat the wrapping paper and climb the Christmas tree!

[TheGreatScootini]

New thread..we-ell it is nearly December and I like to start the festivities early doors

You are not miserable CM..You are going through a horrible time.
Tis a bit tumbleweedy on 't thread these last few days though..

Tell DH I have ALOT of jobs for him to do Mrs JB.I am so sick of the sight of this ruddy shiny wall paper!

Girls back tonight.I am looking forward to seeing them but I cant pretend it hasnt been nice to have some peace

Poor you TYG what an awful time you had.

JAM, had a weird dream about you last night. You ended up having a little boy today and you called him Xavius, because you wanted a foreign sounding name so that when he grew up he would be certain of getting a job ! God knows where that all came from! it was all seeming quite real, you sent a text round to let everyone know then it stopped being real when i gave birth to a girl who i named Amy. (we were going to call had J been a girl then he would have been named that but spelt Aimee so i knew something wasnt right). My waters went but were full of Onion squares. Have no idea why i had such a weird dream....... anyway fingers crossed baby stays put for at least 48hrs.

Well done for getting through yesterday LG&T, i hope you are able to rest a little today. I hope that all goes well with your parents.

Scoot, i hope you have a better day today with the girls x

Oh TYG - what a nightmare. Dh sounds like he did a sterling job of keeping his mouth shut. Agree with LG&T - you've got enough on your plate, best to give her a very wide berth.

LG&T - good luck today. Families eh?

Jam - Happy Birthday my sweet!

TYG I see now why it was a trying week. It sounds to me like she is jealous of the fact you are so together and probably have a life which she could only ever have dreamt of having.. Do you feel better for letting it all out on here?

A Mahooosive Happy Birthday to the Jamster. Have a lovely day of daytime TV .

LG&T at the 18 times inning and outing of the car, just out of interest I also counted how many times yesterday I inned and outed as it was also the school day from hell and I only managed 16, and I'm not pregnant, and I left J pretty much the whole day with Elizabeth. Respect. Good luck with your folks, if the subject of your sister is raised perhaps you could run for the door ask to defer it til another less tiring time?

Pink, jab the girl and do it soon before she gets measles (under 2's are highly susceptible). As a public health person you know which side I come down on,TYG is right, the research carried out was flawed and the MMR has been used in the States for 30 odd years with no links to autism. but if you do decide to go the single vaccine route you need to use a clinic with an excellent reputation, check the expiry date on each batch and ask how they have been stored, and where they have come from and how they have been transported. These are live vaccines and need to be kept cold AT ALL TIMES.

Scoot, can it get any worse ? I hope today is better.

So we are now officially on Christmas holidays and all 3 dc are at home. We are going on safari for a couple of days with 2 other families, up a range of mountains that ressemble being in the Scottish Highlands, without the snow obviously.

I have just had an email from dh to say Nairobi is a high security terrorist target in the weeks before Christmas, a la Mumbai and the bombing of the American Embassy here 10 years ago. Apparently intelligence has been received that a shopping mall 5 mins away from me, where I do my supermarket shop (and Isreali owned) is a target. Welcome to Paradise.

So if that's the case, why do the Government pay compensation to affected families?

TMAS - I can't believe you're all on Christmas hols already. Be safe.

TMASB bloody hell, just a lovely thought to have as you traipse round the supermarket Can you go somewhere else for a while? I am not sure i could stand the stress.

Jab the girl Pink, how will you feel in a years time if she contracts the Measles and lies on her death bed in hospital. I am sick of the playing down of these diseases, remember Jonah almost died of the Chicken Pox.

My argument was always do i want child my alive with some form of autism\gut issue or seriously ill possibly brain damaged or even dead because i didnt take them for a simple innoculation.

Harsh i know but that is how i reasoned it in my head and i have battled aech and every time i had to do it, 6 times now...

Right am off to Wives Club, the house needs cleaning and i just dont care.

Just my reasoning Pink, i have exhausted the arguments both sides in my own head a million times. You need to do the same before you reach one you are happy with.

Guilt is a terrible thing as a parent. It makes everything so much harder.

I know. I know. I have tried, but there are so many arguments and counter arguments on each side. I think I am finally making my decision though.

I don't know why the gov compensate families, tbh, but I personally would rather take the risk of autism (with its broad broad spectrum of disease), than subject my child to a potentially fatal disease.

But hark at me, I could be subjecting my dc to a potentially fatal terrorist attack just by taking them to the supermarket.

The problem with changing supermarkets is that this biggest chain is only found in a Mall, and realistically all Malls are now targets. Oh well maybe I will go local

Enjoy The Wives Club, is it anything like Army Wives? I have been watching it on TV and it's a crappy great US series.

That's the problem - information overload! Only you and dh can decide which is the right decision for you.

Only tell us after you have/haven't done it so that we can give you the obligatory hard time for your choice.

Interesting reading. It's the preface of a book about MMR and Autism, written by a GP whose son was diagnosed Autistic a few months after getting the MMR.

This is also written in it.
"By any rational standards of risk/ benefit calculation, it is an illogical and potentially dangerous mistake for parents to be prepared to take their children in a car on in an aeroplane on holiday, but not to protect them with the MMR vaccine." (March 2003 [Simon Murch was co-autor of Dr Wakefield's 1998 Lancet Paper])

If you have another reason for not getting any vaccines, such as treating your child only with homeopathy or allergy to ingredients in the vaccines, then fine. If it's just because of a flawed study on just 12 children, and you have taken all the other vaccines, then perhaps you're being misled by hysteria.

Me? Misled by hysteria? How very dare you!

Brilliant link tyg - just reading it now. Thanks ever so much for this.

YW - Posted it and then saw TMAMs comment about information overload and thought, "Ooops!".

Anyway, only posted it because I thought it was an interesting angle.

Just repaid £631 tax credits from years ago. Such a stupid system. I went over all the records and it was my fault for not checking the award letters properly. Apparently phoning and telling them, "Please stop paying me, I am now living with my partner and earning more than would make me entitled to tax credits." is not enough! However, since I moved house loads of times and kept forgetting to inform HMRC, I have to take some of the blame as well.

Still, am hoping to claw back some of this year's tax now that I'm officially unemployed.

[sas] YKWIAM..I too think or Mum must be jealous of you and how great you have done.If she's anything like my DM I owuld imagine she took you having S at such a young age as a personal affront.I wonder if this is the backlash from that.Well.She will have to pull her head in.You have worked bloody hard and made a success of your life where lots of people wouldnt have.You have every reason to be proud of yourself and your family and she should be too.So there.

Fatal to lie down mid-night out though my friend.School boy error

Gin-just the getting in and out of the car would do for me never mind the rest.How lovely it is to share a bed with a drunken snorer..

I feel great today.(Actually thats not even nearly true but the real version is getting boring even for me )

Big wave at everyone else.I am lazy today all round.Sorry.DD's still not dressed.W e arent going out though so no point really

Is the town Dickensian evening tonight where all the shop keepers dress up as Dickensian characters and there is an old fashioned market.I am hoping the kids, or L at least will be well enough to go but I doubt it.When I told her about the dressing up she asked if she could go as a fairy.Not sure thats quite in the spirit of the thing but who cares?

Actually think we all are suffering with something akin to a Dickensian consumption, so we will fit right in

Meant to say Gin that if the parents do decide to talk you about your sister make sure you are honest with them.I hope they will see that you deserve some support in this situation.

Having a quiet day in here as well Scoot.

Have just done J&E's letter to Santa and J traced wrote his and E's names

Right ladies, I'm signing off for the weekend. Despite previous jubilation, I am now totally nervous about being 'so far' away from L for 29 hours. Wish me luck!!!

Her name was Lola
She was a showgirl
With yellow feathers in her hair
And a dress cut down to there
She would merengue
And do the cha cha
And while she tried to be a star
Tony always tended bar
Across the crowded floor
They worked from eight til four
They were young and they had each other
Who could ask for more

At the Copa
Copacabana
The hottest spot north of Havana
At the Copa
Copacabana
Music and passion were always the fashion at the Copa
They fell in love

His name was Rico
He wore a diamond
He was escorted to his chair
He saw Lola dancin there
And when she finished
He called her over
But Rico went a bit too far
Tony sailed across the bar
And then the punches flew
And chairs were smashed in two
There was blood and a single gun shot
But just who shot who?

At the Copa
Copacabana
The hottest spot north of Havana
At the Copa
Copacabana
Music and passion were always the fashion at the Copa
She lost her love

Her name is Lola
She was a showgirl
But that was thirty years ago
When they used to have a show
Now it's a disco
But not for Lola
Still in the dress she used to wear
Faded feathers in her hair
She sits there so refined
And drinks herself half blind
She lost her youth and she lost her Tony
Now she's lost her mind

At the Copa
Copacabana
The hottest spot north of Havana
At the Copa
Copacabana
Music and passion were always the fashion at the Copa
Don't fall in love

Dear oh dear.>>holds head in hands

Hello all - I'm back

Thanks for all your good wishes - we had a fantastic day. The official pics are online but I won't force those on you (there are hundreds of them). I'm hoping to sort a few favorites out sometime soon and will put them on my profile (and/or facebook)

Hope everyone is well. Will read and catch up soon

Yey TSM. So glad your day went well. Looking forward to the pics.

Barry Manilow. I went to see MGMT last week at The Forum in Kentish Town. DH and I brought S. She was chuffed. She and I were holding hands and bouncing up and down. Great bonding fun. Just bought tickets to The Fratellis at the Roundhouse in Camden and also The Script (to go with S again) at the Roundhouse in February. You've got to love a small venue. S is going to her first solo gig tomorrow. Pigeon Detectives. Since it's just 5 minutes away, I thought it would be ok. We can go and escort them home if needs be. She's going with two mates. She also got her first boyfriend today; Oscar who sits next to her in Maths class. Eek. It's all happening.

It will probably make PJ feel better (and give everyone else a good chuckle) when I tell you that I am trying to find someone interested in going to see Chris de Burgh at the Albert Hall in May. I swear I know every word off his first two albums. We're talking early 70's, before I was born. They're fab. My first concert was Chris de Burgh, with my mum, at the RDS in Dublin 1985.

I'm on my third gin of the evening. Can you tell? Anyone care to join me? I even have those teeny airplane-style cans of tonic so you never get a flat mixer.

PS My DH likes De Burgh. Spanish Train coming out of his study as I type.

Pj

I used to live next door to Chris de Burgh his helicopter used to always wake me up when he was coming home. TBH he was a bit slimey.

TYG you are a lovely mum hope I am that good with A when he wants to go see bands.

Tilly cant wait to see the photos.

Scoot isnt it your b-day this weekend? If so many happy returns. x

Oooh er Jam! Did you live in Dalkey? Ver' ver' posh!