June 2008: Nine months in, nine months out

[Essie3]

Here's to the next nine months!

sponge nothing I can say but hope you get the test results soon..

puree can see how that made you cross (And glad its not just me whose dressing gown would be something mr twit would be proud of). That said its not a good look if you're ttc

josey fingers crossed for you today - I saw there was an invasion at aberdeen today adn thoguht of you and ah(can imagine how deligthed I'd be if my dh was delayed coming home due to invasion of people protesting at the world's finest wig wearer). and pmsl at the bloke in your village... dh is threatenign to grow a beard to go with the pipe my sister gaave him for xmas for a present (thanks sis ). Is there anything sadder than a grown man pretending to smoke a pipe (he doesn't actually smoke..just thinks its something that he could get into...).

re jelly belly sympathise - pilates has toughened some of bits round it but I am resigned to fact that edie's trampoline is here to stay (and possibly develop to a size suitable for use in the 2012 olympics if I have another).

Ooh Sponge, feeling sick has got to be good, and the bleeding stopping too of course. Ooh, I am crossing everything I have and praying too of course .

Aberdeen - lie! That's what I will be doing. In fact, when I bought a bottle at the weekend the girl never even asked what age it was for!

Josey, hope all goes well today.

I read Grantly Dick Read's Childbirth Without Fear. He said the pain is only because of women being scared. What a load of bollox! What the f*ck does he know anyway, has he ever given birth? That woman who emailed BBC probably has never had a baby, she is prob 8m PG having read all the natural childbirth books and is thinking she will handle the pain using a birthing ball and camomile tea. Ha ha, what a shock she has in store.

Sponge I think I speak for all of us when I say that possibly the only people who want to know more information than us on your pg is your dh and your mum. We are the nosiest thread on mumsnet, didn't you know?

Posted before managing to add, fingers and toes crossed that all is well.

ffs - I am trying to get edie to like thomas the tank engine as I liked it but:

1. wtf with teh songs? and to compound it (it sounds the kind of thing dsd makes up for gcse music) it has my personal bete noire -STAGE SCHOOL KIDS singing them

1. I can't bring myself to speak of the rap that was at the end of the thomas film.

1. where have all the new engines come from? emily (htere were no girls on sodor when I grew up -didnt bother me), helicoptors etc...

grrs...that said I am hopeful she will get to like it through sheer force of will

Sick is good, Sponge. Never thought I'd say that, but being sick throughout my pg meant I was always reassured!
Josey all the best, and thanks for that lovely image of the beard... There was a guy at school with me called Gareth Pube-head. It got shortened to 'Pubes' by the sixth form. Obviously not his real name, but his head hair looked like, well, I don't need to finish that sentence!

Medised - well, we're a bit behind the times here and all the latest info hasn't arrived at the local Chemists. So I'm happy to go to buy a huge pile of it and sell it to you at a higher rate. Cut with calpol, obviously, but it's a chance you have to take.
Nobody will suspect a thing because I will be in line behind the methadone guys. (Last bit is true - last week when I was dropping off Iestyn at my Mum's I saw a crack addict - you can tell by their faces that it's crack.)

Going to do some work in a minute, but thought I'd moan about my very bad sore throat. And also Iestyn tries to stand sometimes but then remembers that standing isn't for him so gives up. Mum saw a baby the same age as Iestyn at nursery standing up, and commented on it; the girls at nursery said that no, Iestyn prefers to have everyone do everything for him. (Mum said 'just like his Mum!'). I suppose he'll go far in life...

Forgot to say what a crap night we had - tho I feel ok for it. E was up at 1.30 so I fed her, that usually puts her back to sleep for three hours at least, but she was awake again at 2.45! She didn;t want to feed again so I assumed it was the pox and gave her Medised. She slept till 8am! T woke at 6am and I was going to give him Medised too but looking at him I could tell he was just awake and wanting to get up so I thought about bringing him in with us but he gets too restless and I really don't sleep well. I tried to lie him down and leave the room but he screamed so I sat him up, gave him a book to play with, left the light on low and went to bed hoping for the best! He never made a sound and was fast asleep at 8am

re medised do what my dh did - get him to go in at work , when asked for childs age he lied, when asked if knew about dosage did the ignorant male thing "my wife knows all abotu that" -job done.

but it is annoying that basically what should be common sense (ie follow dosage, don't mix it with other meds which is what you do if you're an adutlt and you get on night nurse etc) and wasn't followed means we all get treated like fools. fair point someone made re teh old rules when it was 3 months plus that the dosage could easily be too high if you had a small baby but if you have a small baby (and even if you don't like me) you tend to err on side of very low dose. And while we're at it, the fact we can't buy paracetamol in anything more than a 12 pack irritates me... what is to stop people going to different shops.

neenz sorry you had a crap night but think you did right thing - E is not going to get better any quicker if she doesn't sleep (and its helping no one if you are like the living dead).

Thanks guys . You've made me cry - but then that's not difficult at the moment!

Neenz, I read that book and I was that woman - birthing ball and water was all I was going to need! (Not at the same time obviously!). Saw the discussion on epidurals on BBC News this morning - horrified at the thought of charging for them but hell I would pay alot of money for it!

SA, your DS did make me smile, bless him!

poppy, haven't tried Thomas yet but my dad is a total train spotter (he works on the Bluebell Railway and can't wait to take A on it) and bought A the complete works of Ivor the Engine when he was born! Lovely stories - have you seen them? Since watching Gavin and Stacey I can also do a cracking Welsh accent so read the books to him in my best Welsh! Genuine!

Oops, sorry x-posted!

Essie, sorry to hear you have sore throat and Neenz, sorry to hear about bad night .

btw my epidural was £400 if anyone wants to start saving.. worth every penny .

Ivor was fab - its on nick jr 2 at night I think (along with a bunch of old timere childrens progs).

and as for that book - I read bits of that (its part of the mongan philosophy), did the frigging hypnobirthign course (ok the relaxation part was worth it) - the best bit of course was teh father who asked if children were born blind and when did they develop their sight.

Sponge don't get me started...

ok now poppy I will have 'they're 2 they're 4 they're 6 they're 8, shunting trucks and hauling freight' etc going round my head ALL DAY, and I know the whole thing OFF BY HEART AARGH!!

x-posted with loads of people there! We are busy this morn.

Yeah Sponge I was that woman too! But 20 mins into painful labour and I was thinking 'I wish I hadn't kept going on about natural childbirth!' cos I felt like I had to do it without major pain relief (tho I was trying to avoid a C-section and thought that was they way to go about it)

Poppy, I loved Thomas too as a kid, haven't seen anything recently tho. Did you have Edie privately then?

Essie, lol at Iestyn. Sometimes I wonder whether T and E are a bit behind cos they can't do half the stuff other babies on here can do (crawling, standing up in the cot, waving) and they are the oldest (tho they were 3 weeks early). I think maybe it's cos of me, cos I can't spend one to one time with them all the time. I just leave them to it on the play mat! But now if I have one in my arms to go for a new nappy or whatever I use the time to try to teach them how to saw dada etc or wave (we are progressing on both those scores). Theo can clap hands, E cannot! I am sure they will get there in the end, just dont want to be holding them back because I am always on MN too busy

don't worry neenz, they all do different things at different times. Caitlin can hardly roll yet, though she can wave and peekaboo, she can't clap and her standing is worse than it was at 3 months! And I don't have time to teach her to do anything. Really I don't think teaching makes much of a difference at this age, they do what they do when they do it.

Not much to report this morning. Just wanted to send Sponge a big hug. I hope you don't have to wait too long for the results. I had bleeding with Peter at about 6 weeks. It was not nice.

Sorry to hear about the chickpox Neenz. Hope they bounce back quickly.

Essie sorry that work isn't working ATM.

P&P - have a White dressing gown that gets tarmaced in P's breakfast cereal when I pick him put of the highchair as I can't clean up his legs and lap until he is out of the chair. So I too watched breakfast news on the beeb in a slightly messy dressing gown getting annoyed with the epidural talk

Thanks Systems!

Thanks Ali - still waiting but appreciate the hug .

Lol at Essie - do you not want to hear my cracking Welsh accent? Tidy!

Neenz, I think it's accepted that twins reach their milestones later than singletons isn't it? It's certainly what my mum has always told me, or maybe she was just making excuses for my brothers cos they took soooo much longer than their genius older sister to reach their milestones!

One thing I can reassure you of is that it is nothing to do with you - babies are genetically programmed to reach their milestones at certain ages and it's all pretty meaningless tbh. While I can try and kid myself that the fact that A crawled at six months means he is a child genius it really doesn't!! (Of course, I'm only saying this cos I'm damn sure he's months off being able to walk!! ). And, as I've said before, barring any problems, most children will have hit all their milestones by two years old and by the time they reach school their teachers will not be able to tell you who did what first!

Right, off my soapbox!

neenz yep had her privately (don't get militant poppy started on why ) but in nhs hospital. and re T&E, I think that too sometimes re edie but SA is right -she'll do stuff when she is ready - quite happily rolls, plays etc but not keen on sitting up or standing up really...

sponge love your mum's justification -per my mil her twins were child geniuses -but you wouldnt worry if they were say 13 and hadn't hit puberty so I guess this is the same.

Just realised that Alex had gone v quiet - went into the dining room to find that he's unscrewed the bolt on the conservatory door!!

Ohmigod!!

I didn't even realise it could be unscrewed - how on earth do you child proof when your children are more adept than you are?!!

have you bred bob the builder? and if he can learn to lock doors perhaps we could borrow him so I can send him round after dss....

but that is worrying - I've only manged to lose edie under the bed so far...

completely frivolous question - what are peoples views on wearing black to a wedding? off to one next weekend and have a couple of nice smart black dresses (or black print) - my coloured ones are all a bit summery. Given I havent met the couple in question plus I'll have edie I'm reluntnat to splash cash on something new (esp if its going to get baby customised).

Lol!!

Our bed is quite low so Alex hasn't managed that one yet!

He hadn't actually opened the bolt, he'd just unscrewed part of it (at least we know he has a good pincer grip!), but what worried me is it was a very small part which he could have swallowed .

Be quite happy if he became a builder though - would never have to pay for any work on our house again!!

I'm angling for a plumber here. My plumber is here every 6 months on average, and I've been holding Iestyn so that he can watch how to drain the system and bring the boiler out of lock out mode.

Neenz, Poppy I second what SA and Sponge said. Developmental markers at this stage are really of no difference (unless there are SN or a baby is seriously behind) - rolling, sitting, crawling, standing... you can have a baby who hits all of those really late but it doesn't mean they're not bright/slow/backward. And with teaching babies - I've tried and tried to teach Iestyn to clap hands, spent hours on it, and all I get is a sneer. I suppose the sneer is the mark of a sophisticated mind??
With the standing, I'm in two minds. Should I be proud that Iestyn is so amazingly clever that he's worked out that standing and crawling means things don't get passed to you and done for you? Or should I worry about his laziness which suggests a lack of imagination? Ah, the dilemmas of motherhood!