August 2007 - new thread as I can't find one!

[shrinkingsagpuss]

Hi all,

VERY VERY long time no see..... just had a little catch up - my goodness, HOW MANY of you are preggers??? Gosh- NOT ME!
Can't believe our beautiful babies are talking walking noisy toddlers.
Evie is still a monster - always has been , always will be. She talks constantly, and is now stringing words together, like " I'll do it" - usually in relation to feeding herself, or getting dressed.. and usually accompanied by a small tantrum.
She does finally sleep through the night.. after a fashion- is up between 5.30 and 6.15 - still a shock after Billy who slept 7-7 from 4 months.
But - she does eat anything which is fab (compared to Billy), and she is happy to walk, or go in the pushchair, so its easy to take her out - unlike Billy who always wanted to walk no matter how long it took.
She has a passion for dolls (oh crumbs), handbags, and hats - she is SOOOO not related to me!
Take care all, can't say when I'll visit next - good luck with the births!!
xx

hhmmm lazy days, i will be upacking thousands of boxes! Spoke to ds2 today about the tennis and he is really excitied about it bless

hello all,

we had a lovely couple of weeks in corfu - Caitlin was very good and seemed to charm everyone she met. One of the restaurants we used to pop into even gave her a present (a corfu t-shirt) on our last day which she was thrilled with. She ripped open the wrapping paper, held out the t-shirt and said 'wow' and then insisted on wearing it.

Our villa even came complete with 3 resident tortoises. Cait wasn't sure about then at first but within a few days, she go out into the garden in the morning to leave them some food and call 'tortoise, I love you' and then stroked their shells.

Cait got a bit confused on holiday as she'd point to the parasols on the beach and say 'Mummy, rain' as she thought they were umbrellas. Didn't have the heart to tell her she was wrong.

Don't know if anyone else with girls are like this but Caitlin is so girly it's untrue. She obsessed by shoes and now when I comb her hair she says to me 'Mummy, clips' so I have to put her hair chips in. She then dashes off to our full length mirror, stands in front of it and says 'pretty' - the child is so vain!

Came back with holiday blues so we decided to book a winter holiday - was within a whisper of going back to the Maldives but common sense prevailed at the last moment about taking a 2 yr old on an 11 hour flight so we settled for Egypt which is only 5 hours. We going for Xmas and new year - which hasn't impressed the MIL.

We even did something I never dreamed I would do - we booked a family orientated hotel!! 2 years ago it would have been the stuff of nightmares but it has really good reviews and it was the only place we could get that we could book a family suite so Cait has her own bedroom. How your life changes when you have a sproglet!

Hope everyone is well and has a good weekend.

Hello All

nice to hear about all the holidays good and bad, There just not always 'holidays' when you have little ones, more like a change of scenery with all the hard work still attached

LL's favourite 2 words are 'mine' and 'me'at the moment, he is very enthusiastic about most things especially food.

No baby news yet, I'm very sore and uncomfortable if anyone needs putting off their broodiness, I have this horrible pain under my ribs all the time that goes around to my back, and everyone keeps telling me how terrible i look all the time, nice eh?

I think this pregnancy's aged me at least 10 years

love to all the Augies

Aww UKI I can't believe people told you how terrible you look, how bloody rude! I'm sure you don't look as bad as you probably feel though luv. I had forgotten about the awful rib pain I had with ds, thanks for the reminder (not that we're planning anymore babies for a while!) Hope everything goes well for you and you have some exciting news soon!

Hersetta, Caitlin sounds adorable. No wonder she charmed everyone on holiday!

The holidays all sound nice but I do agree that 2 yr olds are just such hard work at home that a holiday is just going to be even more stressful without the familiar surroundings and routine etc. Not had a holiday this year, just didn't seem worth it, not to mention we are less than flush with cash at the minute! DH has just had another big pay cut so we are struggling a bit at the minute. I am looking for work but there are just no jobs in our town, still, it could be worse.

Hope you are all having a good weekend.

Hello. Hope everyone is well. Ds' skin is much better now. I don't know if it was changing the sun cream or covering him in Oilatum moisturiser twice a day but he's not sore or itchy anymore.

I went for another job interview a couple of weeks ago. I was offered the job but they wanted me in London 3 days a week starting at 8am! I tried to get them to change it to 9 but they wouldn't so I'll keep looking.

Sorry to hear about the money situation meandjoe. I can't imagine how we'd cope if we had pay cuts.

Nice to hear about all the holidays. Mine seems so long ago. I agree that they are still hard work when you have small children. I've got 2 weeks off at the end of August when mum takes her holiday. We'll just go on a couple of days out and maybe visit some friends. Might take the kids to London Zoo. I don't think I've been there for over 20 years. We're going to a wedding on the second Friday so we're all looking forward to that.

Hope everything goes well for you Uki.

Ladies,

As usual I'm beginning with an apology for not getting online regularly and never reading previous posts. However I do promise to engage 'best efforts' to do so from now on ok ???

Anyway, all ok here, had fab few weeks at home in Spain with Paddy who doesn't bloomin' stop talking: "what's that?" (repeat ad infinitum) and Mimi who is now wonderful and doesn't stop smiling, especially when Pads spends most of this time with his face inches from hers shouting "Mimi Moo Moo".

Oh and yes, am still excrutiatingly tired most of the time!!

Right, am off to bed now but will deffo, deffo be back!!

Can't wait to get some spare time and read up on all you guys xxxx

I was just being nosey and spotted this:
By Uki on Sun 19-Jul-09 13:23:16
*BABY ANNOUNCEMENT

Hello Everyone

we are delighted to announce the arrival of our new baby daughter.

Monae Emerald
7lb 10zo
born on the 16th July
5:50pm

She was exactly 2 weeks early, an induced labour because of high blood pressure.

The Details: I was addmited to hospital on the 15th, and started induction at 6pm with prostogin gel, started to have some sharpish contractions and thought maybe baby would come that night, so called dh back in, given second gel at 11pm, more contractions, but then dr, told me to sleep, gave me a sleeping tablet and when I lay down contractions stopped. Given third lot in morning, walked around hospital to get labour going, but it didn't establish till 1pm. I was in major pain then, and told them all to either run over me with a truck or give me an epidural. Got edipural at around 1:40pm one word heaven started to really feel baby coming at 5pm and told them to get dr. back, they didn't believe me but dr. arrived and 3 pushes she was out, managed to push even though i couldn't feel a thing dr. wasn't even ready, and we were all laughing and smiling about it.
Little Monae opened her eyes as i held her, amazing.
dh went home to kids, as we were worried about leaving them, with Oma and Opa for so long. I got up to have a shower but had massive haemorrage, all went a bit scary then, I won't gore you all out, but we are all recovering well now.

Hope everyone is well, sorry for going early but they are worth the wait look forward to catching up and more baby news in just time.

One other weird thing, everyone thinks i bribed the dr. to have her on the 16th, as dh, ds2,my best friend and myself and now Monae are all born on the 16th of different months, ds1 was born on the 14th (so close)

Congratulations Uki - after 2 boys you're in for a pleasant suprise! And how different are the nappies, so few wet wipes are needed?!

Thanks loler.

Congratulations uki. Hope you're all well and enjoying Monae - what a lovely name.

Not much from me today other than our front room is finally decorated after 7 years of living here. We also have our dining room back after using it as a living room for over 4 years. Ds thinks it's wonderful. The first thing he said when I got him up this morning was 'New new table'

Sorry TT. Forgot to say hi, got distracted by the baby news. Are you still thinking about the meet up? I'm off work for the last two weeks of August.

congrats uki!
I never thought having two dc so close together would be quite so hard. Dd is now going through the terrible twos and ds just wont keep still but is very clingy! Cant believe he is almost 9mo! Hope everyone and toddlers and babies are well.

hi everyone, i know it's been ages. Life just seems to keep getting in the way.

Callum is adorable most of the time, the whinging when he doesn't get his own way is frustrating and the other day i just looked at him and he took himself off to the bottom step for a time out, came back a minute later to say sorry and kiss me

Callum had a funny turn last week though. He seemed to pass out, fall from the 2nd step and turn blue. He was floppy until i shook him then he cried for about 10min and he was fine and has been fine ever since.

All the children in our village love Callum and for the last 3 weeks that they've been off i've had daily knocks at the door from 8 children aged between 5-8yrs, asking if Callum can come out to play, It is very sweet but as he's not old enough to play on his own i have to go out and watch and i'm tellling you, never again will i complain that toddlers are hard work, a house full of 5-8 year old boys and the odd girl are much harder

I'm finding C's words so funny and he woke me up the other day to tell me he was "ducks", so i said where are the ducks? He looked at me and said "no mummy, mees a duck" and pulled at his sleeping bag. he meant he was stuck! and i was well and truly told He also tells me every time i go to the kitchen that the oven is teddy dot (very hot), he's so cute at those times that it def makes up for the tantrums.

When we took him for dessert at Nardini's last week, the drinks arrived and C turned to dh and I and said "cheers" and clinked our glasses, dh and i nearly fell off our seats laughing

meandjoe-good to see you back on here and joe sounds like such a cute wee soul and very clever too.

hersetta-your holiday sounded lovely, i'm very jealous as we can't get away for another month or so as dh is working so hard to deliver jobs that have all come off at the same time.

uki-congratulations on monae, it is such a sweet name

gill-hope ds's skin is better now, some hydrocortisone should help if it's not. C's eczema is bad at the moment because of the heat and humidity.

knickers-it really sounds like you've got your hands full. Hope they give you a chance for 5 min to yourself in a day. Is dd still having a nap?

conker-how are you getting on with angus and struan, hope they're not tiring you out too much.

Thanks loler and thanks everyone.

what a nice suprise to see my news already on here. It's not easy to keep up with all my threads anymore.I was just trying to catch up.

helibee- good to hear callum is still so cute, something bad has happened to my sweet levi, it's probably being out of sorts having to share 'nimmy' as LL calls me, but maybe also terrible two's hitting???

Please tell me i'm not the only one, there is all day and might screaming and hanging off me at my place, LL is happy when cuddled but very hard to do a thing when you have to hold a weighty toddler all day.

I feel bad for him, but I'm not sure what to do with him, he just shouts 'no' all day, and doesn't want to get dressed, have baths sleep, etc.

Anyway hopefully it will be a short lived phase. Baby Monae is so far really calm and easy. so at least that's going well.

better try and catch up on this thread now.

Mona was

Congrats Uki - glad Monae is being good to you. I held a 2 week old on Saturday - I had forgotten how small they are but my broodiness did kick in again big time. Desperately want another but will have to wait at least a year.

Blimey Helibee that must have been scarey - you sounded like you were very calm though, am am glad Callum has been well since.

Caitlin does the cheers thing as well - very cute but she insists on doing it at least a dozen times. She also nows sees a glass of wine and says 'Mummy juice'.....oops!

She was so funny on Saturday. She had just finished as enormous (for her) roast chicken dinner when she had a large mouthful of jiuce, sat back in her highchair and proclaimed ' delicious'. I have no idea where the word came from as I always just say nice? to her - guess it must be her childminder. It has since become the word of the weekend and she even proclaimed the end of the french stick she was eating as we made our way round Tesco's yesterday delicious!

Hope everyone else is well and not struck down by swine flu.

hehehehe am laughing at everyone's little one's talking. I was thinking about all that time I spent being joyous at every bloomin' step towards speech when all I think now is "SHUT UP" !!!

Only joking (well ok, only kind of joking). There is nothing Paddy doesn't say, although am amazed that there's been no swearing yet to be honest. bad, uncouth, common mother alert

Just reading Hersetta's 'delicious' msg made me laugh as we had that in Spain last month, could have been me writing that post. Also, after me having one of those orange Callippo (sp?) lollies, and having to share it with him, he sat back, looked at me and declared, " Best Lolly Ever".

WTF ???? And yes, the spacing is intended and how he said it. Sadly we are now in the world of "Let go me" everytime he's picked up to do something unpleasing to him, and as for my efforts to impress politeness and manners on him? Well they've worked a treat. He is the most well mannered and polite child you could meet. The upside of that however ends there. A normal conversation with him now goes like this:

Me: Come on Paddy, let's get you dressed now

Paddy: Oh, no thank you Mummy

Great. Just great. What can you say to that? If he's screaming "NOOOOOOO" at me then I can happily just grab him and get on with it. When faced with such calm, assured politeness how should I proceed ??

Uki - massive, massive congratulations. I have to confess that I would have another one tomorrow (WHAT ?? I hear you scream). Well done on a fabulous natural birth despite what sounds like a rather protracted process.

Am currently (yes - longest post EVER), enduring both children teething at the same time. Paddy's last molars are showing themselves. One down, 3 to go. While Mimi has produced her first tooth. This is the house of dribble, poo, colds and misery....I could cry. Oh no, wait. I frequently do...!!!

Ok, just previewed this msg (and even bored myself with the length of it) and there are no spaces between the words "best lolly ever" leaving next paragraph rather null and void. There were spaces. Big, long, spaces.

Thankyou, goodnight. Have bored myself to sleep

And just remembered. Gil - yes, would love to meet up again (although reckon you'll have changed your mind after reading this rambling mess). Am not on holiday again until Sept 14th ish, can't remember exact date, so can we fix something up ??

Hey TT!

paddy sounds so cute with his no thank you's and best lolly ever. We're never destined to meet in Spain...I come back on the 11th!!

We get a lot of yes please's now so even saying Caitlin would you like to go shopping with Mummy produces a responce of yes, please.

We went to our first NCT group 2nd birthday party last weekend and have concluded that Cait is a yob. She was the only girl at the party and soon encouraged the boys from their quiet playing with cars to running around madly screaming and chasing each other whilst she sang ' Bob the Builder, yes we can'!

Bob is her third love after Peppa Pig and Dora the explorer and thanks to the latter she not can spout a few Spanish words. Personally Peppa drives me round the bend (and Daddy pig is a moron!)but Dora i think is actually OK and we sit and sing the songs together. I ordered a Dora birthday cake for her for her party and am deliberating changing the order to Peppa but I have another 2 weeks to decide so will see who's most in favour then.

Hello. I love hearing about the chatterboxes. Ds' speach is motoring along. The other day he said 'help daddy tidy up'. He didn't actually do it but the thought was there My favourite thing he has said so far is 'Troy, silly, love, him'. Dd is making him into a High School Musical (and Troy) fan.

TT - about the meet up. If it's a week day I can do between 18th and 21st August or between 24th and 26th August. If it's a weekend then I can do any date in August except 30th. Let us know what suits you and where. It was in my neck of the woods last time so you choose where we go. My dc's would love a ride on the train.

I'll catch up properly later.

knickers - hope things get easier for you soon.

helibee - that must have been so scary. Glad Callum is ok now. Rather you than me with all the 5-8 yr olds round your house! Ds' skin is a bit worse now but it doesn't seem to be bothering him. Probably compared to Callum you wouldn't even know he had eczema.

uki - hope you and baby are well. My dc's aren't sleeping well at the moment - not going to sleep til at least 10pm most nights. My poor mum has to deal with most of the moods and bad behaviour.

I've been cheeky and arranged to have ds' birthday party at sil's house. Her kids couldn't go to ds or dd's parties last year because she has 4 kids and no transport so I suggested I bring the party to them. I'm sure it will be stressful getting all the food ready in the morning but I won't have to worry about my house getting messy (obviously I'll help to clean up afterwards!). What is everyone else planning?

Oh dear I feel like an unfit mother again - we're on holiday again for ds2 birthday so will be once agian skipping the party (he is only 2, ds1 still hasn't had a party and he's 4) - hoping that he might have a cake this year as last year he had an ice-cream with a candle in.

Ds2 is chatty but not very clear he mainly points out things with wheels but his new craze are go-gos (plastic tat that he steals from his sister) - he walks around screaming "NOOO, MY GO-GO" just to ensure no-one else goes near them.

Pink - hope the move went well - guessing that you haven't got your internet working yet.

What did the GP say about Callum - I think I would have had a panic?

hiya, Callum has not been so cute today, he didn't want to be inside or outside, or upstairs or downstairs or dressed or undressed [aaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhhh emoticon needed]

Anyway next wed i have my friends girls aged 13 and 16 coming to stay and i just love them and it's so nice having girls in the house, then on the 16th we'll have a tea party for C with his friends as we're going to the Cotswolds for his birthday.

Callum has been fine since, i phoned gp and he said not to worry as he has been fine and he may have caught his breath and passed out, am keeping a close eye on him.

Callum is now in his duvet an completely out of sleeping bags, he seems to be sleeping better now after 2 weeks of very unsettled goings to bed we figured that was the problem, he just didn;t want to be restricted. We're also going to turn his cot into cot bed as he seems ready for it.

I have to go and buy a potty and a step this weekend too as C insists on going to the big toilet and he is getting very good but it would be quicker in some instances to just pop him on a potty.

Have any of your wee ones become a wee bit more constipated since their poos have become "grown up" ones SORRY IF TMI? Callum drinks loads and eats lots of fruit but he still seems a wee bit constipated?

Hersetta-Callum sings Roary the Racing Car and he does like Peppa but he is still in love with Hannah Montana and his favourite tv show is As Time Goes By, everything is "mummy, were Jean and Ninor as C calls him (Lionel) gone?" every time the episode has finished, then "mummy, mes a need more (then he sings the theme tune and finishes with the word by)" who can resist

Hi all,

hope everyone is enjoying summer and all the lo's are enjoying their birthdays. It was Joe's on the 5th and we just had a little get together at our house (I say little but it still meant me flapping about preparing food for 23 family members and a couple of close friends which left me a bit knackered!) Joe really enjoyed it though although he isn't really that keen on cake, he did like the candles!

Anyway, we are potty training here at the minute... seems to be going well... almost too well so I am sure there will be set backs and regressions further up the road (as there always are with things like this!) His understanding and language are pretty good so I just explained it to him and read a book called 'me and my potty' which he loves and he seems to have done it really easily although I am still not daring to go too far from home as he doesn't give much warning when he needs to go!

Heli how scary about callum passing out! Hope he's ok now and takes to his new potty well! We were a bit premature and bought Joe's potty about a year ago even though we weren't trying to potty train him. I just wanted him to get used to it. It has meant that whenever he asked what it was I told him and he seems to have just got used to it being there so he's not at all anxious or confused if that makes sense?!

Knickers, how's things? Your ds must be about 10 months now, hopefully things will calm down abit when he becomes a toddler and less of a cling baby. Think you're doing amazingly. I'd be in a straight jacket if I had another baby like Joe and a toddler to run around after!

Right... not got much else to report, just wanted to say hello and wish all our beautiful babies a happy 2nd birthday!

thats great meandjoe about Josephs potty training. Callum actually goes better on the toilet but we thought the potty was easier for a quick placing on like the other day when C decided he was literally a second off of a wee and we wouldn't have gotten him to the toilet in time but he made the potty, thankfully.

Happy Birthday to all the babies or toddlers now we're having a wee tea party on sun for his 3 best friends who he loves and our family.

If you ask Callum now "how much do you love me?" he stretches out his arms and says "this much" and then points to the sky and says "moon back" cos we always tell him we love him to the moon and back, oh it's soooooo cute

Well done on the potty training - we've had ours out today as the dc were running around the garden with not much on. ds2 did lots of wees near it but none on it. Think it's going to be a while - probably because my heart isn't really in it. Ds1 was 3.4 and went dry day and night with absolutely no accidents so I know it will come in the end.

Hope all our babies are having very happy birthdays xo

Well done on the potty training - we've had ours out today as the dc were running around the garden with not much on. ds2 did lots of wees near it but none on it. Think it's going to be a while - probably because my heart isn't really in it. Ds1 was 3.4 and went dry day and night with absolutely no accidents so I know it will come in the end.

Hope all our babies are having very happy birthdays xo

Happy Birthday to Joe and all the other toddlers

we are having a party at a little thomas amusement park, first time i've had something not at home, but saves cleaning as well as cooking.
LL loves the trains there, so should be great.

well done on the toilet training, haven't thought about it yet
better go
catch up soon

Happy birthday to all of our lovely toddlers. Ds' birthday is on Saturday and I can't wait to give him his presents. It will be the first time he'll really appreciate what's happening. It was his cousin's birthday last week and he's been singing 'Happy to you mummy' ever since. We've got him an art easel with a chalk board and a kettle to go with his tea set, along with a few small bits. He loves making a 'cuppatea'. He helps my dad make his tea every evening. We've got 'In the Night Garden' plates, cups etc and dh is going to try to find a cake to match.

I've not been having a good time trying to find a childminder for dd for the school run 2 days a week (when I'm in London). I saw one lady who was really nice and everything looked good but then, when I phoned her later she told me that she couldn't have her. The other one forgot about our appointment to visit and was out when we turned up at her house. I decided not to re-arrange the appointment. Fortunately my sister lives just down the road from the school and will be able to help out if we don't find anyone in time.

We've not started potty training yet but ds has done a wee in the potty a few weeks ago. Since then he's not really been interested. We'll have to sort it out in time for next Easter though, when he starts pre-school. Strangely he's had a dry nappy when he's woken up the last 2 mornings. It will be wierd if he's dry at night before his sister. She's 4 and often her nappy is full of wee in the morning.

helibee - ds has never been constipated but dd started suffering at about 2.5. It was only this year that we found out that she was holding onto it on purpose and it was likely to have been triggered just by one time when it hurt. We had to start rewarding her to go. Now ds expects a 'gummy' (his word for sweet) every time he does a poo He won't let me change his nappy until he's had one.