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

Hi everyone. Cant belive how long it's been since I've been on here. Missed all the birthdays but hope they all had a good time.

Sorry about your news Helibee. Hope Callum has been fine since his turn too - does sound scary.

Congratulations to James and Snot - hope you have easy times of it. And congratulations to Uki - love the name.

Probably a bit much to catch up with but I was nodding along to loads of your posts (particularly the "Mine ...." about pretty much everything).

Struan is chatting away non-stop. "What's that Mummy?" all day every day. Came back from holidays saying 'Mummy drinks wine, Daddy drinks beer, Struan eats bogies'. My bil was with us - am blaming him for that.

Struan and Angus are getting on well together, but Struan does tend to take any frustrations out on Angus. Angus is sitting up and rolling about but if he cries, Struan doesnt like it and hits him, which obviously make Angus cry more. Mostly working well though - must admit have had sneaky little thoughts about a third but no decision made by any means.

Talking about soft toys as favourites, we went to Parc Asterix, and Struan has seen some of the cartoons and he absolutely loved it. Bought an Asterix character for Angus as had bought an Obelix for Struan before he was born, but when we took it out of the bag, Struan looked so delighted, took him and hugged him, patted him on the back, and then started breastfeeding him! Think he must have been watching me feed Angus lots.

Hope to keep a bit more in touch.

As usual I turn up randomly and start typing before reading through thread so please forgive me missing any big news .

Helibee, gutted for you love. Doesn't matter how far along you are. If you wanted that baby then is really sad to have lost it. Sometimes I wonder if miscarriages are harder to cope with when you have had a child as you know what you've lost

Hersetta - lovely news that you're trying again. Having been though the agonies of taking years to get pregnant let me let you into a little secret. The best way to fall? Sex, sex and more sex. Do not believe all that rubbish about 'saving yourselves' 'til the right time. The more sex you have, the chances of getting preg are higher. (top Harley St. Dr's advice). Listen, prob going to be coming up to I* to meet DH and his desk with the kids in a couple of weeks. Will you be abt?

Things here crazy as usual. Last Friday got woken up by Thing 2 shouting for me. Went to her room and the smell of vomit was overwhelming. She was standing up, laughing and happy but saw that her entire cot was plastered in sick. Great. Was just trying to sort her out when I heard Thing 1 banging for attention in his room. Went in to be faced with scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. His entire face caked in dried blood from a nosebleed. Honestly, I ask you?

Obviously ran a bath and plonked them both in. Then, 5 mins in to lovely, splashy time, Paddy says "ooooh Mummy....poo poo". Proceeds to have THE biggest poo known to man in the bath. Cue me grabbing baby out and just putting her on floor, showering Paddy down then grabbing him out asap, and trying to wash poo down the plughole. It was not yet 7am....

That morning is now known as 'The day of the Unholy Trinity'. Blood, puke and poo within the space of half an hour. Kids. Who'd have 'em...???

helibee - so sorry to hear your sad news.

OMG at your awful morning TT. Sounds like one of those times where you have to laugh or else you'd cry.

Lizzie - sorry to hear about the bug. Hope it doesn't last long. These things always seem to happen when dh is away or can't stay home to help.

Pink - hope your ds is still doing well at school. Dd varies. Some days she's fine, other days like today she clings on to me for dear life and cries Today I put it down to having 2 days off and spending lots of time with my mum. She really misses her now she doesn't see her in the week. It's early days though. I expect it's going to take a while longer before she goes in happily every day. It must be quite a shock to the system.

Ds is also chatting away constantly. He said 'Look mummy, Burger King' 4 times in the car the other day. He also told me that the car was dirty and kept repeating 'Go car wash. Clean car'. He comes out with the most random things, normally something he's heard dd saying. He's very entertaining. One thing I do want to sort out is his dummy obsession. We weaned him off them during the day but my mum kept letting him have it so he has it most of the day now. I might wait a bit longer though.

Hey TT. yes will be about now all the time (no holidays planned till Xmas). I beleive I am on same floor as your DH (indeed I think I am only about 50 feet from his desk). I am on 5th floor in room which was formerly HR (everyone knows where HR was as it is full of ditsy dolly birds!) but is now group finance.

DD also constantly chattering - not a moments peace to be had now - she likes to stand in the middle of the living room and shouts at the top of her voice and either counts (up to 14) or recites the alphabet. She's also so crafty as well for example she knows she has apple juice and I add water to it so now she watches me like a hawk when I pour her a cup of juice and says 'no water Mummy, lid on please'. So when she is in bed I have been adding water to her carton of juice. She thinks she's getting'pure' juice and I know she isn't...ha ha, you don't beat Mummy !!

I can't believe your dd counts to 14 Hersetta. My 4 year old has only just learned to count past 11 in the last few weeks. Ds says 1,2,3,4,5,2. He sort of gets the concept of there being a number of items but he can't actually count them.

She very good at reciting her numbers but not so good at counting things (IYKWIM). If she's holding 3 biscuits (for example) and you ask her how many biscuits she has she will only count to three about 50% of the time. The rest of the time she will say 1,2,3,4,5 biscuits! She does a lot of counting when watching Dora which i think has really helped her.

We've been working on shapes at the moment (she now knows square, triangle, and circle) and she's just finally 'got' colours although still falls back on red if she has to guess.

Classic moment on sunday morning when I reached into the fridge for something and as i tried to take it out, i knocked out a bowl of sweet chilli sauce which when all over my white t shirt and beige trousers. Caitlin saw me and said 'oh no, Mummy all orange'. Seething internally but secretly pleased that at least she got orange right!

Funny how that never happens when you're wearing dark colours. Dh always spills something containing tomato sauce down a white t-shirt.

Ds only knows triangles as far as shapes go. We're doing quite well with colours though. Green has been officially renamed 'Green like daddy's car', although sometimes it gets changed to 'Red like daddy's car'.

And if you're wearing dark colours you can guarantee that there'll be a milk (insert other white/light coloured food stuff here) dribble on them...

Sorry, on way to bed and tired and jaded right now. Pre-children when people asked if I wanted kids my stock reply was "no, they're small and they smell bad". Post kids - I was bloody right..

Hello. Where is everyone? Hope you're all ok.

Dd is doing well at school but she's still very clingy and cries some days when I leave her. She's really looking forward to the holidays next week. She really misses being with my mum and ds.

I think I may have finally found a childminder I was advised to try our local children's centre. A very helpful lady offered to get in touch with some local childminders and asked them to speak to all of their colleagues on my behalf. I got a call from someone yesterday who has a vacancy from Monday. We're going to see her tomorrow. Unless we reaallllly don't like her I'll probably be signing the contract when I'm there. If I'm selected for redundancy next month or in December then I won't be able to get another job without her.

hi everyone. that sounds good Gill - hope she's very nice.

Struan has hit the terrible twos - thought he had already but that was nothing compared to the last couple of weeks. It seems to have come at the same time as suddenly expanding his speech as well so I wonder if they are related.

Main issue is that he has suddenly gone really clingy and whiney which he has never been before. He's still hitting people which is a problem too but I think I can deal with it more. It just seems that everything just now has to be a challenge rather than my easy little happy boy that he used to be. I recite 'it's just a phase' over and over every day.

Anyway - how are the rest of you?

Shattered .

It's hard work with a very tired Lizzie (5.8yrs half term now), Lexie hit the terrible two's with a vengence and Robbie if a very frustated (sp) 7mth old because he can't figure out how to crawl or why he can't walk yet .

glad things are getting sorted for Gill.

Hello folks, hope you're all okay, just thought I'd stop in quickly as washersaurus turned up on my antenatal may 10 thread due 10 days after me, which was nice! I think with snot/tasha, and (oh god, I can't remember your MN username... the lady who works in a zoo, and who is on my facebook!) that makes 4 of us currently up the duff!

Almost 11 weeks now, got my scan two weeks today - I've been quite exhausted but I'm hoping I'm over the worst now.

James is fine, his language is definitely starting to come on now, he's still way behind in comparison to some kids his age, but he's picking up new words every day. We've got an assessment with the speech therapist next monday so I'll see what she thinks.

Oops gtg I'm being summoned to bed (not in the fun way!) bye for now, hope you're all ok xxx

Well the childminder was very nice but she seems to misunderstand the rule about under 5s at school. She told me that she would have to charge me for the time dd is at school (i.e. an extra 6 1/2 hours) because she would not be able to fill the place with another under 5. The National childminding Association agreed that this is incorrect. I asked her if she can contact someone to look into it because we really do need her.

Sorry to hear about the terrible 2s going into overdrive. It's got to be tough when you have another little one who's still so dependent on you. I can't remember if dd was like that but she has always been a very clingy mummy's girl.

Good luck with the scan James and hope you get over the fatigue. I remember being completely wiped out for months at the beginning of my pgs. Dh didn't really understand and thought I was taking advantage of him by making him do all the housework and everything for dd.

hi everyone - it's been ages since i've been on here...hope you are all well, congratulations to those that are pregnant .

i've skim read everyone's news so think i'm up-to-date.

dd2 is still a real character and seems to have everyone she meets wrapped round her little finger. so far the terrible two's have been mild compared to what we went through with her sister (should maybe have whispered that one...).

we're thinking about moving her to a 'big bed' in the next few weeks, she's still in her cot - athough i fully expect her not to stay in it. anyone made the move yet or are we last?

dd1 started P1 in august and so far is loving it. i can't believe the time has gone by so quickly, so it's making me make sure i spend more time with dd2.

will try and keep more uptodate..

Hi My2. We made the move to a big bed just before Angus arrived so around April time. He liked it soooo much more than his cot, but he'd never really liked his cot.

Is dd2 enjoying having you to herself while dd1 is at work, or does she miss her?

hi conker - i wish dd1 was working then maybe i could stop

dd2 and i have every friday together (i work the other 4) which we do lots of nice things - though last few weeks it's mostly been soft play because of the weather. i think it's a bit of both enjoying the 1-2-1 attention and also missing her big sister as she doesnt have anyone to wind up or be her partner in crime

speaking of soft plays - have you been to 'the buzz' in falkirk? my 2 love it and i have to go searching for them! though angus is maybe still a bit too young to fully apprecriate it?

Hi guys,

My2, we've made the move to a cotbed tonight actually, James is screaming and rattling the stairgate as I type.

I knew he wouldn't stay there straight away but I thought he'd be up playing/reading rather than crying. I've been up 4 times already to settle him, and he does settle, but he follows me out again everytime, crying. Not really sure what to do! I suppose I'll go back up and try again in a minute.

Today has been a fun day, our first trip to A&E... He swallowed a screw, and had to be x-rayed. Alls fine (screw was tiny, short and blunt) just have to wait for it to reappear now!

Quite chuffed because although I'm just under 12 weeks I've been feeling the baby kicking.

Oh dear, better go settle him again. Gonna be a long night!

He's asleep!!! (or at least it's quiet up there) only took him an hour to realise what he was supposed to do, that's not too bad I spose.

Did all the dc have a nice halloween? we didn't do much other than glue sparkly bits on a pumpkin and munch on haribo, but it was still nice. Really looking forward to bonfire night, hoping to take James to nice firework display, give him his first (closely supervised! one trip to A&E in a week is enough!) sparkler etc - I think he'll love it.

My2, glad your dd1 is enjoying school, it's nice that she's settled in quickly, and you've got some time to devote to dd2! Are you thinking of having any more? (I realise it would necessitate a namechange, but still...)

Gill, hope you get your childminder thingy sorted out, sounds a bit silly.

I think James might be a vegetarian! he will barely eat any meat at all (the occasional can of beans and sausages) and no fish, but was happily munching on quorn slices tonight. I keep buying meat to try him with, but he just won't. Maybe I should give up and feed him quorn!? Mil won't like it.

Oh well, better go and check on the boy, see if he's actually in his bed, or asleep on a bookshelf or something.

Hi My2. You're not last wrt beds. Ds is still in his cot and I intend to keep it that way for as long as possible cos I just know he won't stay in a bed. It looked like he was going to climb out of it one day last week but he hasn't tried it since.

Glad your dd1 is enjoying school. dd is getting better but still has bad days. She really doesn't like the big playground and tells me that she stands with the teachers at lunchtime.

James - dd was the same when we first put her in a bed. She used to stand at the saftey gate at her door screaming (with us checking on her regularly of course) and fell asleep there every night for several months until finally she decided to get into bed.

I love that feeling James. It always used to make me

We didn't do much for Halloween. Dd went trick or treating with my niece and nephew last year but my sister wouldn't let her go this year because apparently she slowed them down (she was 3 fgs). Anyway, I bought her a half price witch costume from Morrison's on Saturday afternoon and we made her a hat. We only had 2 trick or treaters but that seemed to keep her happy. Ds slept through the whole thing.

Childminder is all sorted btw. Signed the papers on Saturday and dd starts with her tomorrow. Yay

wow doesn't time fly?

We're still in a cot here too - likely to be a while before he moves out too - he is currently reading happily in the mornings so gives us a while longer at the weekends.

Have got his 2 year development check on friday (think it's a bit of a waste of time but don't want to seem too uncaring)

So anyone cracked potty training? dd was dry night and day by this age - ds2 just likes to sit on his potty and watch tv - we have had one hit but think that was just because he was sat on it for so long! Think he'll take after ds1 who was 3.5 when we finally got there - but was very painless with completely no accidents.

The biggest challenge I'm having is meal times - ds2 won't eat anything at all ever (apart from sweets and crisps). Hoping he'll grow out of it but it's very irritating cooking nice things for him to look at and say 'yucky'.

banana - good luck with the scan

james - i can assure that there will not be a my3 name change from me! very very happy with the 2 of them plus don't think i could do another few years of interupted sleep . hope the scan goes well

gill - do the teachers tell your dd to go and play rather than stand with them? my dd1 tells me things, and at the moment i've got to take waht she says with a pinch of salt (obviously not thinking that your dd does this) - the imagination (lies) is unbelievable! i tell her that i can tell by her eyes if she is lying....so when she tells me something that i don't quite believe and i say i need to see your eyes, if she closes them or turns away i know it's a load of rubbish she's very convincing and has had teacher and childminder believing various things including that her dad had a broken arm , that he could play the violin

loler - no potty training here yet - i've put the potty out and every morning dd2 wakes up (after she's sung the sleeping beauty song) she says 'mum, i done a poo in the potty'. i read the gina ford potty training book for dd1 and then adapted slightly to suit her and it worked great - that was at 2.4 months. not sure if dd2 will be ready then though she does say sometimes if she's done or doing something.

Sleeping beauty song is very restful in a morning! We get "peppa pig snort snort"

I agree with the saying things that might be real in their mind but not in reality. Ds1 says no-one plays with him but dd says he has lots of friends (most of whom seem to chase her!) and I've seen him playing with them at break time when I've been into school. DC are very good at playing on our emotions.

I agree, sleeping beauty sounds very nice. My DH gets 'DADDY...........A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P... DADDY....Q R S T U V' etc. DH just lays in bed and giggles at her until the DADDY's become too loud.

I get the feeling that Caitlin has learned a phrase that will now haunt us for the next 10 years. If you say to her ' Come on Caitlin, time for a bath' she reples ' not yet, Mummy. Just a little bit longer'. Also applies to bed time, nap time etc.

No potty training success here ether. We've tested the waters a couple of time without much success (only wee in potty came when i said she could have some chocolate buttons if she wee'd in her potty, so she sat on it until she did one'). We usally get the reply 'not yet mummy' when I ask her if she wants to go for a wee...cue splash and puddle within the next 20 seconds usually!.

Apart from potty training though she's doing really well so no complaints really although i have just learnt never to trust a two yr old. Last night as i was getting her ready for her bath, she showed me her wrist and said ' ow...hurt' I asked her how she hurt it and she said 'William hurt Caitlin'. William bite Caitlin'. (William is a little boy at her CM who Caitlin has bitten twice). Asked DH to raise it with her CM this morning as unlike her not to mention it and it turns out that William wasn't even at CM yesterday so pretty unlikely that he'd bitten her!

Good luck with the scan james... am quite envious!

We haven't tackled potty training yet. I have been putting it off but I think we will have to start sooner rather than later as ds will start pre-school after Easter and they insist on them being clean and dry. I've spoken to my mum as it will impact her more than us but she hasn't committed to a time to start. Ds often sits on the potty with his nappy and trousers on and tells me that he's done a wee or a poo but so far he's only done one wee in the potty. Presumably that was just a coincidence.

I doubt ds will be getting a 2 year check. Our hv is normally right on time for visits but we've heard nothing. Maybe they're short staffed and a bit behind. Tbh I'm not that bothered as I've got no concerns about his development. Also, when dd had her 2 year check the hv couldn't even tell the difference between a horizontal and vertical line that she asked her to draw. She drew them correctly but the hv was looking from a different angle

Sorry to hear about the eating problems loler. Dd went through a phase of not having an evening meal for quite a long time. She's never had a big appetite, although she is eating tons now she is in full time school. Ds isn't eating as much as he used to.

My2 - I think she probably is playing with the other children because she tells me about not being able to keep up with her friend when he's running. It wouldn't surprise me if she did spend some time with the teachers though as she's quite insecure. Everything she does at school is a secret though until she lets something slip later on I guess we'll find out at parents evening on Monday.

Hersetta - we get 'not yet' or 'in a minute' from ds too. Then he runs away chuckling to himself.

Hi everyone - chatty few days.

Yes my2 - i guess work at that age is a bit premature . Is the one you're talking about got wizards on the door, cause if so, yes we've been and Struan certainly loves it.

Struan has finally made it out of his size 4 shoes - jumped from almost a 4 1/2 which he's been for about 5 months, to a 5 this week.

In the mornings we just usually get 'Mummy, Daddy, up time' over and over, and sometime 'want to see Angus'. Might think about moving Angus into his room soon (turned 6 months today) but he still seems so young, so maybe keep him with us for a bit longer.

James - so exciting when you feel the tiny kicks. Do you think James has any concept of a new baby or have you not told him yet?

Anyway off to enjoy some chocolate while dh is away at a conference for a few days. Just wish I hadnt dropped the bottle of wine I bought on the pavement outside. Oh well, cup of tea it is then