Aug 08 - odds on this one won't last as long

[dizzydixies]

new thread ladies

wonder why this one won't last as long

quiet tonight

morning all huge Irish fry up with sodas, eggs, smoky bacon, sausage in honour of my journey into VG and sibh land

shall be signing off for a wee while today as doubt my PIL's wifi extends to Wicklow! Enjoy your week everyone, sazz you have my mobile number incase of an Aug 08 gossipfest emergency

oh and can you tidy up breakfast after yourselves too please, I hoovered in here last night, was shocking

just had to get in a bj bunny before I went

Hello, it was quiet wasn't it?!

I saw those pics of No1 on Fb - lovely!! I've not put any up of ds's christening have i? I must!!

buckets what will you use for bigger food pots. you've made me realise that i'm probably not giving ds enough. I am using the tommee tippee weaning pots - both new ones and ones from when dd was a baby - about 2 tbps worth of food. He happily hoovers up the contents and pudding (fruit or yoghurt). does that mean i'm starving him every meal? ARGH! And i have a zillion pots worth in the freezer!

HAd lovely lunch yesterday- friends of dh came. Lemon chicken and roast potatoes (boring steamed veg but hey) were divine!!! Was rather {bshock} cos they were talking about their live in nanny, and I assumed mum had as full on a job as hedge fund manager dad, but dh tells me she's a sahm!!!!!! Am I being too judgey ? or am i just . .

Am resigned to being a bit of a church widow this week. Holy week is manic. dh is flat out and stressed all week. No idea why, 3 years ago, i chose holy week to potty train dd. must be beserk.

hot cross buns and buckets of tea for brekker anyone?!

Morning all. Yum. Thanks for the brekkie Dizzy. Slightly hungover this morning so especially yum. Champagne cocktails here last night in honour of friend's 30th. Yum once more.

Right ladies, I have a dilemma... Help me make a decision!

I'm due back at work on 8th June as by then I will have squeezed every penny from my ML. However, I could extend it for another 14 weeks (13 plus accrued holiday ). DH isn't particularly up for me doing this and it would cost a lot to do it but at a push, we could afford it and it is a once in a lifetime opportunity. So..... do I put off work until September or as planned go back in June???

I suspect my feelings about waiting until September are, if I'm honest, more about laziness, not being v keen on work and enjoying spending time with the girls instead. I am loving being home with the girls and feel very lucky to be able to but I don't feel the need to keep DD2 out of nursery for longer and quite like the idea of being a grown up again a few days per week.

My sensible side is saying to go back as planned. I will have money again, it does stick in DH's throat a bit that I get to be at home when he'd love to (or so he thinks ) and it would make such a dent in our savings, which isn't strictly necessary. On the other hand, I'll never have this chance again aned although he'd never admit it, it is useful to DH that I'm here and unstressed to deal with domestic things when he's busy and stressed at work (which he is and is likely to be for a while). Hmmm.

Look forward to hearing about the christening No1.

Glad you've got your appointment through sibh.

So sorry I can't remember anything else I've read. Hope all well and good weekends all round.

Morning all - just checking in and trying to catch up too.

So whoever asked - I think it was VG - I used my camera phone to take the pics of the fabric. And haven't chosed any fabric yet.

So we're all moved in, though not yet unpacked, well DH and DD are because I thought if I did them first DH couldn't complain and I could then see how much space was left for all my stuff. Seems we need that second wardrobe unless all my clothes live in the babies room.

Classic quotes of the weekend.
DH when requested to pick out and dress the baby "Don't I do enough already?"
DH during discussion of when to start bedtime routine, I want 6pm start him 7pm; "well if we do it your way then I'm not helping at night."

I'm stockpiling the boob juice so that I can plan my day's escape.

morning all

well steak seems you really have bagged yourself an unreconstructed man.... Hope you get settled soon.

poppy it's a dilemma isnt it, but have to say I've gone with the 'I'll never have this chance again' school of thought and sent an email to work this morning requesting 4 weeks of parental leave tacked onto my full year of ML so I am going back in September. I am looking forward to doing other things, but we may not have another LO and I want to really relax and enjoy all my time with him. It's worth any amount of money to me and luckily dp agrees

albs and no1 christening photos please!

dizzy have a wonderful break!

we are off to a petting zoo now with nct friend

gah! thought i had loads of time to catch up, post, drink tea, pop to supermarket all before my cousin arrived today but she's just sent me a text and she's only an hour away! gah! i'm still in pyjamas

absolutely exhausted, out all day yday with DP and DS. will tell you all about it later but for now, i need to run round like a blue arsed whatsit to get stuff done (you can read that as "drink tea" if you like!)

Steak I like your ironic use of the blowjob bunny next to those two quotes.

poppy I wish we could help make your decision but of course only you can decide...I can totally see both sides as you've put them. If the economy wasn't so broken I would think that your excellent point about never having this time again would swing it....but a dent in the savings is a scary prospect right now.

Am a bit of all you who are looking forward to a summer off work, sadly my maternity leave finished yesterday and I'm back in the realm of the employed . Just couldn't afford those last 13 weeks unpaid, still I have 9 weeks leave before I actually return and will have been off 51.5 weeks so not too bad really. It's not that long since women were only entitled to SMP for 18 weeks so things have come a long way since then.

...

Funnily enough I have just emailed my work with a proposed return date (start of June). I was blithely assuming that was when my SMP runs out but discovered last week that actually no, it runs out at the end of April My plan is to take a month of unpaid mat leave and then restart. I feel ready to do it tbh and think we will all be a happier family. Although we'll see how Joe takes to nursery first eh

I have a question for anyone whose LO enjoys tangerines: does a soft citrus turn your baby's poo into dark green jelly? Joe did the most amazing technicolour poo yesterday, part orange but mostly dark green glop..I've never seen anything like it. He's been eating a lot of tangerines lately as he loves them - it's the only thing I can think of that is different.

VG mackerel pate was a big success at breakfast time today, he sucked it off the oatcake with gusto

Eek steaky. Any ideas where you'll go for your escape? LOL cyteen!

Mackrel pate seriously popular here too. Like you sazzles, I'm managing to give both girls the same thing more than I expected and it's lovely. We've done the shepherd's/fish pie thing a few times but have done mackrel pate and omelette (though not together ) too. DD2 hoovered the omelette all up in perfect BLW style but it did cause arguments with DD1 who didn't understand why she had to use cutlery when DD2 didn't.

Thanks all for your views. I'm so confused. Funnily enough having written down my thoughts, I was erring on the side of going back to work. I think really should go back unless I really really can't manage it due to the financial implications (as you say cyteen, not a great time to splash the cash) and there are pluses to going back. It's not as if it would be full-time so I'll have two full days each week (plus weekend) with the girls (and my afternoon alone ). Maybe I'll see if I can extend until we come back from our hols in July....

Just read your post again cyteen. You see, that's the thing, I don't really feel unready to go back. It's just that I'm enjoying this so much. All good things come to an end at some stage and then another phase starts I suppose. Then again, this has been such a wonderful phase, if I can eek it out longer....

BTW cyteen, you have probably accrued holiday while on maternity leave so you should have paid leave to take before you go back (you don't have to do this though - I went back on a full-time contract - and pay- last time, but did the shorter hours for the first 2 months by using up that holiday). (Does that make any sense? )

poppy I have got a/l but want to save it for an actual holiday as haven't had one in three years. Am fortunate in that we can stretch to a month of unpaid leave.

Joe spent his first night in his room last night. It was ok apart from him being harder than usual to settle at bedtime, obviously lots of new things to look at. however, I have just had to rescue him from the cot after 20 minutes of settling produced a 20 minute nap And rescue only effected after doing pf's count-to-100 trick...now guess who is yawning his head off on my lap? And who will be mardy and tired all day? Why, why, why does he do it? It makes me so annoyed and sad

Sorry sazzles - meant to say earlier that I discovered a while ago when E was struggling to settle just before I had a period that apparently supply falls quite dramatically for a few days beforehand so hopefully Emma should settle for you soon. for your night. Hope today's not tooooo much of a struggle for you all and some good NCT cakes go some way to help.

My sympathies cyteen. Daytime napping has also gone t*ts up here. Why do they not know a good thing?!

Perhaps it's an age-related developmental thing then

Despite my best intentions, I am going downstairs to eat some cake.

Hello everyone!
Remember me?? I'm in an internet cafe with seb sitting on my lap trying to get at the computer. Not much doing here except that it seems like we have probably lost all the newborn photos am not happy. Also really annoyed that we didn't back them up on a memory key. [sob]
Hoping everyone is ok.

Oh no! Did anyone else take any, MIL or someone? Are there any posted on Facebook? What a gutter

Some of them are on fb. But the majority are now lost. We have to do a complete system restore which will obviously wipe everything on the computer. There's still no guarantee that the computer will work afterwards either.
Anyhoo, am going to pop off and head back home - it's a half hour walk but the weather is lovely at least.

Albs Don't know about pots, will have to have look around. Will be Sainsburys or pound shop though, and Aldi do a nice little individual salad in a good-sized strong pot, could eat plenty of those. Re SAHM with nanny, hard not to be judgey isn't it? If she travelled with him on work trips I could understand, but fund managers aren't let out of the country much re they? Maybe she writes dorty novels under a pseudonym? I'm sure she gets fed up justifying herself though.

Poppy would you actually make any money after childcare costs, clothing and lunch?

Oh Ann that's awful . At least you have some on facebook, and they are beauties