December 2007 "The one where babies walk the walk... and talk the talk"

[Arcadie]

I'm sorry - I couldn't last out. Welcome to the new thread.

BT it has been much better here today, mostly sunny and breezy with one rainy spell. Will send it north easterly for you tomorrow

clara - I'm sure you'll be swimming every day in Santa Lucia! I usually get them into their swimming costumes at home and have been known to resort to bundling them into fleecy dressing gowns and slippers for the return trip home before getting them dressed again!

On pox watch here [grrr]. On of the children in DD's room at nursery has been confirmed with chicken pox and although he only attends one day a week so hopefully contact won't have been that great we're now scanning for any sign.

Normally it wouldn't be too much of an issue and I agree with exposing them to it so that they hopefully get it over and done with so it doesn't affect them so badly but it's dreadful timing. We've got SIL's engagement party on Saturday, a wedding on Tuesday of some elderly friends and then we're away for the rest of the week scouting out the area we are going to be moving to early next year. We've got appointments to view a couple of nurseries and some houses.

So it's fingers crossed that she escapes...

Woohoo!!! I got that job as was after!!

Congratulations BT - when will you start? You must be chuffed.

Re-reading my last post I thought I must sound like a dreadful mum moaning because illness wouldn't be convenient. Just hope if she does get it she has it like my sister who only got 6 spots on her entire body unlike me who was more spot than body. I remember the spots up my nose and on my scalp being particularly itchy and unpleasant - wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Enjoying the maternity leave Insy?

I'm waiting to hear!

Congrats BT

Spiralqueen I was the same when mine were exposed cos I was supposed to be going to see my cousin's new baby the next day-not bad mum at all!

DD's birthday tomorrow so am frantically cleaning and rearranging furniture ready for party/weekend guests.

Enjoy the long weekend everyone

well done BT!!

happy birthday Caiela!!!

spiralqueen - fingers crossed for no pox...

arcadie - so so sorry to hear abouy your friend

does anyone else's DC snog anything that moves???! DS just wants to kiss everyone and everything. The other day I had him on my knee sat next to a lady on the bus. All the poor woman did was ask how old he was and he was straight in there before I could stop him - big open-mouthed smacker right on her lips Poor thing tried to smile but I could see she was appalled - especially as he was a bit snotty He kisses books, animals, other children, me CONSTANTLY, DH, DD, parents of friends, random passers-by - sometimes even an inanimate object such as the fridge - what does this mean? Is he starved of affection??

Have a good weekend everyone. DH has been away all week and will be away all weekend so I don't think mine will be great but at least he'll be back on Monday and I can chuck the DC at him and run away for a couple of hours!

Oh that sucks Skid . Come to our party! I'll chuck pimms down your throat while my sister entertains the dc

DS only really kisses me and dh but he has just started to do proper pecks. Strangers he just stares at and sticks his hand down my top (at least it's not their top)

Skid that is so funny. DD is very sparing with her kisses only her friend Toby at nursery gets them generally. If DH or I ask for one she generally says "Nooo". [blooming charming emoticon]

No sign of the pox thank heaven but still on tenterhooks...

Off now for a week so won't have email contact so no doubt will have loads to catch up on when I get back.

Take care and have a good week. [waves]

Hey all!

Clairey, your hospital trip day must have been a real nightmare, I hope both children are okay now. Hope DD has a fab birthday party too!

SpiralQueen, DD is not quite clingy at the moment but is very snuggly and insists on lots of cuddles. She also carries either one or two snugglies (she found the spare a while back and now likes to have them both) around a lot. She is an early January baby though so a little younger, perhaps she is approaching a clingy stage, she's certainly showing signs!

Insy, your MIL sounds an absolute pleasure to be around , ignore her if you can, as long as your boys are happy and well cared for then who cares if they are showing signs of being an art genius or ? And Toby is defenitely not backwards, Evie is another in the camp of drawing the odd line, stabbing the pen to the paper and eating the crayon!

Skid - great pic of DS!

BT congrats on getting the job you wanted!

Arcadie, that is such sad news. Cancer is such a devestating illness. Leaving my children while they are young is one of my biggest fears.

Thanks for your advice on MMR (weeks ago now ), decided to get it over and done with now as the swine flu is more likely to be bad in the Autumn than now. Had DD booked for it Tuesday morning but then Monday night her temperature went up to a nice warm 38.3 and stayed around there for 3 days... rebooked for next Friday, fingers crossed she'll be healthy enough to get it out of the way!

So do most of you do structured activities most days? I go to a toddler group one day and see a friend and her little boy another but thats about it! Other days we play at home or go to the shops or whatever - does that make me lazy? I am also another here who doesn't bake with the children, they're too messy! I do a fair bit myself and they are always asking to join in...half-term next week here and they are already bugging me to let them make their own shaped bread rolls...

x-posts with loads of you!

Skid, Evie isn't much into kissing but this morning she waved to everyone we passed on the way to the school! Miserable buggers all ignored her though...

Arrgggh! Any advice on stopping a 16mo smearing everything she eats in her hair?!

thanks clairey pimms and childcare combination sounds VERY tempting...

beckle - Milo waves too - so cute - yesterday I took him to do an experiment where they tracked his eyes while he watched a video and it wouldn't work because he was so busy waving at the people on the video and shouting 'hiya' (and trying to snog the screen if I'm honest...)!

re food in hair - don't think there is a solution except to feed her yourself. Maybe console yourself with the certainty (hopefully) that she won't still be doing it in a year's time?

Speaking of feeding - doesn everyone's baby feed themself with a spoon now? Milo is showing no interest and I still spoonfeed him all the time . DD was feeding herself from about 8 months so I am a bit by him

Skid, yes DS is feeding himself with a spoon when I let him. It is so much easier if I do it [control freak emoticon].

What a sweet little snogger your DS sounds. Rory kisses me and DH, but nobody else. He's more of a snog biter though. We're trying to stop him biting when he kisses but it is a difficult lesson to teach, especially when he does it so lovingly.

Clara, we don't do structured activities with DS every day. DH takes him swimming once a week, and we'll meet up with other mums and kids or maybe take DS to the park. When it rains we'll either take him to play at a friend's house or go to the pub, or shopping or soft play. As long as he goes out every day he's fine.

Daniel does feed himself with a spoon, but often he hands the spoon to as if to say "you do it mummy"
I tend to have to the hold the plate/bowl for him though.

Evie won't let me feed her with a spoon, she insists on doing it, so much different from DS1 who wouldn't even feed himself finger foods at 16 months (I used to have to break them up and put the chunks in his mouth)!

Bea still lets me feed her with a spoon most of the time. I think its because we share quite a lot of food (yes I know against all HV advice!) - like my morning bowl of porridge. So she is actually having it fed from a large spoon as has no objections! Sometimes we even have it in my bed and she will sit down on her bottom and say Pese until she gets some

Was in cafe today with short flight of stairs between 2 levels. Was holding DD's hand as we went up stairs, which were quite high so was almost having to lift her up each step IYKWIM. Man sitting beside stairs asks "how old is she?". When I replied almost 17 months he said "don't you have stairs at home?" I said yes we do. He then pointed at his older toddler and said "she was walking up and down stairs on her own at that age" Really I could almost have hit him!! Some people just can't restrain themselves can they?!!

Congrats BT - are we allowed to ask what sort of job?

We get very few kisses here but she does wave to almost everyone and say Hiya which is very cute.

Washed the nappies in 95 degree wash today but sadly its raining and freezing outside so no drying in the sun! Fingers crossed its killed all the bacteria anyway.

Buzzy - you SHOULD have hit him!

Skid - lots of kisses but mostly for her "cat", "baby" (ie doll), "lala" (any small character toy eg teletubbies)....we all have to kiss the cat as well as her when she goes to bed. at Milo snogging the old lady!

Martha has insisted on feeding herself with a spoon for many months now. It was incredibly messy at first but she's not so bad now. She won't wear a bib either so we do LOTS of washing.....

You definitely should have hit him Buzzy, why on earth would you let a 17 month old climb the stairs alone, I actively discourage it! Evie started saying Hiya today too!

Evie is still quite messy with her spoon Clara but thankfully will wear a bib, I usually put 2 on her, a catch-it bib to stop her getting a lapfull of food and a normal one underneath to protect the neck of her clothes. Mind you, this evening she decided to eat baked beans with her hands so neither bib went any way to keeping her clean...

She is getting quite good with body parts now and can do eyes, ears, head, toes, feet, belly button (comes out as "butbut" - much to the delight of DS2) and boobies. She can point out more that she can't say yet, she likes to stick her hand down my top and say "boobies" quite loudly which I find odd as I stopped BFing her about 5 months ago, perhaps she just likes the word?

Buzzy, definitely agree, that man was an idiot. Now I admit I can be somewhat laissez-faire when it comes to safety, but I would not allow DS to climb stairs on his own, either me or DH following behind!

Daniel was been extremely cute yesterday, me and DH were sat on the floor, and he kept giving us kisses, first me then dh! We don't get kisses very often! I do get lots of cuddles!

Forgot to tell you about the job!
I'm still contracting to do the call centre work, but I have landed a contract to do performance enhancements & quality assessments for the other call centre agents

I have to say this business is going to be big, the reason I was recruited is that they don't have enough PFs (as I will be known) to look after all the ACPs (what I am now) that they are looking to bring on board.

Homeshoring of this nature has been established for several years in the US, it is very new here and I am really lucky to be in at the start of it all.

skid toby won?t be spoon fed at all, he has to do it himself or not eat but ds1 even at 3yrs will quite happily be fed he?s so lazy! Very much like your ds beckle ds1 wasn?t interested in finger food either, toby is very messy as he has to feed himself everything including stuff he can?t really manage like yoghurt, he has one of those hard plastic pelican bibs so once he?s finished whats in his bowl he just starts on whats ended up in the bib

bt congrats on job!

buzzy I agree you should have hit him, I hope at the very least you gave him the ?look? he deserved

Hope you?re all enjoying your bank holidays ? my parents are taking the boys away tomorrow till Friday, they?re off to Butlins, not sure how I feel about it, looking forward to nesting and sleeping but think I?m going to miss them like mad. Not been up to much else, saw IL?s yesterday at our request (they live 30mins down road and never seem to invite us over) and then they invited some other friends over at same time and just talked house building stuff so basically we just took boys over to play at their house then came back for lunch, really annoying ? as is the cost of kids shoes, our afternoon job, why are they so expensive and why do the boys grow so fast! Anyway going to get back out to garden and soak my feet in paddling pool

gosh insy your ILs sound quite hard work! I know what you mean about being torn about having a child free day. I can never properly enjoy them when I get them even though I really look forward to them - I suppose that is parenthood for you! Hope you manage to rest and enjoy the day

thanks for all the replies re feeding - I see that DS is in a minority. it's interesting what you say beckle and insy about your DS1's being lazt because I remember the HV telling me that she thought DS was a lazy feeder when he was just a few weeks old! And now I come to think of it, although he is well able to eat a banana/pear by himself, he often refuses to eat one unless I hold it at his mouth for hime to bite!!! Oh God, he's going to turn into one of those men who can't even boil an egg by themselves...

buzzy - I second what everyone else has said about that awful man! He obviously has ishoos if he feels the need to say that kind of thing.

I have sunburn! I can't believe it. I am always so smug about the sun because I am dark skinned and then i go and sit out in the park all afternoon, slavering the DC in sunscreen but forgetting about myself - and DH is back tomorrow morning - he will be greeted by a lobster red wife!

Hope DD's party went well clairey - was it a BBQ? I know you had a BBQ for DS's bday in December! Did DD have a ball?

Re rude cafe man, the thing that immediately struck me was that he would think it was OK to boast about how much more "advanced" his child was compared to DD! But you're right I would be terrified if DD did try and negotiate such stairs upright and unaided - they were quite high, hard wood and with a hard lino floor at the bottom. And actually I'm very proud that DD has excellent stair management skills - using both arms and legs! The only reason I didn't say anything more was that he was there with his wife/partner and she looked very embarrassed then proceeded to try and make amends telling me how cute she is!

I have discovered a DVD that captures DD's attention - Dido in Concert! She is just obsessed with music at the moment. Carries around the ukelele at creche all day and bops to ads on TV. I have tried putting on Maisy and the Tweenies and she basically ignored but was transfixed by Dido, and especially the drums/guitar sequences

You sound very excited BT! So nice to hear especially after all the stress of your last job.

Goodness sunburn Skid ... we've had 140kph winds here over the weekend and it hasn't gone over 10 degrees C for about 5 days.