March 09 - there is no snooze button on a baby that needs milk.....!

[meep]

over here ladies

Hey slick - i suspect you think us English are trhe odd ones (and you're probably right ).

i agree - M J's life was tragic. How different it could have been. I wasn't trying to make light of it earlier - its just that whole thing where you expect big stars to die early - the whole legend thing. Was reading the bbc site and hadn't realised all 3 of his children haVE his name - even the girl has Michael in there somewhere.

My dh's take on the MJ news this morning:

"Good, it's one less kiddy fiddler in the world!"

I agree Wheely I could never have imagined him pottering around in old age. It's tragic how he ended up.

Anyway!

May I join in on the sahm going slightly mad gang?

Having moved to a new area when I was 30 weeks pg, I don't know anyone here. The only person I speak to is dh, and it feels very isolated.

We do have a surestart centre just around the corner and I got some leaflets the other day for some groups that I'll try and work up the courage to go to go to in September. There's an hour one where the lo's get to sing, learn rhymes, play with messy stuff etc, and then a 45 minute one a different day where they can play musical instruments.

What do you reckon, any good?

We're also down for a baby massage course too in September. I was quite surprised that it's all free! I just hope that A will enjoy it...

P.S Meep I have no cookies left, but can offer you a choice of Bourbons or Custard Creams today.

Grinning Was it you that decided to moved and renovate late pregnancy? How's it all going?

I say any groups are worth a shot, esp if you are feeling isolated as that must be really tough, so I say go for it!

grinning i know how you feel, I moved two weeks before my little one arrived. My sister is moving to the area at the weekend but I can't really rely on her to keep me company. There are rhyme time classes that go on around here where you take the little ones to sing and stuff, but being shy in the first place I couldn't imagine anything worse than singing in a group of strangers. I think its about time I got off my bum for the little ones sake.

I moved when DD1 was 8 months and I had to force myself to make friends as am very shy by nature. I went to a different toddler group every morning and started a conversation with mums whose babies looked about the same age. It was worth the effort as I have made some nice friends. Unfortunately, two of them have subsequently moved away and some with older children have moved on from the toddler stage. Think I'll have to start again with DD2, which will be easier when DD1 starts nursery 3 mornings a week in September.

Wheely Assume you are braving the Tesco Extra in New Malden. I HATE that shop - it is always so busy and it is so enormous that I can't find anything. Went there last Sunday morning, parked at 9.25 and by the time I had got the kids out the car, the entire row was full of parked cars, mostly child-free. I wouldn't have dreamt of being at the supermarket at 9.30 on a Sunday before I had children! How times change ...

It was more of a 'had' to move as we were living in a mobile shack home on a site that didn't allow children.

We decorated everything but the kitchen and bathroom, but still only have carpet in the sitting room Mind you. not sure I can be arsed with decorating just now

I'm sure there was someone else who moved even closer to due date than me.

See that's what happens when i start a reply but have to chnge nappy halfway through... i knew there were others that moved

spot on elsy - i is a nightmare but I survived and L was v chilled. I think she liked facing mummy and then whn i got to the checkout she nodded off. Phew. Where are you Elsy - will we be frequenting the same toddler groups ?

For those who are shy maybe try some classes as at least they are structuered so if you don't talk to anyone you don't look like a lemon. I HOPE TO START a music one in sept and have L on waiting list fror swimming but it is a least a year's wait ! Otherwsise try toddler groups - some are better than others and at least if you don't likeit you've probably only lost a couple of pounds and you never have to go back !

Sorry typing terrible - feeding again.

Mums, you are wonderful! Thank you sooo much for the encouragement! Wish we could all sit together and have some winecoffee together!

my mum, of all people, sent us an sms this morning - from South Africa, to inform us of MJ death, I thought it was a joke! Yes, what a sad tale. He used to be so great and I still love his older music to bits - I've shown my nieces (9 and 7) all his vids on Youtube and they also love it. I saw his show in SA years ago, was amazing. So sad. There has been a lot of speculation in the news whether he was going to be able to keep all his concert dates, I suppose that one's resolved now.

grinning We move to Scotland 2 years ago, and to this town about a year ago, i know people here but no mums with younun's, so also feel isolated. I'm not shy but I tend to hold back when I meet new people, not overly gushing, IYKWIM. Am going to a netmums meetup on Sunday, how's that for desperate!! The one mum I met at the breastfeeding group, very nice lady, I bumped into her yesterday and she p me o, when I said that LB is off his dummy, that I should introduce a new type. i said no, he's found his thumb. She said, oooh, you can throw away a dummy and not a thumb. Thumbsuckers get funnylooking thumbs and develop orthodintic problems. I said My dh has sucked his thumb from birth till eternoty and he's fine? And then I didn't feel so warm towards her anymore. Sorry for mini-rant, but there is such a fine line between giving your opinion and advice....v touchy.

Elsy I hate shopping for groceries, so we just use Tesco delivery or my dh does it. We've been to Ikea once and I had to take LO outside, walked around the parking lot until he was asleep and the went back. I always feel so sorry for the wee ones crying in shopping centres. And even more for their mummies!!

Wheely We lived in England before moving to Scotland, enjoy the oddness of both.

I'm thinking of, way in the future, maybe starting a music playgroup for lo's, but definitely older. I sing to LB and he loves it, and he enjoys listening to the flute and piano. but the othr day I played some saxophone, his eyes got wider, the corners of his mouth went down, and waaaaaahaaaaa, big cry. so will definitely have to wait a bit longer! Grinning, if you do join that group, let me know how your lo responds.

Today LB has green slimey watery poo, for 2 nappies, will have to keep an eye on it, but I think it's because of the jabs. He also cried when I put him down last night, for the first time in ages, was hugely shocked and panicked, luckily he passed out not too long afterwards..

Hi all, it's a rare moment when both dds are asleep so I'm making hay with a cuppa and a quick surf...

I was one of the nutters ones who moved while pregnant - 12 days before my due date, in fact. The house is a bit of a tip but the extra space (was in a flat before) more than makes up for it. Although we're getting a new kitchen fitted in a few weeks time which should be fun - NOT. . It does sometimes feel like we're just shifting crap stuff from room to room and not making any real progress, but we do at least have systems in place (washing, cooking etc) to make sure we're all fed, watered and (fairly) clean - which I've learned is as much as I can expect to achieve on a daily basis!

Re toddler groups and socialising - well I've tried them all - storytimes, rhyme times, music groups, messy play, you name it! I forget who asked about the local children's centre but I would say go there asap. I would have gone nuts without getting out of the house at least once a day and there's loads of free/cheap stuff going on at my local children's centres - one even has a child friendly cafe with loads of toys so I can sit down with a coffee and let DD1 do her own thing.

Mdavza I play the saxophone too! I must admit being a little disappointed with DD1's reaction to my playing but she's really into music now (she's 2.6) so I might try again, although will wait a while before subjecting Melissa to my random honking

Am feeling a little sad as two of my friends are going back to work very soon - we were all friends from my DD1's NCT group and had a second around the same time, so we had a lot in common. I'm not planning on going back to full-time work ever for a while yet, so am a bit apprehensive about how I'll manage without my little social network.

Also feel quite sad about MJ, even though I'm not that keen on his music.

Hi all,

Lovely to read everyone's posts as usual. Missmodular and Mdavza, it's nice to know i'm not the only person that plays musical instruments to their LO. I do some private music teaching so it gets inflicted on the DCs quite a lot. Thus far George is most fascinated by singing exercises. In fact he finds them hilarious and it's one of the few failsafe tactics when he's really howling.

I'm crap with all these NCT group things. Most of my friends are still young, free and single and so i have them round for drinks etc on friday or saturday nights. During the day i tend to do farm trips, long walks in the forest, swimming, soft play etc and just chat to people i meet there. Mum-friendly cafes are also a good bet in my opinion. Sometimes a chat and a donut is all you really need.

I have the opposite problem to the SAHMs, in that i'm so aware that my mat leave is running away from me and i'll be back at work so soon. I wish i could be an SAHM but we just don't have the finances (Granny wil be looking after both DCs so we don't have to pay for childcare). Guess the grass is always greener!

Having a bit of a crappy time with DH at the moment, not going to go into it here, it's all on the relationship thread anyway. But it is kind of taking the gloss off of my new baby enjoyment. Just hope we can find a way through it and make some sort of future, as i can't bear the thought of things going completely to pot with such little DCs to nurture.

Currently trying to decide whether to keep pretty much exclusively breast-feeding or whether to go 50-50 with formula. George has recently been quite dissatisied after feeds and i'm losing a lot of weight. BMI is down to 19 now and doctor says that this is not good when breastfeeding. I'm trying so hard to eat at least 2000 'good' calories a day, but it's a struggle. Feel very tired and i think it's down to the breast-feeding and weight loss, as George is sleeping through now. I had a problem with insufficient weight gain up to 22 weeks of pregnancy so it's nothing new!

Ex

Ellie I know what you mean about the friends, most of mine are in couples but very much child-free, and although they are very tolerant of our boys, tend to not realise how gutting it is when they break plans on short notice. Between the DSes and DH's shifts I don't get out much in the day and hardly ever at night!

Speaking of shifts, I must need my head examining! Just agreed with DH that he can work a 5 week block of night shifts with no days off at all, for £1100 after tax. It's not going to be fun but hoping it'll give me the kick up the bum I need to get out and start making some new friends.

I do have a life, I promise. Just sitting here, hoping, praying, waiting to see whether lo is going to self- settle...there's been a promising silence from his room for a few minutes now... and I'm glued to my iphone, best buy ever.

missmOdular and ellieorollie wow! So many musicians! Great! I've also started teaching at home again, love my students, I'm actually surprised by how many adults want to learn an instrument. I would't say I play the saxophone, the fingering is v similar to the flute and I've taught myself, especially now sounding like a foghorn. This week one of my students could play a new note and I couldn't, oops, faked my way through that one. I'm going going back to teach music at a school 1 day a week from next term, looking forward but also not. My sil is going to watch lb, thank god!

He's asleep! Yahoo! I'm off to make lasagna

ps Ellieorollie, sorry to hear about relationship problems, it must be so hard. Hope it works ouy for youx

Hoep it all works out ok Ellie...

Am antoher musical one here although not to the levels of you guys. Was grade 8 on saxophone (and also played flute, violin, self taught piano and clarinet). We have just inherited a piano so was going to take proper piano lessons but not sure it will fit in with L just now. Maybe in a couple of years when she's at pre-school. I regret not taking it further but I found out if I dropped the second year of music a-level I could have a lie in on mondays and leave early on fridays .

Really want the girls to be musical - DD1 certainly seems to love music. Am trying not to push her into it though !

Have a nice weekend everyone - I think the sun is going to shine !!

Hoep it all works out ok Ellie...

Am antoher musical one here although not to the levels of you guys. Was grade 8 on saxophone (and also played flute, violin, self taught piano and clarinet). We have just inherited a piano so was going to take proper piano lessons but not sure it will fit in with L just now. Maybe in a couple of years when she's at pre-school. I regret not taking it further but I found out if I dropped the second year of music a-level I could have a lie in on mondays and leave early on fridays .

Really want the girls to be musical - DD1 certainly seems to love music. Am trying not to push her into it though !

Have a nice weekend everyone - I think the sun is going to shine !!

ooh mdavza - trying to decide whether to get an iphone for my birthday. But fear it may make me even more glued to the computer !!!

Ellie really hope you can work things out with your DH - make sure you look after yourself - difficult at the moment I know!

Ellie and Mdavza - I'm thinking of music teaching as a way of earning extra cash on maternity leave and potentially becoming a peripatetic music when I do go back to work. Do you have any tips for getting started? (Sorry to hijack thread, everyone else).

Wheely - Grade 8 is a respectable level in my book - you must be pretty good. We're hoping to pick up a cheap/free piano on eBay or Freecycle when the kitchen's done.

I currently do this group called Bongalong with the DDs which I think is part of a franchise - we also did an almost identical one a while back which was called Music Makers. I find it a bit thespy but DD1 loves it. It's better suited to over ones, although Melissa is just starting to notice what's going on there.

Right, Friday evening has arrived, DP is putting DD1 to bed, DD2 is snoozing on our bed, I'm off to find some wine and sit in front of the Glastonbury coverage all night from the comfort of my warm and dry house

What is it with DHs/DPs these days? DP is getting his hackles up every time I say anything about Rhys. I came out this morning and he was wearing a vest with the windows open and a chilly breeze blowing in, so I said it was too cold for what he was wearing -- and DP got this furious martyred expression and stomped off to get another shirt and then gave me the wounded cold shoulder for ages. Anyone else's DP/DH being super-sensitive and touchy?

I had my longest time away from Rhys yet last night there's a fabulous music/arts/food festival every summer in Brussels and I went wth the girlfriends I go with every year. Amazing people-watching, chilled atmosphere I didn't get home until 3am. The decadence!

(Attending concerts is as close as I get to being musical as my father has observed, I can't carry a tune in a bucket. DP is the musician in the family, so Rhys regularly gets serenaded by guitar Muddy Waters and Django Reinhardt and Gilberto Gil seem to be favourites.)

Rhys, bless him, has had three nights of good sleep in a row -- from 10pm until 4am, 4.30am and 5am respectively, with a feed followed by snoozing again until 8.30 or 9. However (and here's another "do yours do this?"): bedtime these nights has been preceded by 10 to 20 minutes of inconsolable howling. The pitch/register of the cries are different from anything he's ever produced, and there's nothing we can do to calm him down. Then the storm passes as quickly as it came and he falls deeply asleep. Weird...but normal?

Gorgeous sunny day here -- off to run some errands. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Corgi Mae doesn't cry at night but she always cries when she is tired in the day normally with lots of eye rubbing.

Gosh I can't believe so many of you are musical, I'm with Corgi on this, not a musical bone in my body.

I'm having an afternoon of shopping tomorrow with my sister it'll probably involve several hours of primani shopping or HM if I know her.

Ellie hope things improve with your DH.

Lau you are a brave lady, I hated my DH working late shifts I find it really hard to sleep without him leading to us both being grumpy when we actually got time together.

jolly I probably am mad, but DH has been on the nights for the last 6 months so have been quite used to sleeping alone. We often struggle with his days off as we have differing ideas of what should happen.

On the plus side had a lovely day with the boys today at a music festival. DS1 was beautifully behaved and both boys were in bed by 5.30 exhausted! And I managed a bus ride all by myself with 2 kids under 4!

missmode. I put my details on musicteachers.co.uk and it grew from there, also some word-of-mouth. But I'm lucky that there aren't many other flute/sax/piano teachers around here. When I lived in England it was much more difficult and my friend, who has excellent credentials+experience, is finding it much harder over there. But it does take time: advertise in your local shop, speak to other mums, you know, let the word get around that you're available and it should take off from there.

wheely grade 8 is excellent, woah! All those scales...respect. And get the iphone, it is truly amazing- happy birthday?!

corgi. I felt like scnoo-schnoo (IYKWIM...) earlier today but dhh has been so grumpy this afternoon that I've lost interest. I'm so exasperated with hearinh how hard things are for him, how tired he is...this is now after him and my brother spending the whole of yesterday in Edinburgh shopping for cycling things, and him spending the entire morning fiddling with hus bikes and then going cycling. Hard work? Puh-lease! But we had a massive fight a few weeks ago and I just decided then and there thar I'm not going to bother nagging him, I'll just accept the status quo- he's not good with lo. (except when he's cute) Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

Lb cries before naps and he's also suddenly started being much more fussy before bedtime. I think he's starting to realise that I'm leaving? Has had diahrrea since yesterday, don't know what's going on.

mdvaza don't worry too much about the crying, babies do cry as they drop off to sleep. If it hasn't stopped in 5-10 min there's usually something that needs to be sorted.

Has anyone else noticed their skin going through a really bad patch? I seem to be getting loads of spots all over my chin!

Just when I was beginning to feel things were a little under control, DD2 has decided to revert to her newborn behaviour. After a lovely week where she's been going to bed at 7ish and only crying a little during the evening, we're back to 6.30 meltdowns that last for 3 hours. She screams and screams hysterically and refuses to feed. It's incredibly stressful and I'm just praying that it'll be shortlived. I've got a hunch she's teething which may explain refusing the feed. I've given her a dose of Calpol the last couple of nights and that does seem to settle her, but don't want to keep on with it as I know it's not great for their health in large quantities. I got my first tooth at 3.5 months so it's possible she's got one coming, although I can't see anything. Ah, the mystery of babies...

Wheely I'm down in Esher, but used to live in Wimbledon so know your neck of the woods well. Did you also get that freak hail storm yesterday afternoon? DH and I were driving home and I was wondering when the hot weather was going to break and out of nowhere hailstones started falling and torrential rain. Bizarre!