Dec 08 it's time for sippy, tippy and doidy cups (& wee sticks!?!)

[Veggiemummy]

sorry could think of much and these where discuss on last page.

kayz big hugs to you for today, hope it goes ok

veggie glad the party was a success, am already thinking about ds1's party for Jan, not sure what to do

wg one thing I have never been able to understand is why people think its ok to comment on what we do with our children, especially sleep-wise. Ds2 always wakes up around 5.30am & I've lost count of the amount of people who said I should just let him cry, he'd soon learn to go back to sleep!! Anyway, I hope the sleep expert has some useful tips for you, when will see them?

daisy lol at dubious dancing, glad you had a good time anyway!

jj lol at enough shoes!

kiwi well done to your dd!

Ds2 is definitely a commando crawler, its so funny to see him pulling himself around, though he does have a tendency to get stuck under something!

Will start a meetup thread, I haven't forgotten. I just need to check what days my mum is working!

Hello everyone,

sybil Happy forthcoming birthday! I certainly am a list maker. My friend and I are both virgos and used both enjoy list making. We must have been the most organised teenagers at Glastonbury having compared our lists and sublists!

ML and Daisy Fancy you both going to the same college at the same time . What a small world indeed.

spot Really good to hear you sounding so well. Hurray for T being such a lovely baby.

ZJ I loved your post about your DD. Very sweet.

kayz Hope your first day back isn't too awful.

trace Fantastic news on P's sleeping. What a girl! Your work are being rather unreasonable expecting you to sort out childcare in a weekend. Bonkers!

Sorry for not saying hello to everyone, but I must go, DD has woken.

WG Your cousin's baby is clearly not a real baby at all but a baby robot with an off switch. That's a bizarrely long amount of time for a baby to sleep at this age isn't it??

Re "sleeping through the night" I think it's such a recent expectation. I don't think 17th century peasants said to each other "verily, is thine little babe sleeping through night? No? Hmm have you tried Dame Gina of the Ford?" (yup, you can tell I have a history degree can't you? It's the historical accuracy that gives it away, no..?) I'm sure biologically babies are not designed to go from eating every 3/4 hours in the day (if you're lucky) to suddenly conking out for 12 hours. If they do that's great but if they don't I think it's sad that we (or rather, HVs etc) see it as a problem. Though having said that I'd love a full nights sleep ...

Oh and re Germany, we just really love it. DH has a sabbatical from work for 4 weeks, so we wanted to go somewhere for the full time rather than travelling with BabyPanda, and we both really love Berlin.. so maybe this is a trial run and one day we'll live there.

Oh and kayzr I do hope today is ok.

Hi everyone

Its rather quiet on here at the moment. Where is everyone. Its quite sad not hearing from you all everyday. I know I have not been around much but hopefully things are getting back to normal now. Our little niece is still quite poorly and on dialysis but each day she seems a little perkier, we are just waiting for her to do a wee as its been over a week and will be a ery good sign when it happens. Yesterday she even sat up and did some colouring. It has been very hard seeing a little four year old so sapped of energy and just lying on abed hooked up to lots of machines. We have taken DD1 to see her (out of necessity) and it has freaked her out a little - she sits and stares at her sleeping cousin and then later asks hundreds of questions about the machines and the doctors etc. Anyway, yesterday was DD1's 3rd birthday party and it went brilliantly. I have to be very immodest and say I cooked the best caterpillar cake in the world EVER. It was a stunner and I even did glten free ladybird cupcakes for the allergic kids and DH created a range of marzipan fruits that had been nibbled by the caterpillar (how sad are we!). I will try and post a pic but there are some on FB already.

Spot - You do sound so much happier and that is lovely to hear. It is great that you have the insight to see that T has changed and that you mustn't let past experiences colour the present with him - I think that too often people don't get that insight after a difficult start. Well done you.

Trace - Fab news on P's sleeping. I am with you on the camping with kids though. I couldn't do it. I am also anti-camping at the moment as we think our niece got the e-coli from camping in a field where cows had previously grazed.

Kays - Wishing you lots of luck for your return to work today. I saw on FB that Verso starts her new job today too, so good luck Verso if you are lurking.

WG - As others have said its not that unusual for an 8 month old to wake twice a night and I am sure Madam will sort herself out soon. Its hard for you that it gets combined with insomnia too. I hope that clears quickly. Are you still considering TTC soon?

Kiwi - Have fun in Germany. I would just use a travel cot for a month with a blanket under the mattress for additional cushioning. You don't want to lug a whole mattress over there. I mean some people use travel cots permanently.

LadyT - Where are you????? I am beginning to worry that you have not survived the outlaws.

And welcome back Reban. Have we seen you at all since the antenatal thread? How goes things?

I am here! Going to do a catch up in a bit, once I have fed DD. The skydiving, the outlaws, DP worrying about money and more crap from work just about finished me off last week and so I am now just drumming up the wherewithal to, er, resume normal life really!

Back in a trice xxxxxxxxx

arti I'd missed that about your niece. Glad she seems to be picking up though.

Ladyt sounds like a horrific week for you, hope you're getting some tlc now.

Well work was alright. It has not changed at all. A few new members of staff and that was all.

My feet bloody ache though.

I have missed you all loads but I just need to vent for a few moments. Do forgive me:

Basically, work still haven?t come to a decision about how (or even whether) I can go back part time, and I am supposed to be returning in three weeks. And now they have asked for another meeting ? in a week?s time! I sent them a full proposal on 4 July and they are yet to respond to it. I don?t want another meeting (why should I pay a £27.50 trainfare for the privilege of having the rug pulled from under my feet with no witnesses again? I didn?t say this but it?s what I think) so I have asked them to respond by the end of the day. I could scream. I don?t want this to end in a tribunal ? I just want to do a job share and work two or three days a week. Given that the girl covering my maternity leave only works four days a week anyway I am sure we could come to an arrangement, I am not asking for the moon on a stick.

The outlaws were their usual irritating selves. I won?t bore you with specifics, but (for instance) they nagged us to see the house we are trying to buy so we drove there, parked up and showed them. They didn?t say one positive thing ? just carped on and on about it not having off street parking (like we care) and how it needs a lot of work (yes, it does. There is no way we?d be able to afford a period property that size, with a garden, in West Oxfordshire if it didn?t need a heck of lot of work. We count ourselves exceedingly fortunate to be able to buy a house at all, and sure, it?s not the same house we?d buy if we won the lottery, but if it goes through we will be utterly thrilled!

I ended up having a row with DP on Saturday, partly due to the strain of the preceding days, and he is stressed anyway as he is in a complete muddle with money (he is self employed and never seems to be on top of what is going out or coming in). I have got to try to take it all in hand and I just feel a bit annoyed ? he is 40 and should be able to manage his own finances by now, I really have got enough on my plate! But there we go. There are things I am rubbish at too. And if I was sure about the work stuff, things wouldn?t be so bad.

Pleased about the Ashes, though. And what a beautiful weekend it was, weather wise (around here, anyway!)

Oh ? went to HV for check up for DD (she is 9 months tomorrow!) ? all they did was see if she reached for a toy and weighed her. She is only just under 8kg so it is uncanny how she has stayed on the 25th centile since birth.

Arti ? I am so sorry to hear about your poor little niece. Must be beyond awful for her parents. I do see it must be difficult for your DD1 to understand. Crossing everything that things improve?Hugely impressed with the caterpillar cake and the semi-munched fruits (that is so cool) though secretly disappointed about the lack of a Russian Doll cake

SL ? glad you got your car sorted. You asked about formula and quantities ? DD is still on 3 x 240ml. She was on 3 x 210ml but DP upped it as she kept draining them and wanting more.

ZJ ? it sounds like you handled your Mum in a very positive and grown up way. I am impressed! Have things improved?

Kayz ? I am sorry you are sad about going back to work and doubly sorry that you?ll be losing out financially. Gosh, things are so flipping tough on working mothers. Hope your first day wasn?t too rotten.

JJ ? I loved your idea for a christening present - writing stories about the parents in a nice notebook. I hope my DD?s godfather doesn?t do that though, when we get round to having her christening I am keeping a travel diary for DD ? all the foreign places she visted in utero and then since she?s been born. Bit poncey I know.

Spot ? glad you enjoyed Mamaheaven. That?s so true about labelling babies ? in fact, it?s true about labelling PEOPLE in our minds, we all do it, don?t we? We have an idea of someone and never edit it. Brighton seems like a great place I must say, and how exciting to have a fresh start somewhere.

WG ? I am sorry about people and their wretched clumsy comments. I bet you just feel like telling them to huck off. Asking someone if their kid sleeps through is as redundant as asking them if they have got ginger hair yet ? they have or they haven?t, it?s just their make up. It doesn?t make them bad or you bad as of COURSE you know. But a killing bore for people to keep asking, especially if there is a whiff of schadenfreude/thinly veiled criticism. As Veggie said I always say, and I do ? babies are their own people and despite our attempts to bend them to our will, ultimately they do what they want as we can?t force them to eat or sleep, we can only suggest it and cross our fingers?Flip the bird to the naysayers and doommongers ? your DD is a gorgeous, vivacious child so hurrah for that. Oh, and people keep asking me if DD is crawling (not on your nelly is she, and no signs of it either), and I know it's not the same as sleep, but faintly irritating nonetheless...

Syb ? you share a birthday with my big sister! She?s quite a bit older than you though, 43 this year!

Right, there are people I have missed I know, but DD is wanting my attention?..sorry for the rant. It?s nice to be back!

Hey lady, lovely to hear from you as always although I'm sorry things are so tough for you. I have to say as much your DP is probably justifiably concerned about money, the menfolk do tend to get a little bit more stressed after they have a baby. I think as their natural instinct is to protect and provide for their offspring and do they feel inadequate if they are not able to instantly provide all the things they think their fluffy little bundles might require now and in the future. I took sometime for me to convince DH that a daddy that our DS1 sees often is better than a big house and a the best schools. I have been loathe to let him do contracting work because I know he will take on too much. Could your DP talk to an accountant. We looked at some that were around £30-70 a month.

Also Lady I'm glad my fellow country men gave you such joy, and yes it was a gorgeous weekend. Also with the sleeping/crawling questions, why on earth can't people stop asking questions and just say 'what a beautiful little person' (because all the dec 2008 babies are).

another flying visit from me - all these summer hols and making your own entertainment. We are even reduced to walking down to the station to watch the trains . Playpark in 5 mins.

LadyT: I think you deserve a v large, poss pink, gin for putting up with all of that.

Kayz: I too will be worse off when I get back to work. Mad, isn't it? I have organised my return date, I am officially back on the 12 October. The good news is that I have 2 weeks paid leave before I start. I'm going back for a few days in Sep as well to get my brain back in gear (could be tricky).

Oh and Arti I think it is good that you took your DD1 to see her cousin, I think it's often best to be honest with them. If you are stuck with the questions you could always ask the nurses or play specialists how to explain things to her. The play specialists may even have some colouring things for your DD1 to help her deal with it. When caring for kids we expect to be there for the whole family, even extended family.

Just a question for the people with older LC's I have been going through the cards and things from DS1's birthday and have been a little surprised that most of them are written by his little friends, most of whom are also 4. The writing is very legible too, but DS1 is still just doing the tracing around the doted letters, he is no where near writing letters much past A (first letter of his name) and K. Yet these kids are not just writing letters but obviously spelling words too! Is DS1 backwards somehow, I'm sure I wasn't writing til I was 6 very late 5 year old at the earliest. DH keeps reminding me that he didn't go to school until he was 10, but I'm just worried I should be doing more. He is very good with his numbers (they have started him on decimals at nursery school) but can only just write a few numbers.

Veggie: completely agree, DH is def in caveman-provider mode and gets v stressed at the fact that he's brining in our sole income at the moment. I used to deal with all the bills and extract cash from him at the end of the month (we don;t have a joint account), now he's dealing with it all and he finds it v stressful.

Veggie: personally I think learning to write at 4 is a bit mad . But if they're at nursery I think they push it earlier. Personally I would worry less about writing and more about social and life skills at this stage - a much better prep for school than writing your name!

veggie I agree with Effie, ds1 also has some friends who can write but he doesn't. And he hasn't shown any interest in it either, if he did then I would encourage it but I'm not going to force him! There's plenty of time & he will pick it up pretty quickly once he gets to school I imagine.

lady work sound particularly horrific . Do you have someone you can take with you for the meeting? Or have someone in employment law/hr who can advise you?

Thanks Effie, I had another look at the cards and realized it's the kids who are at nursery fulltime that are writing their names and one has a very high achieving mum. DS1 is there til midday and only going for a year so I shouldn't be so worried I guess. Socially he's brilliant, he has his dads easy charm.

It al reminded me of something I saw the other day. I took the boys to our local, very excelllent Museum and art gallery. They were doing a theme day about camoflage and they had different activities for kids around the theme of camoflage. Anyway one of the activities was a colouring thing were they gave out a little cut out moth that the kids had to colour to match their own clothes so they could pin it on themselves and it would be camoflaged on their shirts. They also gave them a cut out of an army helmet that they could colour in with the desert or jungle camoflage colours they had seen in previous activities. Anyhoo DS1 quite enjoyed talking about the colours with me and I helped him choose the colours for the helmet and he matched up done colours to colour in his moth from his shirt. He's not quite up to full colouring in and going within the lines and all that so he did a bit of a scribble and that was it but he enjoyed it and got the gist of the camoflage thing (if you ask him what camoflage is, he will duly reel off 'hiding with colour!' right now sorry I'm digressing, when we went up to present out moth to the lady to get it's pin to pin on DS1's top, I noticed another boy of about 6 with his mum and he had the helmet to colour in. Only, he wasn't actually colouring anything, he had a textapen, poised ready to colour but his mum was hogging the helmet and very carefully colouring it herself. The poor little fella looked so sad, and I kind of felt the mum had kind of missed the point of the exercise.

veggie I've seen a lot of parent-hogging lately. Our library has been doing various craft things over the summer, & I've often seen parents take over completely & do the activity. I guess they just want the perfect result rather than the fun of the process?!

Speaking of the library, must head off there now. Have some books to return & ds1 is doing a summer reading scheme so he needs to tell the librarian about the story & he gets stickers for his poster this time!

Tilly: DS1 is doing that scheme, only he clams up and looks confused when asked about his books! I confess to being a craft hogging mum, but only cos DS1 will do a quick scribble then run off to find something with wheels on, leaving me to happily potter with glue and glitter for as long as I can get away with it .

Oh and I saw a Google Eath recording bicycle thing in the park. While I was bfeeding DS2. Ahem .

Just a quick hello. So sorry it's been so long. We had a lovely holiday but then DS got ill on the way home and he's been quite poorly ever since. Am not sure what's wrong with him but I haven't had much help with childcare, and DH chose last week to be a complete ass so time for mumsnetting severely hampered. I missed you all though. And did read a bit while we were in France but every time I tried to post it got lost so gave up after a while.

Veggie I thought of you as the only thing that would cheer DS up when he was really sick was watching cars....

Arti am really sorry to hear about your niece. Hope she's improving

LadyT grr grr and grr at your work. And in laws. We have just FIL coming to us this weekend because my MIL would rather spend weekend with her dog than grandchildren.. I kid you not.

Happy birthday syb and hurrah for brighton idea spot. Would love to live there but commute is too far.

kayz how was work? and trace am massively impressed you went camping for 1 night.

Better go...count down to chuggington. Possibly most annoying programme on cbeebies but DS loves it and spends from 5pm asking me if the big hand is on the nine yet. will try and catch up with everything else later. sorry I've missed people. But nice to be back

Ooh, got back as far as Spot's message: some good friends of ours are buying a flat in Brighton and one is seriously considering standing as an MP, so if he gets the chance DH may be doing a spot of campaigning that way! (he's a lovely bloke and even I would consider voting for him ). I think it would be a lovely place to live, at you being by the sea. Good train service too. When are you moving?

Effie You'll have to have a look in few days!!

Lal Work was ok. I was really bored though, I think after 5 years I am maybe a bit sick of the place and the fact it hasn't really changed. I was talking to Dad who worked for the same company for over 30 years before being made redundent(sp) and he said that it was the people rather than the job. I have got to agree, I think if a lot of the people had left then I wouldn't have gone back.

Oh Effie what your doing is just pursuing an artistic outlet. The glue and glitter is fair game if they run off to pursue snails/sticks/cars in this case though the women was actually hogging the colouring in. I actually bought myself an adult colouring in book I found I loved doing it so much, so DS1 and I sometimes colour together.

Lovely to see you Lal. Cars and it's ever expanding range of merchandise is still very much a part of our lives. It is still so good for poorly boys.

Mmm, my mum had the Flower Fairies colouring books and would happily spend ages colouring them in while we pottering about with crafty bits. That's one thing I do miss with having boys, DS1 is absolutely not interesting in crafts at all, whereas my sister and I did all sorts (thanks to Mum who took up a new craft every month or so before she got bored abd went on to something else ). I just can;t see the boys sitting down and making things from scraps and cardboard, I tried doing sock monsters with DS1 the other day and it was not a great success. He liked the roaring but not the sewing, then DH realised I had used one of his new socks and I got into trouble

veggiemummy there are adult colouring-in books!? Where can I get one!?

effie, if they leave it then it is fair game! I think I'm a bit like your mum, move from one craft to another, current obsession is knitting. Fortunately, ds1 quite enjoys craft especially if it involves glue or in other words, making a mess

veggie what are these adult colouring books? I want one too!!

kayz glad work wasn't too bad in the end, must agree that its the people who make it enjoyable

Bugger, ds1 up again, 3rd time now