Sept 08: The End of an Amazing year

[Pacita]

Here we are: the thread that will see our LO's first birhtday...

Have been at my mother's all week, am praying for T to have a long nap this afternoon so I can catch up! He was brilliant, apart from waking a couple of times at 5/6am, and I made jam/chutney/dried fruit from the apple and plum trees in her garden. I've preserved 42lb of apples over the last 5 days!

Which is a bushel of apples, incidentally...

Yes Ninja Baby Starlight took a big bite out of DS' naked bottom. He was so intrigued by it he spent the next half hour trying to bite his own bottom

This is a she pee. It's a moulded plastic funnel with one end shaped to fit against your lady bottom so you can pee standing up like a boy. It was so weird but so liberating. I just unzipped my fly, pushed my knickers to one side and voila! The hardest part was trusting that it would actually catch all the pee. I had visions of being stuck on the moors with sodden pants. But it worked fine; didn't spill a drop. It will be great for winter walking - no more pulling down my pants in the cold and snow.

We went to play group again this morning. One of the mums who I don't know gave me a party invitatyion labelled "Friend". Is this normal? I am just trying to get the hang of mummy group etiquette !

lol ponymum no it isn't normal, but she probably can't remember names or spell them. I very rarely remember the names of the mums anyhow.

I'm very that you have playgroups in the summer. All ours are shut!

Is anyone else organised for their dc's 1st birthdays yet? I keep forgetting that dd is one next week and I haven't arranged a thing.

I think my neurotic parenting is rubbing off on ds. We were playing with his dress up dolly this morning and once we had dressed it DS said he had to put sun cream on it before he was allowed out to 'play' .

I have decided I should try and bake a cake for a trial run this week and we have 3 weeks to go.
We are just having my sis over with her kids and my mum for a little tea party, nothing really special.

Finally got our trampoline up today, has been sitting half in the shed for nearly 2 years. Me and DP are shattered and he has blisters so I hope DS is happy when he gets home.

Only 2 weeks left before the kids are back at school am looking forward to some quiet time and some routine.

I keep forgetting that ds2's birthday is next week. The house stuff has been taking up most of my brain space (for sale sign is up and we're on agents website and rightmove) since we got back from hol.
Also he's getting dedicated at church on Sept 13th and quite a few of our family are coming down so I think I keep thinking his birthday is then!
Clearly I'm not the most intelligent person around atm.

No - not organised for M's birthday. DD1 wants me to have a party so that she can invite one friend round so I better think about it.

M just did the sweetest thing. The cat waiting near his bowl for some more dinner and M must have noticed this as she went to where we keep the cat food, picked up a sachet, walked over to the cat bowl and shook the sachet over the bowl (then looked very confused when the food didn't comeout ) -

I gave her some broccoli and told her to put it in the Guinea Pig cage - which she did.

She could be quite useful if I train her right

The

The shewee was on Dragon's Den, I rememeber it ... they rejected it

Hi all, back from the wilds of Kent Had a great time, but Toby was really out of routine and it was hard going tbh. Teething again, methinks and he wants Mummy ALL THE TIME...aarrgh.

DS1 back at school in 2 weeks and still got LOADS to sort out....where did the summer go?

hopefully Blimey! am v impressed with your domestic goddess-ness

ninja that is very cute

DS1 says he's going to use some of the money from his moneybox to buy ds2 a present for his birthday. I suggested it first and was surprised when he agreed.

I'm back!

Had a lovely time at the wedding and caught up with lots of school friends. It was definitely the right decision to come back on saturday night, I think getting home at 1:30am we probably still had more sleep than sharing a room with both dcs the night before!
We're seriously considering putting the dcs in to share a room when we move house, they loved it and they'll have to share if there is ever a dc3 anyway.

It was good to see my friends husband yesterday, although I cried all over him while he remained cool! We're hopefully going round for a playdate later in thh week. Funeral is a week on wednesday.

Ds is 11m tomorrow. He's getting quicker at spinning round on the floor, and makes serious attempts at pulling himself up on furniture, but there's no crawling, and he can't work out how to get his feet up under himself. Bad parenting moment tonight. DH was reading bedtime stories and I suddenly noticed that ds, me, the carpet and his book were all covered in blood we eventually narrowed it down to a paper cut on his index finger! I couldn't stop the bleeding and after two attempts, dh and i got a plaster onto his finger. There was so much cleaning up to do!

Tonight I'm making ds's dedication invites and watching saturday's x-factor, hooray! I agree with comments about the judges, they say things to people that you just wouldn't say in any other context, and make a whole arena (and nation) laugh at them.

We're wondering about having the boys share a room in our new house too (if we ever find one). We were thinking that if the living room and dining room aren't that big- so not much toy space- or if the 3rd bedroom is smallish that we might put them both in the small room and have the 2nd bedroom as a playroom.

I've just finished watching x-factor too. I don't like the live audience. The guy at the end was verygood.

Oh and don't worry about bad parenting Carrie, tonight ds2 has a bruise on his face- fell on a duplo brick- and a burst lip- was trying to eat his plastic rocking horse thing.

lol at Ponymum's extreme she-wee use

So sorry to hear about your dad Meglet, I hope there is treatment out there for him.

And so sorry to hear about your friend Carriebo. Life really is too cruel at times.

Sorry for disappearing. Ds was taking food and milk by lunchtime after scaring us in the morning. I did call our local out of hours doc (like nhs direct but will book us in for an appt after an over the phone diagnosis) but in the end ds was fine.
I on the other hand have caught whatever he had, spent all morning feeling ropey and then repeated ds's performance with great force in the work loos. Feeling better but now dh has gone down and is suffering worse than I was.

Glad to hear dd is better ponymum

and your lo too pacita starlight have you had your hv come round to check on your poor neglected half starved baby starlight?! Talking of feeding on demand. Ds has got far more demanding lately. Obviously he's making up for missed time will I've been at work but I've never known him to be so forthright in his demands (climbing up onto me and attempting to feed through my top till I get the hint)!

Ok here's my x factor review: stacey, good; joe, boring and weak; girl in bikers suit, not very good; dwayne, great; danyl, amazing but I think he's blown it by peaking too soon. Although my sis says she doesn't think so, she reckons he'll definitely get through to the lives. I'm not going to dignify creepy Irish twins with a review, with all the talent they've come across they're still playing the novelty card, it's unnecessary.

Digi I'm horrified that I will be in Greece next Saturday and will miss XF. I so hope they put your sis on the site so that I can check the performance online. Of course, I'll be logging in to MN, so be sure to post up a commentary!

DG I agree with you on all counts except that I really liked Stacey! Ditzy girls normally wind me up soooo much but there was something very endearing about her. Sorry you've been ill too

Tonight was the first in a new experiment. I've been giving ds his dinner earlier and earlier in the hope that he'd take more milk at bedtime, but he only ever takes about 2oz. So tonight i gave him dinner late with the rest of the family, and no milk at all. I am worried about his milk intake, I give him a bottle first thing in the morning, and after his nap not coz he wants it but coz its the only time he'll take it. And other than a few sips from a doidy cup its his only fluid in the day. So he's only having 9oz milk a day, plus what's on his breakfast and in his food. It doesn't seem enough. But he will not drink out of any beaker, and I've bought a lot!!

DG No, neglected baby visit is on Wednesday morning. She told me she'd be very cross if I have cleaned and tidied up. I can tell you now that she will be very cross that I haven't.

Carrie Does your ds take water with food?

Urgh, we are in nappy crisis again - the beautiful itti bitti nappies are leaking, possibly because T is so chubby that I can't do them up tightly enough! I can't face the thought of replacing the whole nappy wardrobe, but changing his clothes twice a day is really getting irritating.

T drinks loads of milk and water, so no advice carriebo! In fact, I'm wondering whether I should restrict a bit more so that he wees less

carriebo Are you stil bf or just ff?
I'm stil bf on demand but trying to introduce some cups of water and milk but she isn't very interested. Prob gets about 2 oz of fluid. I know she gets enough from me so shouldn't be too worried but have decided to start weaning her off her 'booby juice' when she turns 1. I figure by Xmas she will be off it completely.
I should hope that if he gets thirsdty he will try and get some fluid.

I leave a tommee tippee freeflow cup in each room within Baby Starlight's reach and she just helps herself when she is thirsty. When she wants milk she comes and headbangs me and starts an annoying whinge-cry thing.

DS has always drunk water very well but I've found a style of cup that has him guzzling water.

They are cups that have a flip up straw here and most importantly they don't bloody wee drip EVERYWHERE.

He loves the novelty of a using a straw so drinks loads. An absolute godsend when the weather was hot on holiday.

I still use his doidy cup at mealtimes.

We only realised by accident that he could use a straw when he grabbed one of our drinks and started using it straight away.

wee drip??

well drip