Sept 08: The End of an Amazing year

[Pacita]

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

Hi again.

lovely pictures everyone, i'll put some holiday ones one when they're downloaded.

Good to hear that it went well meglet

It was DH's BIL who died suddenly at 49 of a heart attack, so all the family are rallying around to support his sister. Their 2 kids are 24 and 27

They lived in Saudi, but she's come straight home and it sounds as if they company he worked for are oing everything back there to help. It could be 2 or 3 weeks before he comes home though which is hard.

I don't like the fact that everyone in DH's family eats rubbish (and tried to give it to M too but they do dote on her.

M seems to have really come on this week. She can stand up for AGES by herself now and walks along just holding onto one finger. DD1 walked at 10.5 months and I thought M would be way behind but now I'm not so sure.However, she's so independent now that I've been really struggling to get her into a high chair or to eat. She has had a cough and cold all week so I'm hoping it's that. I also hope that's why she's been waking up more frequently.

She's also really chatty and it does sound like words. An na when she sees something she wants to eat, night night, mamamamama, daddy, but I'm sure I'm just interpreting this! She also points at anything she wants, where she wants to go - it's really funny.

Can i be a proud mum about dd1 too who by the end of the holidat was diving down 2m to pick up things from the bottom of the pool

No birthday party plans here, although I guess we'll have to do something to make DD1 happy! My family aren't the type to come to something like that, so maybe a picnic with other friends with kids.

Better go as MIL's house is not baby proofed and M is wrecking it. It'll be ages before anyone else is up tho so have time to tidy

digital I agree with meglet, a swing in the garden is a great idea. DS2 sits in is for ages while I hang out the washing or play cricket/rugby/croquet/football with ds1.
The swing was ds1s 1st birthday present and well worth every penny. Oh and if you get 1 I think full height is best, the half height ones don't last very long.

meglet ds1 was also scared of Thomas the 1st tim he saw him because he didn't expect him to be so big!

very sad news ninja, sounds like all the family are pulling together though.
Well done your dd1, impressive diving 2m!

Lovely to see you Barnpot, and GREAT news about Els

So sorry to hear about your BIL Ninja, how very sad.

I hope you have been resting today Meglet

DH and I may be going out ALONE on Weds evening. It's the first time since the 08.09.08

I want a garden. . We're thinking of moving next spring to somewhere with a sensible garden (instead of a teeny courtyard), but it will mean moving out of the centre of town, which is an incredibly convenient place to be, especially with small children.

Ninja sorry to hear about your BIL.

Those who are TTC/playing fast and loose with the contraception, are you concerned about swine flu? Apparently in Oz they are recommending that pregnant women wear masks and avoid crowds, which is rather different from the UK information. I'm also enormously alarmed by the news that routine ceasareans could be cancelled if the NHS comes under too much pressure from swine flu. If that happens, I am mortgaging my soul and going to the Portland or something - no way am I risking another natural delivery!

Ninja, very sad news about your BIL. I hope at least he can be brought home soon.

Hopefully, let alone swine flue, just the financial crisis biting put a stop in our TTC. Contraception is firmly in place. I hope things are rosier before I reach my sell-by date.

I want a garden too. The crisis also put a stop in our house hunting.

However, nothing can be too grim today, as Diego has sprouted his first tooth. You can just feel a small serrated fang in his lower jaw - but you can hardly see it, hence his dad does not believe me. But it's there!

I am not planning to ttc yet, but if I was I wouldn't give the whole swine flu a second thought. I may be extra vigilant with boosting my immune system, but nothing more than that

I doubt many csections would be cancelled. The post-natal wards wouldn't be used for non post-natal patients because of the risk of infections being passed to new babies (any infections MRSA, c-diff for example).

I should imagine general non urgent surgical procedures MAY be cancelled, but not csections.

Hurrah Diego - I really needed a toothy grin emoticon there, didn't I?!

But I guess the issue is staff - I know the hospitals are planning for a scenario of up to 80% of staff off.

Pacita is it the cost of childcare that will be the issue? It's so horrendous - one of my friends is actively planning a 5 year age gap as she cannot afford 2 in full time childcare, so wants the first in school before having the pay out for the second.
We're in the extremely fortunate position of being able to afford a teeny weeny bit of childcare for 2, which is really all I'll need. DP might have to do a bit of evening/weekend responsibility if I keep this freelance contract, but it's not a massive amount of work, and if I get another one I can afford a little bit more childcare. And so on.

Think T is going to be too ill to go to CM tomorrow, which means DP will have to take the day off work as I have to get a bit of work finished by thursday. Poor little chap (T, not DP) has completely lost his voice and is generally feeling very pathetic.

Does it feel more like October than July in the rest of the country? I actually contemplated putting the heating on earlier, and we live on the south coast!

Oh, and thank you for swine flu thoughts! It is most unlike me to work myself up about these things. I think the fear of being pushed into a natural delivery is the biggest worry, but at the end of the day DP and I have four parents between us, and they would lend us the money to go private if necessary. It's so ridiculous, but I am so terrified of another natural delivery. If CSs were made illegal tomorrow, T would be an only child.

LOL, Hopefully, I'm sure you'll be able to have a CS. Are you by any chance TTC???

It's not just childcare, it's that I will need to work in case things go pear shape in my dp's company. And I don't think it's fair to have 2 kids and be working full time...

Ideally I would find some freelance or a part time job.

How does one do it? I have been freelance for years and years, but I did work all hours in the day. I can't do that any more with a baby to look after.

Hopefully I doubt very much they will cancel 'routine' c-sections, unless it genuinely is the 'too posh to push' brigande and I'm not sure they even exist outside the Daily Mail.
ie if it's too risky for a woman to give birth naturally (eg my sister), then a c-section is planned. If it was cancelled however, the baby must come out and it ends up being an e c-section if the risk to mum is too great. From what you went through, that must apply to you surely.
Anyhoo, even if you got pg now, you wouldn;t be due till next spring and they reckon the worst cases will come this winter. I just thank heavens C wasn't born a year later than she was!

Ninja sorry to hear of your family troubles. You just never know what life throws at you. My dad died when he was 44 - that seems scarily close to my age now.
Since C started weaning I've started eating so much better as mainly my food has to be suitable for her. So, no salt (except on my tomatoes - can't resist!), lots more fruit and fish. We always ate loadsa veg. But DP is another matter. He hates the fact that we don't use salt in cooking anymore (ex-chef, go figure) and I do worry that he sometimes eats crap like sausage rolls. I think I'd like to TTC in about another year or so, so need to get us fit for then!!

We've had a few nights of crap sleep here too (a first for us!) - C's had a cold and seems to be swallowing lots of mucus as her poos are awful and she has little appetite. She also has 3 teeth!! 2 bottom and one top one.
But despite teething, a cold and no sleep, this morning she went to her nana's and when DP left, did not cry at all - a first.
She's also not crawling but has got very good at rolling. I came out of the shower on Friday to find she had rolled over to DP's chest of drawers, pulled it open and started to pull all his neatly folded work t-shirts out

meglet hope the recovery is going well - watch some lovely trashy films!

Pacita the whole work/life balance is a bugger, isn't it? We're not TTCing, but have been relying (TMI) on the completely unreliable withdrawal method the last couple of times, and we're vaguely thinking we might TTC from next month. Although me getting this freelance contract throws things up in the air a bit, as it would be good for me to get a good 6 months under my belt before informing them I'm pregnant again, so they've got some motivation to keep the slot open for me.

lol at C pulling out dps shirts iom and that she didn't cry at nana's today

we found ds2 surrounded by nappies in his cot the other day, he'd pulled them all out of the bag at the bottom of his cot before his nap.

Off on holiday for 2 weeks tomorrow (well me and the boys are, dh comes out on Thurs). Portugal with the in-laws. really looking forward to it but am bit nervous about driving to the villa so won't relax till we're actually there.

debi you have my sympathy - we hired a car in the Algarve last year and the portugese drive like men possessed! I've only seen worse driving in Dubai!
But if it's just one drive to a villa, I'm sure you'll be OK, just be confident but not over-confident!

Work/life balance is hard. I don;t think I'd contemplate working F/T if my employer wasn't so flexible. I have no commute as I work from home and work flexitime which makes things much easier. DP is self-employed too, so he has no boss to report to. I have friends in RL who really struggle with the 9-5 in an office set up. One of my friends actually works in the nursery that C goes to and her DS goes there too. She works F/T in the 3 yr olds' room and DS is in the baby room. So it doesn;t confuse him, she doesn't go and visit him during the day. I sometimes think this is harder than working elsewhere - to know he's just a few feet away but you can't see him, even when on lunch etc is hard.

I think if we conceived late 2010 that would be OK as by the time I went back to work, C would be almost 3 and then qualify for 3 or 4 half days a week of free nursery. That + childcare vouchers is the only way we'd afford it.

Oh and a friend in New Zealand who had her DS a week after C, went back to work in April and has just found out she's pregnant again.
This is not actually a great thing, as the law in NZ is that if you get pregnant and you've not been been back from previous maternity leave for 12m before you go off again, then your employer doesn't have to keep your job for you!

So, cos she conceived about a month too soon, she'll lose her job after her next lot of maternity leave. That's quite harsh I thought.

Blimey, and there was me thinking NZ was a family friendly place

Have a great holiday Debi. Don't worry too much about the driving, you'll be fine.

I know a lady whose baby is 4 weeks younger than ds and she's expecting at the end of next month! She's hoping the baby holds on until Sept so they are in different school years

Hopefully it should be ok. I did do a bit of the driving in the Algarve 2 years ago so at least I have driven on the wrong side of the road before. It's about a 50 min drive from Lisbon airport which looks fairly straight forward.

Blimey ILTMIMI that is a very small gap! I've got a friend who's ds2 was born on their ds1's 1st birthday and thought that was about as small a gap as you'd see.

Hopefully we were using the withdrawal method for 6 months until we had an accident!
It is so unreliable as men can't contol themselves. Parents used it as well and Dad got Mum pregnant on purpose twice. Once to stop her going to a works do and again to help her get over my grandads death. I was born nine months after the funeral. It did give the family something tolook forward to so I was good for something

tbh I haven't really considered the cost of childcare for two. Perhaps because I don't have a permanent job I can't really foresee how I can plan for it yet. I'm hoping DH's business will bring in more money (they're in the process of expanding). Then I can continue with this 'sort of working part-time on and off'.

I refuse to plan anything 'for two DC' till that BFP takes me by surprise - I spent far too long obsessing over finances last time and it took longer than I thought so I ended up blowing a load of savings on a holiday that I couldn't enjoy (you may remember).

My Dsis is up for her first X Factor Boot Camp culling tomorrow. She's been put into a group of three and if any of them sing badly, all three get kicked out. This may be where the dream ends.

Thanks for the swing idea - sounds like a perfect 1st birthday pressie!

debs75 Your dad!

meglet I hope the recovery is going well. How are the eyebrows looking?

I have been SO TIRED with working on the garden project every spare moment. On Sunday DH offered to look after DD while I was working in the garden. At one point I went upstairs to get something and found they were both asleep, and I suddently felt so tired so I just tumbled in to bed myself. When I got up DH said, DW, the mud!! I then realised that I had tumbled into bed wearing the trousers in which I had been sitting on the bare dirt while sorting bricks! Can you imagine the state of the clean white sheets??

I went to the local playgroup for the first time today. DD really loved it and had a great time. But there was a singalong at the end that was truly too much for me! It was just like that scene from Cold Feet where Adam doesn't know the words to the songs, and is behind with all the actions. They were singing something about an orange tractor making hay, and each time you said hay you had to put your hands in the air and yell HAY! I decided at that point that DD needed a nappy change.

Can someone post a link to the swing you are referring to?

digi rooting for your dsis and crossing fingers, legs and toes! You must tell us when she's on telly. I can picture you and Alfredo in the TV studio audience with matching T-shirts.

Yes, withdrawal. This highly reliable method is responsible for Diego's existence. I have to like it. He's the best unplanned thing that has ever happened to me.

What is BFP? I've heard it so many times, and would you believe I still don't know what it is? Doh.

Ponymum - finally someone who remembers that scene from Cold Feet. I love singing groups, but everytime I'm at one (and especially if I see a dad there) I think of that episode and have a little chuckle to myself. It's particularly relevant I feel when your lo is asleep beside you and you still end up jopining in!!

pacita I didn't know either - it's Big Fat Positive

Thanks ninja.