March 08: We're about to get our first little sister or brother!

[turtle23]

Thought I'd start a new thread as as soon as evie pops we're bound to fill it hugely and some of us have phones to work with!

Great to meet merryberry, littleducks and ewe yesterday. I had a lovely time and so did dd, she enjoyed all of your lovely LO's too it seemed.

Pumpkin painting sounds fun. I carved up a pumpkin last weekend and its already going all funny and decaying and its not even Halloween yet...bah.

MM- congratulations! sounds like you may have set off another bout of the preggers on this thread...

how long do they last when done? have three sitting on my patio. sigh but i hear you can download templates and make really funky cut outs ok. and! of course i can actually grip the knife this year, i'm doing loads of things which are chore-ish with absolute pleasure just because i can do them again.
bored of floor mopping tho

flying by - mm congratulations
turtle - can't believe you're nearly there - good luck and how exciting....
HQ - perhaps the best way to have number 2 is like that - a big suprise - if you planned it might be harder? anyway hope it works out which ever way you want.

Love to all

Well according to somerfield magazine it is national sleep in day something I would be a million times more receptive to celebrating than Halloween atm.......the irony being that the only reason I am reading somerfield magazine is because ds has been up since 5am

will be back later to chat properly, i think today will be a long day

littleducks-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...I shall remember that for the year 2020. I figure that's when I will be able to start having a lie-in.

turtle should we have our own meet up, say 5.45am one day at a motorway service station with a 24hr starbucks

(hollow laugh)

I'm back.
Hideous, hideous week. But...everything got finished, all deadlines were met, and last night I got to bed before two am for the first rime since last Saturday. (By before two, I mean that I conked out on the sofa at half nine)

I really feel for those of you with early risers. Do you at least get nap breaks in the daytime?

HQ - any more news on the house?

Congratulations, mm!

Next weekend the in laws are picking Ff up on Friday, and bringing her back on Monday. Bloke and I have big plans, such as watching Saturday kitchen in pjs, and sitting in the pub on Sunday afternoon...I can't wait!

Dilemma...my Grandmother died today. I would imagine that the funeral will be in a week or so and I will be 38 weeks. Would you go? Is going to be near Birmingham so very long way to travel if things...umm...happen...

oh, im sorry for your loss turtle, i think you could go to the funeral if you wanted/felt the need to but on all accounts being 38 weeks pg with a toddler is a fair reason why it would be acceptable not to. Would P have to go or could you rope his dad into babysitting while you did a day trip by train?Alternatively are ther other family up there could you go in a month or so to visit the grave with new baby?

Ffreckle, i dont seem to have had any assignments to do over half term but the weeks before consisted of some 'up till 2 writing essays' nights and bless my mum who proof read one after a really late night and managed to extremly tactfully say something about sentence structure being a bit long winded when what she really meant was this paragraph makes no sense whatsoever were you actually awake when you wrote it...

Ewe did you get an invite to Stella/gap thingy, i did but arent sure if i can go as dh has been signed off work sick and kids seem to flip between at deaths door and running around full of energy multiple times in the day atmm

So sorry, Turtle. Must be so hard for you. Re. funeral-how would you manage it. If H was with you, driving, then I imagine it is achievable. Otherwise, you have every excuse to stay at home, and as Littleducks points out, you can visit the grave when bump is with us.

Littleducks, essays suck! I copy-edit for a living, so if you need someone to cast an eye over your work to ruthlessly cut edit just email me.

Turtle - so sorry about your grandmother. I had a similar thing when 39 weeks pg. DH's beloved nan (he was very very close to her, and I was too) died a few weeks before DS was born and her funeral was a few days before my due date about 90 mins drive from us. DH's parents made it very clear that they were not expecting me to go, but I said I would decide on the day as I really wanted to. I wasn't well enough on the day - been in the hosp a but for tests and monitoring over the previous week and was exhausted - so didn't go. DH went on his own but I stayed home. It was hard but the right thing, and nobody wanted me to be uncomfortable or feel obliged to do anything as the health and wellbeing of me and DS was much more important (to everyone in the family, not just me) at that point than paying my respects there and then.

Once the headstone was up, DH and I went to visit where her ashes were buried. It was really lovely to take DS to see where his grandnan was buried and made me feel a whole lot better about having missed the funeral as I was finally able to pay my respects and leave flowers.

The important thing when someone close to you dies is to pay your respects and set aside some time to think about them and honour them. The funeral is the obvious place to do it but it is not the only place. Could you go to a local church on the day and light a candle for her, and say a prayer if you pray? And then take both DSs to wherever she is buried or remembered, with flowers, when it is easier for you.

House move disaster here. Person at bottom of chain decided on Friday (day we were due to exchange) that she was feeling too stressed and under pressure to exchange and needed more time to think. She won't tell her vendors (our buyers) until tomorrow how much time she needs... She's spent all the money, the paperwork is all in place - isn't a bit too late to now think about it? I do feel like finding her address and going round to say "you're a first time buyer with no dependents and you feel stressed? try having a husband who's just started a stressful new job so the house move is mostly on you who is trying to also look after a toddler who you need to sort out a nursery place for, you have a house to sell as well as buy, and a nanny who knows you are probably making her redundant just before Christmas but you can't yet tell her when she'll be free to find a new job because some idiot at the bottom of the chain is feeling a little bit stressed". Honestly, some people have no bloody backbone!

So we opened our house up to more viewings yesterday as I have no faith that this woman really wants to exchange, and we got two full asking price offers within 2 hours!!! At least it means we have options if stresshead pulls out, but i'd rather this chain goes through as i don't want to run the risk of losing our dream house because of some wimp at the bottom of the chain forcing us to delay everything and thus disgruntling our vendors...

Sigh.

Rant over, deep breath, cup of tea required.

HQ x

Thanks HQ. I have now been told that it wont be til week after next so am not going. She would understand.

That is awful about the house...doesn't she know that she's affecting EVERYBODY? Hope it all goes ok, or that if she pulls out you get a no-chain full offer angel who steps in in time!

hi guys, turtle i'm sorry for your loss

hq fingers crossed for you xfx

Oh turtle I am so sorry for your loss. FWIW I think it is best you don't travel that far at that many weeks pregnant, I am sure everyone will understand.

HQ that sounds like a bloody nightmare, wouldn't be moving house if it wasn't stressful and even more annoyingly out of your control.

ld - yep, am going to the Stella thing, come along! Would be good to see a friendly a face!

turtle how are you doing? Sorry to hear about your gran
Can't remember if I ever sent you the link to these but if you still need a bit of help, I've met Dany & heard the mp3s & they're great.

HQ keep focussing on the deal going through, the good news is you have 2 other offers, so even if she does pull out, the other potential buyers could negotiate to buy the survey off her if she paid for one. mind you, I don't know what you have to pay for as a buyer now with all the HIPS stuff.

Spent an enjoyable weekend in Oxford, not leaving the hotel until yesterday 4pm to see the sights! Was on a HypnoBirthing Infant Massage instructor training course, now trying to work out when in my 6 1/2 day week I'll have time to fit that in! Got an evil doll to demonstrate on. E isn't sure what to make of it yet, he's a bit freaked by the eyes, but keeps prodding it and saying "baba"

Ladies, would you mind spreading the word, have set up a charity thread for the doggie thing
here

Is it bedtime yet? Made the catastrophic error of taking the 'it's a one off and won't do any harm approach' at a toddler group Hallowe'en party this morning and let Ff consume an unspeakable amount of sugar. It'll be fine, thought I. She'll run around with the others and then sleep it off after lunch. It is entirely my fault - peer pressure (I didn't want to be the snobby mum who says no) and an unshakeable belief in routine saving the day (as it's never failed me before today) - but Jesus, what an afternoon.

My particular high point was her running from the kitchen chasing the dogs, crashing two pan lids like cymbals and barking at them. She is currently (having been awake since 7 this morning) using the coffee table to climb onto the arm of the sofa, them dive head first across the sofa. Boydog is trying to sleep on said sofa, but keeps getting bounced on.

Girldog has now learned to jump the five foot fence in the garden, so can't go outside unsupervised, so I've lost my option of just putting the dogs outside when having the three of them clattering round our (little) house gets too mental.

I know in the grand scheme of it I have it easy, but I am GAGGING for a cold glass of white wine.

Sorry, rant over. As you were.

HQ here. New name (DS's favourite book) as I have no control over anything else. Chain going right royally pear-shaped despite everyone supposedly being ready last Friday. Involves intricacies of leasehold law (FfFf - have you done that bit yet? ) and various bits of damp and woodworm. None of which is on the house we are selling the house we are buying, so all our information is second hand and hearsay. Aaaargh.

Seeing as we will now be bloody lucky to be in at Christmas as leasehold alone will apparently take weeks, and seeing as our mortgage offer only runs until early Jan, the chances of us getting our dream house for life are no more than about 50:50 and receding fast I think.

Sigh.

oh meg what a disaster! i think you need an evening to say "Bollocks to them all" and a chance to relax, i'd avoid Ffreckles house as a chillout zone though that has got to be the funniest image ever

I didn't get to go to London and meet Stella McC the kids are still swinging between fine and ill, so another whole week of preschool for dd (waiting for tests results from gp) just when i thought i had half term sussed, dh signed off work also and it is immediately apparent why we argue at weekends is there is just not enough space here for us and the kids to all do our own thing and its turning into alot of bickering all day long atm (sigh)

Anyway i had better try and do an internet shop to stock up on dettol and bleach to try and banish the lurgy that is iinfecting the rest of them, speaking of which my shopping status put lasts weeks traumatic order in as paid for and delivered (WTF) so i reckon local branch is trying to hide its incompetence from head office

Littleducks, that sounds like a nightmare. Hope everyone is feeling better soon.

Meg - alas, don't so anything like that until next term. Fingers crossed that my, ahem, expertise won't still be needed then.

Had a completely free day today for the first time ever - Ff at nursery, but no uni as it is reading week. Meant to do lots of studying, but instead have been Mumsnetting. V bad.

I want a job, i have decided that after 4 yrs of being at home i need to do some kind of part time work, unfortunately I seem to have picked a time to decide this when we are in the middle of a recession and nobody want me to work for them

Well if anyone knows of any vacanies let me know, oh and my current specialised skill (developed in the last year) is an indepth knowledge of common childhood communiable dieseases, their identification, longevity and possible course of treatments. My experience is based on my experiences of chicken pox, croup, rubella, numerous viral infections and now possible giardiasis (dont google it believe me its vile)

Ffreckle get studying! it will be xmas soon and you will be so glad for any work you did now to get ahead

oh god littleducks, i had giardiasis in south america. you poor poor things. it was the most distressingly vile illnes i've ever had. especially the bit where i had to travel one day and vomited down the outside of a bus.

Meg still hoping things work out on the house(s)

LD do you want to work in an office/whatever in a getting you out of the house way, or work from home? Might be some Quantum Physics jobs going, sounds right up your street

MB at least it was the outside of the bus...

I'm feeling an AIBU coming on, colleague in work was due to have 1/2 day Mon am, forgot to say she'd booked yesterday off for her b'day, didn't show up Mon pm, and hasn't come in today. Can't phone her as only got mobile,and mobile is in the office. I don't know the passwords needed to do some banking stuff so am feeling slightly shafted.

DP - do HR not have her home number? If you post AIBU, I would say YANBU That;s really crap on her part!

Least said about the house the better. It's all a huge pile of disastrous disaster. However, we have found another buyer and might be going with them if DH ever gets out of his bloody meetings to talk with me. There are many things in life which I would happily take an executive decision on in his absence, but unfortunately dream house buying isn't one of them...