Dec 08 - 9 months in, 9 months out!

[jumpjockey]

Hope you don't mind the dodgy thread name but all our babies are 9 months old now or in the next few weeks

It was just the morning! It went very well according to her key worker. Although over lunch DD declared she was never going to school again as 'the boy smacked my cheek'. However, I suspect it was more a case of a bit of clash over a toy as she also said the teacher called him 'a pickled onion' and phoned the police I doubt that happened at least I hope not.

DH has just rung to speak to her and she said that school was 'brilliant' I suspect I have a bit of a drama queen on my hands!

PD I was speaking to a friend about smacking the other day, as DH had seen a woman at the baby health clinic spank her baby on the bum (!) and my friend's astute comment was "all it does is teach them that it's ok to hit someone smaller than you." Fortunately DH and I agree completely with her - my friend, not the smacker that is. I agree with you that there are other ways to discipline children without resorting to violence. And heaven help any person who raises a hand to strike my child... (sorry about the rant there but as someone who had a rough dad I feel very strongly about that matter)

Thanks for all the food suggestions everyone. We are going to try to introduce some more things as per your suggestions. It's funny that sometimes he'll almost choke on soft things (stewed fruit, orange with skin membrane removed) but has no problems with things he really likes that I would have thought more problematic, like strawberries, hard biscuits etc. And he especially wants whatever we eat! Today I was having some curried sausages with rice, and he insisted on having some too, despite the fact that it was pretty strong flavoured. ML I am very impressed with your LO's effort at chicken satay and duck pancakes. And corn too, wow that's great. JB my DS has the same aversion to broccoli. He thinks it's something to play with rather that eat

LadyT sorry to hear about your job. I have no doubt you will find something even better. Or it will find you! Hope you're feeling better soon - I'm unwell too at the moment. I think I'm going to take Veggies hot toddy advice in a minute...

Invisible that's pants about your job too. What is with these idiot employers? On the plus side, it might give you a chance to find a job where they truly appreciate your worth. Will you have some time before you leave to find a new position elsewhere?

Trace glad to hear your first day went well. Hope it only gets better from here on (and that you still have time to chat here now that you're working away from home!)

Veggie I hope the job in Holland wouldn't mean your plans to move to Auz would change?

PD am crossing everything for Thursday regards the test results for your brother. Must be heart wrenching waiting to hear. xx

Could I ask another food related question for y'all - how many teeth have your LO's got now? Just wondering if this makes a difference with chewing lumpier foods. DS has two on the bottom and now has his first 'fang' just coming through (not one of the ones in the middle - we obviously have a vampire child)

DS has also started to have tantrums. I was quite surprised they could start this young! But if we try to take something off him, he'll occasionally chuck a wobbly. Also if we put him down on the floor and he wants to be carried in mum/dad's arms instead. I'm sure there's much worse to come, but at the moment I'm finding it all hugely funny - does this make me a bad parent?

Daisy LOL @ 'pickled onion' !!

hello hello hello

we have some poorly ladies here - hot toddies, all round!

loving the school and nursery stories, daisy and trace.

madam has a fearful snotty cold and just won't tolerate being left alone. the only thing i can convince her to do is lie on me as i veg out in front of the tv, while she breastfeeds and deposits all her snot over my boob. it's kind of all i can think of doing with her. does anyone else have a baby who would quite happily spend all day, every day on the boob, regardless of whether she is actually sucking or not? i've never understood people whose babies actually "finish" a breastfeed. i have to judge and pull her off when i think she's had enough.

Oh sorry, and one other quick question - is anyone else trying to use baby sign language with their LO? We've been using the sign for 'milk' for a bit, and it seems to be working on occasion. Only we haven't really taught him any other signs yet. Just wondering if anyone else has had success with this kind of thing.

poison - toddlers do try out. Its part of their development and how they learn where boundaries are. So he may have been "wilful", but its totally normal and doesn't mean he needs smacking to teach him!

trace - it was so lovely to read your posts and see how nicely things are working out for you - brought a real smile to face.

Veggie - the possibility of Amsterdam sounds exciting, but you are right to wait and see how things pan out...

LadyT and Bisou - sorry you're feeling unwell. Hope you are being royally pampered!

Bisou - as far as teeth go, DS has 2 on the bottom 1 on top and second top middle one making its way through. Not sure the teeth make that much difference to chewing at this stage - they kind of chew on their gums until molars come in (much later). More to do with how they feel about funny textures...

Thanks for all the kind words about my job situation. I just needed to rant a bit. Anyway am dusting down my address book and lunching as many old colleagues as I can track down - hopefully there will be something out there for me! With any luck I'll line something up before I have to go. LadyT - you're on the right track with my situation. The worst of it is being in a job where the key measure of success seems to be the number of hours you get on the clock regardless of how good a job you do - not exactly family friendly.

evening all.
ladyt and bisou sorry you're both feeling rubbish. Am hoping veggie's prescription of hot toddies will work its magic. Bisou P has no teeth yet!
daisy glad to hear about dd's pre-school fun - despite the pickled onion boy
veggie lucky you with the foot pampering - although I'm with Daisy on the foot thing - I'm just so ticklish that if anyone came near my feet I'd kick them!
Well work was good again today. My mentor is so lovely and supportive. We spent the morning driving around some of my schools so I could meet all the headteachers, which was fun, although I have 9 schools so I'm not sure I'll remember who belongs where! Then this afternoon I went with my mentor to do a sexual health drop in clinic at a secondary school. On my way home I got a call from P's nursery saying she had a rash and asking me to collect her, so I did. Her rash didn't look worrying but I noticed she was breathing really quickly, so I took her to the gp and she has a chest infection so now she has some yummy antibiotics. She's got a high temp and just wants cuddles - it's sod's law that she's ill on my first week of work! At least tomorrow is my day off, and perhaps she'll pick up by Thursday.
WG I hope madam feels better soon - although there's something very warm and fuzzy about snuggling up together and knowing that you're providing every bit of comfort and reassurance that she wants. And in return you get a sticky snotty boob. nice.
We had a horrendous night last night with P awake every hour and not settling without boob (so much for shush patting her last night!), but now I've found out she's actually poorly today that probably explains why she was so unhappy.
Anyway, lack of sleep and stress/ relief of the new job is making me very sleepy so I'm off to make packed lunches then hit the sack.
Night all xxx

Bisou my dad was rough too, mostly directed towards my mum. But I guess she doesn't see smacking and outright violent attacks as part of the same continuum.

No teeth here. No problems eating either! DS didn't get any teeth till 14 months and it never hampered his eating. I certainly didn't notice any difference when they finally arrived (but then we don't eat meat - don't know if that would have an effect).

Sign language - we did it with DS and we all loved it. Probably started about now, but it was a good while before he started doing signs back consistently. It's great fun and DS certainly got a kick out of being able to communicate stuff to us that he couldn't say in words . Just been doing the milk sign with DD so far and she has done it back a few times, although I'm not entirely convinced it wasn't coincidental.

Oh missed your post trace - and yours wg. Hope your DDs are feeling better soon.

evening all, just a very quick one to say tara for a couple of weeks, we're off to France to stay with friends down south and get dd eating all sorts of exciting foreign food will try to keep up with the news (we're taking the laptop after last time's burglary ) and meanwhile, lots of love to all the nippers and their lovely mummies and catch up with you in a fortnight!

Morning!

I am knackered. I was at work from 11:30 to 16:30 all on my own. Then we went out for a meal for my friends birthday last night. DS1 did his usual showing me up by screaming alot. Not upset screaming but that ear piercing screaming that 2 year olds do.

I have been awake since 4am. Not sure why as the boys were both asleep until just before 6.

Trace Poor P. I hope she is better soon. WG hope your DD is better soon too.

I hope everyone with job worries gets it sorted out soon.

Hope you are all well.

morning

not a good night here. Poor P is so poorly . She's so hot despite me giving regular paracetamol and brufen, and really not herself. I was quite worried in the night as her breathing is so fast, and this morning she is doing some major voms, which I assume is the antibiotics upsetting her. It's so sad to see she just wants to sleep or lie and not crawl. I actually wished she would try to roll over and crawl away when I was doing her nappy this morning, but she just lay there and let me do it. Very unlike her . Oh well I guess I just let her rest as much as she needs and try to get fluid in her. I wish I could be ill for her. And tomorrow I have an all day training day thing for my new job which I really need to go to, but if P is ill like this there's no way she's going to nursery. I asked dh if he could take the day off and he said it's really hard but he'd see if he could. I want to be off with her but don't want to be off on my 3rd day of my new job. Grr.
JJ hope you have a fabby time en France. Make sure you eat plenty of croissants
Kayz sorry you're so tired. Are you at work today? any chance you can get a rest?
Is spot away?
veggie where are you? Is this not your morning coffee time?!!!

Trace Hope P is well enough for you to go to work tomorrow.

I am at work at 4 tonight. Poo!

Sorry Trace, have been tres busy yesterday and today. Can't actually remember what I was doing yesterday, probably cleaning house (though you wouldn't know it looking at it now. This morning I had to take the car over to an autoglass place nearer to Nottingham because we have a few scrapes and dents we wanted fixed before we give the car back at the end of October. Then I has to cycle home which took nearly an hour then take DS2 for his 6-12 month check up with the HV. I hassled them about DS1 but they just blamed the GP's surgery and I forgot about the mastitis thing. They did tell me DS1 should have had his eyes tested but said in view of our family history we'd be better off taking him to our own optamitrist. They're free so no prob. Otherwise he's fine developing ahead of schedual (clearly his father's energy) a bit on the lean side at 8.46kg but the child does not stop moving and eats as much as his brother and 5 BF a day so short of sticking a naso-gastric tube down him, there isn't much more I can do. They didn't seem fussed as he looks quite healthy and his head size and height were fine. I think DH wanted to hear his weight was up because my SIL is fixated with the weight thing and seems to enjoy that her children are bigger than ours but you can't have a child who moves constantly and a boheamoth(sp).

Trace sorry to hear about poor little P, I'm sure your new work will understand maybe give them a call now and see if the training day is on again soon. If she's that unwell she needs lots of mummy milk and cuddles and you won't be able to concentrate anyway. Or see how long the session is maybe it's just a half day thing and you could take over from DH. I have to say DH and I tended to work out whose day was more important if DS1 was sick, if I had a big meeting on or interviews or we were short staffed he wound take the day off. Generally he could work from home though and his work were really good about it.

Right better go I need my coffee.

trace so sorry to hear about P. I hope she gets better soon. I know how worrying it is especially with the temperature. Our wise veggie talks sense, maybe ring work and sound them out about tomorrow.

Just had a huge row with DH over his bloody family and can't be bothered going into detail it just winds me up more. He has gone to work now and right now if he never came back it would be too bloody soon

Oh and Kayz sorry about pooey work, are they short of staff why are you by yourself!!

Invis I'm sorry about your work. I had a friend who went for a job after her first was born and knew she was up against a man and said she just felt they were only interviewing her to have someone else to interview that they had decided before she got there. She said the annoying this was she felt since having her son her time management skill and general ability to coping with stress skills etc were brilliant so should have been great for the job (is was resident musician for somewhere and she had to organize concert stuff for the place) however she thought how can I say because I'm a mum I can do xx really well. She didn't get the job and it really annoyed her. It saddens me that my amazing nieces who are all very clever and wonderful young women now will still be up against this when they have kids.

Oh Dais is it the Christmas thing or just that SIL. I meant to say what on earth ready meal stuff does she make for Christmas!? One Christmas SIL served up left over veggie curry for us all but cooked a fried egg for her and her DH??? She had spoken of getting ready meal roast veg?!?!? How hard is it to par boil some spuds then pop them in the oven? (with or without copious amounts of olive oil rubbed over them and a little sprinkling of dried rosemary mmm)

Hey Dais how's the running?

Oh trace poor P. I hope things improve and she is on the mend tomorrow. It must be just awful when they are so listless and miserable.

JJ Hope you have a lovely time!

Can I have a me me me moan? My mat leave replacement/new part time colleague rang me yesterday and it wasn't so much what she said as the way that she said it. I was just left with the feeling I'd be spoken to by a stern headmistress. It was tea time and I was trying to stop chilli from burning and amusing DD and she was pressuring me to commit to a meeting in my second week back. Which brings me onto the more sticky problem...

I work from home as my employer is hundreds of miles away. I used to go up there once a month or so for a day, never overnight. They have suggested that I go up for 2 days during my second week back. Now ladies, am I being unreasonable in not wanting to do an overnight trip? I've never left DD overnight before and I think it is unfair on both of us when we'll only just be getting into the swing of nursery. I say we, as so far it is I, not her, who is having difficulty with the idea.

I've been getting myself into a tizz about it. Am I being odd/unreasonable/clingy?

OMG OMG OMG DH is talking to the guy about the Holland work??? I can't tell anything from his expression. I think they may have a problem with when he can start?!?!?

I think we may need to arrange an Amsterdam meet up, anyone know any good cafes (teehee)

Hurrah Veggie - Amsterdam sounds like a great adventure for an active crowd like the veggiefamily!

Wow veggie that is so exciting!! When would you be leaving?

Jolly YANBU at all. I would hate the idea, especially as you say DD will only just to be getting left at nursery. Is there any cahance you can postpone the visit for a few weeks time? BTW is there any special reason they want you to go up for 2 days this time?

veggie DH is just being a knob in general, partly over the Christmas thing and partly because he feels I see my parents(with DC's) more than his. Which is true but they are my parents, I have more in common with them and spending hours trying to talk to his mum is at times like trying to get blood from stone - hardwork and not very fruitful!

Re: SIL & Christmas cooking, I think mmost of it is Aunt Bessie's; roast potatoes, mashes carrots, roast parsnips and I think tinned Green Giant Sweetcorn has been mentioned before TBH given the chance she would probably serve wafer thin turkey roll

The running is going great, I have invested in some new Asics trainers and they are fab like running in slippers compared to my others! I hate to say I am enjoying it and it is becoming a little addictive.

LOL at the wafer thin Turkey.

JB I think we need spiggy to come in here but Im sure there must be something about travel for work away from home being kept to a minimum during the first 12 months. Is it just for a meeting, cant they just set up a skype call with webcam? I don't think your being unreasonable I think they are. Also separation anxiety is a parental phenomena I'm def of that.

Daisy I'm loving running at the moment too, any exercise actually. After DS1 I kinda resented training because I missed him while I was out for a run etc but now I'm out the door in a flash no encouragement needed. I was talking the other day to someone about the differences in how I felt after having DS1 to DS2. One of the biggest differences is babysitting. With DS1 I was so scared of having someone else look after him, it was so bad that for our first night out I had to get a trained nanny, that cost £100 for the night. Now we have a 15 year old who we pay £10 to babysit. I'm not sure when I relaxed.

Daisy, mashed carrots? WTF? A few years ago I had to make a pumpkin pie for an American friend's July 4th party. I looked up the recipe (I didn't actually realize it was a dessert initially) on google and thought it best to look using google.com instead of .co.uk. However, almost all the US recipes made the pie with completely ready made ingredients, inc shaped pie base and tinned mashed pumpkin!!!!! I ended up having to look on good ol' British sites to get a recipe to make it from scratch.

Well DH has booked a flight to Amsterdam to meet with the head of this project. They are keen to have him but they are still wanting a permanent employee over a contractor because the client wants someone reliable. We have been thinking about it and DH is keen to contract because the rate he can get it ridiculously high but we are also keen to try living over there. As a contractor the tax would be low as he can work through a limited company so that is a plus. But he has spoken to an accounting firm over there and it would be difficult for him to work contract as he is an expat. So we have to weigh up the money we will lose over living in mainland Europe. What they did say though is that as an expat the first 30% of his income is taxfree, which is definitely a drawcard. So he is going to meet with this guy and pretend he doesn't know about the fact that he can't do contracting (it's unlikely this guy would know that) and offer to join them permanently but in exchange for going permanent he wants them to sort us out with a relocation package. This should be fine because most companies have a pot of money to cover that so it won't come out of this guys client budget. So after all that confusing and probably unnecessary information it is looking more likely that we will be moving to Holland. DH is quite excited because his frequent flyer points cover the flight to Amsterdam. Also as some of the work is in Belgium I think he is sussing out where all the Holiday inns are, bless him.

daisy sorry about your IL troubles, hope it passes over. One of my SIL only does ready meals as well. The one time she cooked a spag bog from scratch, her dcs told her they preferred the M&S one

veggie Holland?!! Hope it all comes off for you

trace how's P today? I hope she's getting better

wg hope madam is better too. How's the sleeping going?

ladyt How are you feeling, hope the lemsip worked. I haven't had a quote for the boiler yet, I'm too scared to!! Thanks for updating me on everyone's whereabouts

poison agree with invisible about toddlers acting out, its what they do to learn their boundaries, but smacking doesn't teach them anything! That would've made me very as well. At least he won't remember it.

invisible how awful of your work to treat you like that. But do you think it is definite or could you fight your corner?

effie glad your return to work is going well, including new shoes

kayz how are you feeling today? Have you had chance of any rest?

I'm feeling quite excited, I have a study day tomorrow, which I'm really looking forward to plus dh is finally going to experience what I do all day! Usually he goes to his mum's but they're not around so he's on his own. Its very mean of me to be feeling like this tbh