May 09 - Six months on. Sleepless nights, hen nights and a sexybuilder.

[HeadlessLadyH]

Over here!!!!

right... had intended to be heading to bed by now but as usual pottered about on mn/fb too long. Off to dream feed G and hope for another improved night...

Good night everyone x

Ooooh! I just looked up W-S-M on the AA route finder and it is 1 hour 59 minutes from me. No distance at all, really. In fact I've been debating a trip to Cribbs Causeway for sometime.

I'm heading to Cardiff next week for a cuddle of a lovely newborn. Can't wait.

Grumpy I really admire your gumption. I have since you upped sticks and moved to France and I admire the way you make decisions and sound so positive. I bet your girls will have had a wonderful experience of life in another country. I think you're amazing. I could never have coped with two children, let alone three, with a business and no DH in a foreign country. Well done you.

On the subject of meet-ups...what is happening with our great, big mass meet-up?

still up and just about to dream feed g... but ds woke up demanding milk. DH got woken up by him & is with him on request reading another story.

llare i could do with a trip to cribbs too... only 20miles away for me along the M5 and know it very well...

Thanks for all the info on weaning I don't use any jars for J, no, unless I'm going out, and won't be able to reheat his lunch. I'm just finding it confusing DP made lasagne for tea tonight, J wouldn't have been able to have that would he? I would never have gave that to him? And I'm sorry for not name-checking, I wouldn't have even thougt about giving him soup, would it have to be home-made soup? I'm sooo confused, and I don't even know why! lol

Llare I checked on FB where you were, and I think you're a little far away from me

I should have met Belgian while you were still "around" here so I don't think i'll be meeting anyone either

jael i'd have put some of the lasagna filling & pasta through the grinder and picked out some large crispyish bits of pasta off the top for G to suck & play with.. if you ask dh not to add salt when cooking it I see no reason why j couldn't have it.. all that yummy flavour.. infact i'm sure he'd love it! you'll be working up to lumpier foods anyway. where abouts in the midlands are you? my memory is still rubbish..

think ds has finally gone back to sleep.. uhoh no still thrashing around in bed noises..

night Mary Ellen !

i actually didn't watch the waltons much so could only remember john boy (everyone remembers john boy).

Morning ladies!

My you're all a chatty lot even when I do stay online later than normal!

Hope everyone had a reasonable night last night. Ds2 is currently sleeping from about 7pm to 4am, but then thinks its morning so plays and squeals for an hour or so. He went bk to sleep this am but dh was nearly late for work!

Llare and Fi I'd be up for meeting at Cribbs. It's about 35mins away from me. I've toyed with going into London to visit old work colleagues but don't fancy the underground with a p&t!

More rain here today, oh joy!

I watched the waltons as a child.. can't remember much though. Wasn't there a ben too?

muddled llare cribs.. when's good for you? remembering this is public.. i'll start a thread on fb..

Morning!

hope everyone's had good nights. O is progressing on the sleep front but only v v slowly. It used to be over 3 hrs was good going whereas now we're up to 4hrs.

Momino - Happy Thanksgiving!!

My SIL is headteacher at a little village school near Keswick and has just emailed me this link here which is v cute but also brings home the reality of all the recent floods.

Someone at the door....back later!

Running You were in Glasgow You should have let me know! I'd have caught up with you. Ah well. Next time? :D

Reggiee Are you getting your loft done too? Mine just got finished at the weekend there, I have SO MUCH DUST to clean up. Urgh.

Virtual hen night sounded amazing! Can't believe I missed it!

Back problems - Oh I am so with you ladies, I've been referred for a nerve test because my hands go numb now, all related to the sacro-iliac pain and SPD. Who'd be a mother?

Periods - I got my third one since having Greer yesterday. I am not a happy bunny.

Belgian So sorry to hear about your grandmother

Grumpy Awww I'm sorry it hasn't worked out for you but at least the girls will have a nice story of their adventures in France when they're older?

Flippin Hooray for poo! My DD1 has been in pants full time for about 8 weeks and I'm actually really surprised how quickly she got it. She still has loads of accidents but I can handle that if she's pooing in the loo!

Weaning I think I'm going to knock the purees on the head and just give G stuff to gnaw on. She rolled herself across the floor the other day and found a discarded piece of toast which was just the BEST! THING! EVER!

Other than that we're having a bit of a time of it. DH has been made redundant and leaves on the 31st December. I entered a 90 days consultation period yesterday and expect to be leaving my work in March. Did I tell you lot about my maternity pay situation? Long story short my work decided the DAY BEFORE PAYDAY in November that I actually wasn't entitled to any pay at all and decided not to pay me. I'm too late to claim for maternity allowance so not only have I had no pay for two months but my work want me to repay my salary for the five months before that.
It never rains but it pours!

Morning,

Ses good to hear you are getting progress on the sleep. Keep meaning to say, my PILs live in E Grinstead which is pretty near you isn't it? Maybe we could try to meet up when I next go down there? That is a lovely link too.

Muddled A does the 4am wakey wakey thing too. Managed to get her back to sleep after about 40mins this morning which was good going, sometimes it is more than an hour.

Blotted I did think of you as we were driving from Glasgow to Edinburgh and wondered if you were nearby. Next time I will let you know! Sorry to hear about all your work woes. You do know it is v difficult for your work to make you redundant don't you? apparently there is lots of extra legislation in place to stop employers making people on maternity leave redundant (my friend has just been through it). Am no expert tho.

Grumpy so sorry it hasn't worked out although as others have said, at least you tried it and won't live with the 'what ifs' that you would have done otherwise. Holiday home sounds like a great idea.

eating A is loving munching on things, so far we've tried cucumber, pear, sweet potato, melon and parsnip. Yesterday I gave her a rice cake which she really pulled faces at, but gave it a good chomping all the same So far we're only trying it once or twice a day but are going to step things up from next week when she is officially 6mo [shock at where the time has gone emoticon]

Have a good day all.

All this talk of meetups is really nice although making me a bit . Am I the most easterly May 09'er? llare we never made our meet-up did we. Shall we try again?

Blotted - job situations for you and your DH sound rotten. Has DH got any plans? As for your work wanting you to repay money Have you got any advice on this? Are they going to persue it?
I'm also in a repayment situation currently but they told me about it as soon as they knew. Basically they paid me £3k too much bonus and so instead of getting SMP each month, I'm getting nothing whilst they gradually take it back. Have tried to ignore it sitting in the bank!

running - that would be great! East Grinstead is only about half an hour away. Febes is near me too so we could do a lovely little meet up somewhere!
A souns like she's loving her food. We're still not always managing 3 meals a day dependant on mood, sleep, etc but we normally do at least twice a day. O is coming up to 29 weeks though so is a bit older than A.

Excellent ses will let you know next time we are planning a visit

Morning all!

blotted at all the work/money stuff, hope things work out ok for you. DD1 cracked the weeing almost instantly, but we had two weeks of pooing in knickers, fab.

running - technically I think I'm a bit further east than you, but slightly closer to London. If you're where I think you are, it's about an hours drive.

reggiee - how is your roof? hope things improving.

The counsellor has just called to apologise for the waiting list, and is sending me some information about organisations who can help...at a cost of course. Don't really have the money to pay to talk to someone, but she said the wait could be three months. This is frustrating, I want to feel better, I just don't know what to do. Maybe talking to the GP will help.

Sorry for the whining, feel a bit stuck.

running no, we didn't! I'll email you.

blotted will be v quick as off to the park with the boys. Redundancy and maternity is a special situation; lots of threads on it but very basically if there is a suitable job available and you are still available, you are entitled to be considered for that job before anybody else in the pool for redundancy. So if you like, you get special protection. Will find some links later for you but suspect it won't apply to you as you will be off maternity leave by the end of the 90 day period.

flippin am intrigued. Am thinking you must be Kent or Essex? Think I am the only E. Anglian one? Sorry you are having a tough time getting help. I would talk to the GP as first port of call, maybe they might be able to make your case a little more 'urgently' to the counsellor. Whine away here though if you need to

llare was prob me, am pants at organising myself atm

Afternoon.

Snatching 10 mins to MN whilst R snoozing and DS1 having half an hour on the Wii (he is so good at MarioKart its rather ).

blotted at your work situation. Sadly, despite me being a solicitor, I know nothing about employment stuff, and I certainly don't understand about you having to pay money back??? Nice to see you back here though!

Anyone heard from looby? She was having a rough time with her mum, wasn't it? I hope she is ok, but if she's not been around, it perhaps isn't good news.

It would be fab to arrange a meet up for us all. Perhaps we could all put our places of abode on Facebook and someone work out what the middle of us all is.

We have Headless, have a look at the secret group!

Oh dear I am behind, aren't I?

Afternoon all. Blimey, it's taken me ages to catch up ! Sorry in advance for missing out anyone as my memory is crap.

Blotted, Detsy and Grumps great to see you. Oh, and Mrsmash too, thanks for sharing pics, you looked stunning. Yummy looking cake too !

Belgia so sorry to hear sad news about GM. Your DH is lovely to take over the birthday party. Will be thinking of you this weekend

Flippin at the waiting list. That's just rubbish. Hope the GP can help you / move you up the list.

Blotted at work situations

I was also thinking about Looby because we haven't heard from her for ages.

Reggiee how is roof?

Grumpy you should be sooo proud of yourself for taking the plunge and moving out there, and also for deciding to move back. If you hadn't have gone, you would never have known how it would have been, and the timing was perfect because you have the stability of a job to go back to next year. You have inspired me to get off my butt and go sort out doing the things I have considered but not gotten around to.

Re Meet-up there is a discussion board on FB where you can 'sign up' but I am not quite sure how we should go about choosing a date and location

Life has been hectic. DD2 (broken arm) is doing fine and has adjusted to the cast. Thanks for all of your reassurances. We go back to hospital on Monday for another xray and a new cast (if necessary.) Just as well as the current cast is minging already. No other news here really. DS is determined to try to walk, so has lots of lovely bruises on his head from falling over . DH and I have recently had heart to heart because things have not been going well between us. It's so easy when you have DC and DH works away for us not to invest time or energy in marriage. So we have made a pact to be nicer to each other and do some things, , together and even without the DC. Speaking of which, Dandy your weekend celebrations sounded wonderful. We had our 10 yr wedding anniversary this year, which got overtaken by swine flu. Perhaps I should arrange a re-run.

Sorry, waffle waffle waffle. Have a lovely afternoon everyone.x

Forgot to say, Flippin I am east-ish, and near the A14 so can get east quickly.