October 08 - The Second Year

[CantSleepWontSleep]

10th Sept (Due 1st Oct) - loulou33 - Boy - Joe Louis David - 6lbs 12oz
16th Sept (Due 8th Oct) - Ksal - Girl - Emma Rae - 6lbs
21st Sept (Due 5th Oct) - myjobismum - Girl - Naomi Caitlin - 5lbs 10oz
2nd Oct (Due 12th Oct) - star6 - Boy - Quinlan - 5lbs 15oz
3rd Oct (Due 26th Sept) - purpleflower - Girl - Rebecca Jill Erzsebet - 8lbs 10.5oz
4th Oct (Due 30th Sept) - Aubergenie - Boy - Stanley - 7lbs 12oz
8th Oct (Due 6th Oct) - ronshar - Boy - William Dexter - 7lbs 11oz
9th Oct (Due 17th) - Marthasmama - Girl - Martha - 7lbs 10oz - Elective c-sec
10th Oct (Due 1st Oct) - CantSleepWontSleep - Boy - Duncan Elliot - 8lbs 4oz
12th Oct (Due 4th Oct) - pistachio - Boy - Thomas Fraser - 10lbs 2oz
16th Oct (Due 11th Oct) - heather1980 - Boy - Alexander James - 9lbs 5oz
17th Oct (Due 10th Oct) - pepperrabbit - Girl - Jessica Rose - 7lbs 15.5oz
24th Oct (Due 29th Oct) - Ekka - Boy - Matthew - 7lbs 15oz
26th Oct (Due 20th Oct) - jenwa - Girl - Phoebe Jasmine - 9lbs 2.5oz
28th Oct (Due 23rd Oct) - RachieW - Boy - Jack - 7lbs 4oz
31st Oct (Due 20th Oct) - KnickersOnMaHead - Boy - Samuel Paul - 9lbs 11oz
5th Nov (Due 29th Oct) - Honeymoonmummy - Girl - Poppy Grace - 6lbs 15oz
5th Nov (Due 30th Oct) - MamaG - Boy - Harry James - 10lbs 9oz

50ft I might hire you out for logical consequence help for teaching! Sometimes I have the hardest time thinking of a consequence to fit the behaviour on the spot if it's a random weird behaviour with no obvious link...
That's a great one!

csws I think we have quite a bit in common.

Oh raspberries to you CSWS! Stop picking on me! I'm certainly not the only who makes the occasional mistake. I am usually very pedantic too! Ah well, maybe I'm losing my marbles at long last. I'll try harder next time.

Is she still coughing, myjob? Is it croup? (sp?? hadn't heard of this until Q had bad cough and the doctor described to me when to bring him in - if his chest dipped a lot...etc).

sorry that sounded scary - my post. I'm just a worrier. And I wish I could have a GP surgery... no an A&E living downstairs.

So I know you're all sick of hearing about my dh. I've been looking forward to going to this event this afternoon for a few weeks. A lot of people that I work with (and like) were going to be there, I could bring Q..etc. Dh knew about it.
Problem is, no longer had sat nav (stolen) and was relying on written instructions and I knew I'd get lost. Dh is SO mean when I get lost or don't drive exactly right or can't park (I can't park on the first try to save my soul - but I did for my driving test!!)... anyway, he just gets really snotty iykwim. Like, "what are you doing?" with a really snobby look on his face. Or "why can't you ever just look at the directions and get it right?" "you're so irresponsible" "you're so ridiculous" (his favourite).
He then gives me silent treatment or cold shoulder (like a child) and I get so infuriated that my husband treats me like this that I get nervous driving and I'm so nervous that I make loads of mistakes and get lost more easily!
SO, I anticipated this and said before leaving that I wanted to go alone with Q so that this wouldn't happen. He thought I was being "ridiculous" of course. So, I he ended up coming and what I predicted happened. And I just couldn't take it. I didn't want to arrive there eventually after finding our way and have him being cold shoulder to me because that would embarrass me in front of my colleagues! So, I decided to turn around and go home. Sometimes I get so angry with him!

He doesn't drive here. Hasn't taken british test yet. He can in an emergency, though. So he pulled an attitude when I didn't want to drive into town with him earlier, saying he wanted to go xmas shopping... it was just at the time that my thing I wanted to go to was starting. When we got there and he got some stuff he needed for his motorcycle and let Q run around a bit, we tried to pick up the blue toy buggy in ELC but they were sold out then he wanted to leave! He just wanted a ride in to get what he needed.

Star - You should be saint Star as I would have probably pushed him from the moving vehicle just kicked him out in the middle of nowhere & let him find his own way home. I just don't know what to say! He just won't engage with you will he? I had wrongly assumed that you weren't regularly confronting him about his behaviour (which I know I was obviously wrong about and apologise for) but you are and still....... nothing! How on earth do you deal with that? I would be ready to kill about now! How dare he treat you that way? You're the mother of his child, you're his wife ffs! Grrrrrrr!!!!!! I am so very angry on your behalf.

Myjob - I feel your pain. M has been coughing so much it's been making her gag. Plus she has been tugging her ear so obviously that has been hurting too. Her nose is so blocked she can't suck her thumb or nurse. She is so unhappy about it.

Alas, I am a total martyr so I would sleep on the floor if M wasn't in our room. (Then spend the next day in a foul mood wishing that I could get some extra sleep). Can you erect the travel cot and have her in your room? That way you can be in the room with her but hopefully get some sleep. Or will she object to being in the travel cot? I really hope you manage to get some sleep.

Hey all, I've only read the last page but love the dream 50ft! And I am Sleepy at the moment!! Altho not so much a dwarf... It is slightly less surreal than my dream last night which was my MIL having twins!!! As she is 70 on Saturday I feel it's unlikely...

I just wanted to come on to say I've spotted a slight flaw in the Secret Santa plan, someone else has already probably mentioned/ spotted it, but we're gonna know who's sent our gift by looking at the postmark. Maybe we should put "From SS" on the front and back and when it arrives just give it to our DH's to open?

I'm off to bed anyway [sleepy]

How was your night Myjob? Poor N. Is she any better today?

Star - I really couldn't bear to be with someone who behaved like that towards me. Your dh sounds like he has very little respect for you. The thing is, it's not just an occasional burst of childishness, it's happening regularly and you're having to modify your own behaviour to accommodate it. My worry would be that you continue to make these changes for an easier life (such as not going to the event that you were looking forward to yesterday) until a few years down the line you don't even realise that you're doing it but your own needs have been completely subsumed. It's a slippery slope.

Must go to work.

I know He wasn't like this before Q was conceived. We had 7 and a half happy blissful years in which I called the shots and he treated me like a princess. I think he's disappointed in my ability to be a mother. I know I'm not a totally horrible mother, but I think he thought I'd be better at it than I am and as he loves Q so much I think he now just takes out any frustrations from his life on me!

The problem is that when things are good, they are REALLY REALLY good. We have the best time all together and love each other and it's really great! Then when he gets in a strop... it's all bad. VERY bad. I don't want to throw away the really good stuff (which does happen more often than the bad) but I want to stop the bad stuff from happening.
He talked with me a little last night. And was a bit more open but I only got a 5 minute conversation, which ended with"come on star, I love you and you love me. couples argue and it's not hte end of the world"
I think, well I know he had a bad example of marriage and how men treat women in his childhood, but he's an adult now ffs. he should know better. And I know he knows better because he used to be better! I wish he'd just go to counselling with me.

Star - This might be really rubbish pseudo- psychology but....Do you think that his attitude towards you has changed now that your role has changed? Now you're a mother maybe he sees what he thinks are failings but in reality his is projecting these 'failings' on to you as a result of his own upbringing? (By the way, you are a much more attentive mother than I am, your DH would probably have me reported to SS by now if he was my DH! ) He is bound to be hyper-sensitive to Q's needs as he had such a rubbish upbringing and maybe he is taking this out on you. Hmmmm.... I don't think I am getting my point across very well. I mean...... He wants Q to have a perfect childhood because he's was far from that and it seems that he thinks that in order to achieve this, you as parents must be totally subservient to Q's every whim. He seems to think that if Q cries, it's a failure, mainly on your part and that this attitude is spilling over into everything. Has he ever spoken to a counsellor about his childhood?

I hope all that rambling makes sense, or at least that you see what I am trying to say. If your DH thinks you're not a good mummy he is very wrong indeed!

But I don't ever want to have to give up my time with Q if I weren't with DH. I'd have to give him to Dh probably half of the time and I couldn't bear that I'd be scared that dh would say fine then, leave if that's what you want. I would deal and heal from that break up but would not not not cope with not seeing Q

thank you 50ft and pistachio for your kind words.

Out of curiosity - and this criticism wasn't from DH - but do you let your DC (this age) walk around into other rooms without you watching them for a few minutes ever? If you are at home or at another home at which you spend a lot of time and know?

I left M walk around room to room at home and at my mum's. I close the doors to the rooms I don't want her to go in and so she wanders around safely. I do try to keep her with me as much as possible but it's not always possible and I would rather she wandered around than stay locked in one room. They need to be a bit free to explore it's part of growing up. DH is far more lax about where M wanders too than I am which is probably why he gets more done than me!

I leave, leave! I started the sentence differently and then changed it but forgot to change the tense of left. You see how paranoid you've made me CSWS?!

my friend asked me on friday "do you think you look after Q properly?" I said that yes, I thought I did but I do make mistakes. She mentioned a couple of times at her house when I had let him wander into another room a few months ago and I didn't follow him. And how with her own "safety was paramount" to her and that while I worry about nutrition over all else (NOT true. his safety IS more important to me... but whatever...), she was more worried with safety and wouldn't take her eyes off of her child for a second because it was this huge responsibility and wouldn't want anything to happen to him.
When I started saying that I am concerned about Q's safety and that she just must be better than me at watching children closely...
she quickly said, no, that's not what she meant. She just meant that we all focus on different things as parents, we all make mistakes...etc. I get that point. I do.
But the original question "do you think you look after Q properly?" really still plays like a broken record in my head. Because I said yes, then "why do you?" and she wouldn't answer - she said "I don't know! I don't see you at home"
Well, I would think she would know me well enough to know that I look after Q properly (she's my best friend ffs) and obviously she thinks I'm too lax at her house (where we are very comfortable).

ugh. I'm really having a tough time at the moment. I feel like she is pretty much unavailable when we used to be very close and thought it was going back that way but recently, I'm just not sure what's up. We had a long talk on friday night because I was so fed up with Dh and she was very supportive, but then totally dropped off.

Jeez I leave ds to wander as much as he likes! He can go upstairs if he likes, or into any downstairs room except the study (though he wouldn't be able to open the door to the toilet either).

They have to learn to be a bit independent, so I think it's important to encourage this if the child is willing to leave your side and it has nothing at all to do with me wanting time to play on my computer.