May09 - Christmas is on it's way and Grumpycaaa is comin' to town!!

[essenceofSES]

Hope that works!

Cocktail anyone?!

evening

sorry to hear about the rotten nights... I think we need to ask santa for some good ones [hwink]

jael don't let the hv make you worry. I haven't taken G to be weighed for some time as I don't want the possible grief they can doll out around weaning time. I know G is happy & healthy & growing out of clothes so i'm not concerned. Our DS was a nightmare weight wise dropping percentiles at one point when he got v active just before/during weaning... they told me to give him high calorie foods like fish in cheese sauce, cook with cream etc. It worked for about a couple of weighs and then he plateaued again. In the end i worked out that he gained weight happily if i fed him a larger protein portion than i had thought he'd need with his veggies/fruit/yogurts.. esp meats like chicken/beef etc than the high cal diet the hv were telling me to do. I think the meat was a more sustaining calorie wise and harder for him to burn off so quickly.

hiya jenn hope dd1 recovered from her nativity trauma. DH,I & G went to see DS nativity at pre school today. One of the donkeys got very upset and was unable to help joseph across to the inn so mary's donkey had to do 2 trips DS was a camel and looked soooo cute and he managed to sing some of the songs which was very good considering he was off pre school all last week with conjunctivis and missed a heap of rehearsals.

Parumpumpum sorry to hear your boss is leaving but YAY to having the SAHM option if you don't like it when you go back!

belgina how is c tonight? hope she's feeling better soon.

hiya spangle

crimbo only 2 days to go?!

fi waves to everyone else i've not name checked and passes out mulled wine to keep us all warm while it's snowing or not as it is here...

bugger, was going to catch up properly but A has woken up!! At least she went to sleep properly earlier. She has been soooo grumpy today, poor thing - teeth and tiredness.

V windy and snowing quite heavily here!

Hope all ok.

Bum just lost a long post. Sorry Firelight who are you? Fi? I've been away for a few weeks and don't know who everybody is.

Jael the jist of my post was, bollo*cks to the HVs. He sounds like a very active little boy. Obviously sudden weight lost is something that can't be ignored because something else might be happening, but you know your son. If he is otherwise healthy and happy use your gut instincts. Could his last weight reading be anomalous?

Dd2 tucked into Green Thai Curry today and absolutely loved it.

Am making red onion marmalade right now. Made spiced orange and beetroot the week before last. Just need one more batch of truffles and I'm done making presents.

jenn yes it's Fi

Oh and thanks to blotted for all the help with a knitting pattern. I finally finished the hat. It looks swell. First and probably last time I'll knit in the round. I ended up making my own pattern up at the end. It was just wrong. I ended up unravelling it 3 times. Another reason I've not been on MN for a while.

your red onion marmalade sounds delish! is it easy to make? i've always loved it.

flippin sorry A has woken up again. Hope she gives in to sleep quicker tonight than last night.

DH has just managed to get A settled again, but I'm too scared to go to bed now in case I wake her up!

jenn - red onion marmalade sounds fab, recipe please!

We had thai curry tonight too, A ate loads of the veg out of it (peppers, onions, brocolli etc) but chickened out of giving her a king prawn. Maybe next time.

belgina - sorry to hear about velcrobaby, hope she's better soon. This is where you appreciate slings, isn't it?!

jael - nothing to add to other comments about HV, if you're happy that he's well then that's it really. But if you are at all worried, see the GP.

off to bed now. chucking it down with snow, there's nealry 2 inches on our road now!

oops, forgot to say night all! Last one out turn off the light. Although if it carries on the way it is there will be no lights to turn off - power flickering alarmingly here!

night flippin hope your power stays on and keeps you all snugly warm from your snow!

Red Onion Marmalade

4tbsp olive oil
1.5kg red onions very thinly sliced
1tsp rock salt
2 bay leaves
1tsp soft thyme leaves
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
115g golden caster sugar
2 tbsp dry sherry
2 tbsp aged red wine vinegar
375ml red wine
1tbsp runny honey
115g pitted prunes, chopped (optional)

1. Fry Onions

Heat oil in a large, heavy based pan with lid. Add onions, salt, bay leaves, thyme and pepper and stir until well combined, then reduce heat, cover and cook for 35 mins, stirring occasionally until the onions are softened but not coloured.

2 Cook Down
Remove the lid and stir in the sugar, sherry, vinegar, wine, honey and prunes, if using. Reduce the heat right down and cook gently for about 90mins until very dark in colour, stirring every 5 minutes for the last half hour of cooking to prevent the mixture from burning. Leave the onion marmalade to cook, then pack into sterilised glass jars and chill unitl needed. This will keep happily in the fridge for up to 2 months.....but 6 months later I've still had some and it was fine.

I've just copied this quickly and not spell checked so apologies if it's a disgrace. I'm off to bed for another poor night sleep.

ooo jenn thank you! do the prunes make it even better than normal? i'll have to give this a go next week in time for left overs! night night xoxox

Yes it gives it a bit of depth iykwim. They're sweet, and dark.

I'm really going to bed now.

jenn, [admiration emoticon]
marmalade? truffles? knitting? amazing. how do you do it? when?

speaking of marmalade, could I trouble you for the orange and beetroot one? sounds lovely, thanking you in advance.

I'm just waiting for a chocolate cake to come out of the oven. it's dd1's actual birthday on Saturday so having another cake . had a busy evening: saw a financial advisor, made a cake, took a shower, wrapped some gifts. wish I could have made marmalade as well!

not enough time, not enough time.

off to check the cake and hope it's done so i can go to sleep. chimney sweep coming at 8am!

so how were every ones nights last night?

hope the snow hasn't caused any probs for those that have it.

Morning!

About 4 inches of snow here. DH has made it to work but not sure I'll be going out in the car today.

Spangle - was wondering if you were ok. Good to hear from you.

Jenn - where do you find the time for all that??!

Momi - you too! You had a v productive evening!

Grumpy - not long now!!

flippin - hope A stayed settled for you and your power stayed on.

Jael - again, just echoing what others have said. Trust your instincts and if - as it sounds -J is happy, bright and active, ignore HV!

Thanks for all your support re my work situation - much appreciated.
The reason they've given for it needing to be 4 days minimum is not so much workload but the fact that part of my role is to be professionally accountable for pharmacy and healthcare across the 18 stores. Apparently our pharmacy superintendent has made this stipulation previously. Just a shame my boss didn't know this on Monday.
I'm still not sure what to do. I know working 4 days a week isn't the end of the world but as tumm said, it's where my expectations were.

Ses I can see where they are coming from but it is very irritating that organisations aren't prepared to think creatively about flexible working. I know of two Chief Executives who job-share their post and have done so successfully in a number of previous posts. They move around as partners and work in a large NHS organisation. What is great about that is that they are male so flexible working is not seen as a female thing and flexible working is seen as the norm there. It is also known that people in flexible roles are more loyal etc and likely to stay longer. So they are being a bit short-sighted but then again in this economic climate maybe that's just the way it will be.

Morning all,
Bad night here, one of A's top teeth is almost through and she is also v snotty. on the plus side, about 6inches of snow here and DH is 'working at home'. It is beautiful out there today and I even managed to appreciate it at 3am when it looked all sparkly under the street lights .

Fi how's the cough?

morning all,

I ended up spending all last night doing xmas cards and settling Claire, who took ages to go to sleep and stay settled. Poor thing. Once she was settled she had an OK night though

ses I can only second what llare said. It's amazing how no one seemed to know this at the time of your meeting.

jenn momi Hats off to your cooking/craftiness. Don't know where you find the time!

jael Boo at your HV. It seems very odd to suggest that his weightloss is solely caused by him not having eggs etc... Sounds like he's getting plenty of protein from other sources. TBH my eldest 2 still haven't eaten egg and they're 6 and 8, lol. They just refuse, but I'm patient and know that one day they will try it When I had a look at ds's red book last week I also noticed that his weight gain tailed right off once he started crawling. I'm sure that's what's happening here too. You know your baby best

flippin Yep, slings are good for velcro babies, exept that I struggled slinging yesterday due to my sore right boob. I couldn't even lift my arm. Luckily boob is back to normal today, so I should be able to put her in the sling a bit more if she's still being velcro-y.

We've had about 2 inches of snow I suppose. The school is open, but will close early today just in case (of what I'm not sure, but I presume more snow?) Today will be tidying, tidying, tidying and a little bit of wrapping.

hello everyone- it's been a very busy few weeks here with loads of visitors
I'm feeling awful as my parents have just left and my mum was crying because she won't see us all on Christmas day- she is finding it so hard us living so far away now Jake is here

They have left lots and lots of pressies for Jake!

I haven't been on MN for ages- over a month I think so am not even going to attempt to catch up on the thread, will hopefully pick up the gist of what I've missed as I go along

Belgina, I DON'T find the time, hehe, which is why I was baking a cake at midnight . did you get a lot of Chrismas cards done? I still have loads to do and will dedicate Sunday to it all.

Sherrytom and Spangle, good to see you guys.

Hello to everyone else. I've got to dedicate Quiet Time to icing the cake, making pizza for birthday tea tomorrow and wrapping a couple of gifts for the post tomorrow morn. I just find it difficult to get things done in the day when the 3 are clawing at me constantly.

so, the house is its usual mess but we did make a snow penguin this morning. I posted a pic of it on FB. it had to be small as it is atop our garden wall away from the perils of the Border Collie.

Is anyone else's house Nappy Central? It feels like I'm constantly changing nappies. and both dd2 and H have been having so many dirty ones lately, i'm what I'm feeding them. I really wish dd2 would be interested in potty training but she's not ready yet. boo.

hope everyone is having a lovely snowy day.

I have a very poorly DD I live in pukesville, and I smell of puke yay! I went into her this morning and there was sick everywhere sorry tmi, I asked her why she hadn't called me and she said, she didn't want to wake me and daddy up...so she was covered from head to toe. So I've had to do about 4 loads of laundry, teddie and all. She's had to have her last day off nursery, then I had tears as she realised she was missing the chocolate raffle. Then I had to bath dd while J screamed for his breakfast which was lovely. I managed to get a neighbour to sit them both while I went round the school to pick up all her things she'd made at nursery and she'd won a prize in the raffle which chered her up. Curruentlt her temp is 39.1 though, so that's not good, and she's dosed up with calpol having a sleep on the sofa.

Right I best go, J has how puked milk all over me, niiiice. I feel like I'm having the day from hell today, I'd just like a nice long bath...

Belgian I don't know whether to say but in a previous post you said C and you don't normally do so...

Jael XXX