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

[essenceofSES]

Hope that works!

Cocktail anyone?!

Evening all.

We have just had a visit from Santa!! DS1 is consequently v excited, if a little confused. The local Rotary Club take him round the streets every Fri eve before Xmas to collect for charity.

jael your poor DD. At least its now and not in a weeks time. Calpol should do the trick anyhow! Hows the house, by the way?

ses sorry about your work situation. Can't add much more. llare has it covered!! Could you try 4 days for a bit and see if you can put together a convincing argument for a reduction?

momi cake? At midnight? Are you mad? Hope you have everything done for tomorrow. Am sure you will have a lovely day especially if the snow sticks. Happy Birthday to your DD.

snow we have had the flurries but nothing since last night.

sherrytom your story about your mum brought a tear to my eye. Shows how much she loves you all. Good to see you anyway.

All these teeth appearing. Can't believe it. Nothing here though. DS1 didn't cut his first tooth till 14 months.

Right, time for a glass of wine. It is Friday!

Sorry for not name checking everyone btw. Anyone joining me in a wine??!

grumpy you'll prob not see this, but hope all goes well tomorrow. Not sure how you are getting back but hope the weather doesn't disrupt your plans. In France it probably wouldn't.but a mm of snow here and the whole place grinds to a standstill

Hello!

Headless - we used to have Santa come round like that for Rotary when I was a child. It was something I always looked forward to every year

Jael - poor you. Hope the Calpol helps and you get a settled night.

sherrytom - welcome back!

I've sent an email to my boss this afternoon with some questions to help me explore my options. At least I feel now like I've done something. DH has also agreed that if I do go back 4 days a week, we can get a cleaner!

Snow is v pretty here. DS and I had a lovely day snuggled inside. His top teeth are imminent and giving him pain but this afternoon he slept on me for an hour and a half. I used the time to catch up on The Royal Variety Performance that I had on Sky+

too late...

x-post ses Hope your boss will be helpfull.

In our old place we had a rotary club Santa going past every year too. But we only ever noticed if we happened to be out, because we lived at the back of the house and so couldn't hear.

belgina re santa, I don't know if there are National Rules on this! All I can say is in CasaHeadless, Santa does the stockings and is the delivery agent for the presents under the tree. Except for those presents that are handed over in the prescence of DS1 in which case they are left under the tree, to be opened on Christmas day!

COnfused?? I expect DS1 is too!!

When I was a kid, I think Santa did the "main present" too, which makes me think we should do the same. Hmmmmmmm.

C sounds like R did last week. Vics vapour rub worked a treat on him ( as it did on me last night too). Hope she manages to get some good chunks of sleep tonight. For your sake!!

ses Its almost worth doing 4 days so you can get your cleaner!!!

Good point Headless! At least that's one thing that makes 4 days more appealing!

Belgina - I think it varies. We always had stockings from Santa and all other presents were from my parents. We always had to leave our stockings outside our bedroom doors as my younger brother was scared of Santa going into his bedroom!

Father Christmas always gave us the presents in the stocking and the main present under the tree. My mum and dad gsve us a present too. I will do this for my DCs too.

When I was a child Father Christmas brought the stocking and the "main present" and presents from under the tree were from named family and friends. I never thought it odd that my parents didn't give us any presents, either.

DH and I have decided to do the same. We've bought special Father Christmas paper that will only be used for Father Christmas presents too! These presents have been hidden in the garage and presents that neighbours and friends have given us for the DCs have been put under the tree.

My friend's parents had a fun tradition. They had a snowman made from an old sweet jar and the snowman used to be placed in the middle of the dining table during the christmas day supper. The snowman would give small presents to anyone present in the evening and I thought it was a lovely tradition for their family. The still have that rather battered snowman, and I'd estimate that he is at least 30 years old!

Evening all!

jael - sorry to hear about all the sick, hope things improve.

belgian - glad your boob is better! But poor C being ill and with a sore bum. Hope all improves soon.

sherrytom - hello!

momino - my biggest battle is getting the nappies dry, although the heating has been on so much recently they've been drying really quickly. I am so glad DD1 is out of nappies during the day; just need to work on the nights now. After Christmas, maybe.

Father Christmas brought our stockings and all the other presents were from my parents/whoever gave them to us. We're going to do that here too, as DH's family were simialt, except they got sacks not stockings!

Three inches of snow when we got up this morning, and a beautiful sunny day. DH got to work ok (15 miles drive), the hardest bit was getting off our road. No power cuts either!

Had friends and their toddlers and babies over for lunch today, it was mad! Really noisy and messy; I usually don't volunteer very often, I've remembered why! I made welsh cakes this morning, not very festive, but yum! And always impresses guests.

A is doing her refusing to sleep trick again, she had quite a long sleep this afternoon, and I think that has really messed up bedtime. That and wanting to move ALL THE BLINKING TIME! That child never stops. Dh has just come down from settling her, hopefully she'll stay asleep this time.

Thanks for all the replies re xmas presents. I think I'll carry on with the stockings being Santa and the presents under the tree being ours. Very confusing all these different things people do. llare like the snowman. Sounds like a lot of fun. I also do the special santa paper, lol.

flippin Sounds like a fun day, albeit exhausting. I hope A gets used to her crawling ability soon, so she settles a bit. C only just rolled (on her own without prompting) for the first time yesterday, but not again since.

C's asleep with calpol and vaporub (well green baby chest rub). Hopefully she'll feel better in the morning. I can keep hearing her cough over the baby monitor, but she's not waking.

Tomorrow I'm going up to the midlands for the weekend. DH has accepted that I can't do lots of decorating etc... with the dcs around, so he's requested that I do some cleaning instead. Ds is very very excited because I arranged a play date for him with his best friend.

just popping on to see how everyone's doing. sorry to hear there are still poorly and really poorly tonight. we have a v poorly ds here all of a sudden. he was fine at bedtime but woke up about an hour ago coughing and crying so much he was making himself sick. no temp but don't like the sound of his cough.. it sounds like a honk. he's wheezing too although not as bad now he's asleep again. waiting on NHS direct phoning us back. wondering if it's croup? anyone dealt with croup?

Hey Firelight, DS1 had croup a few weeks back. It's a really distinctive cough, like a seal honking. And they look like they are struggling to breathe & sound like Darth Vada. If it is croup (it sounds like it to me, especially the honk and sudden onset), be prepared for a couple of horrible nights sleep, as it gets particularly bad at 3-4am. I was recommended to go into a steamy room with DS1 to help them with breathing, but I didn't find this helped. Good luck with it and let me know if you need any more advice.

thanks tummum he's awake again and seems to have eased a bit. going to leave his & our bedroom doors open tonight so i can hear him really easily tonight.. his room is at the other end of our flat and these victorian walls are great at sound proofing.. hope he gets a good sleep.

morning been up for an hour.. the good news here.. ds's honking cough has gone and just sounds like a normal cough so don't think it's croup after all. big relief as was v scary to see him so poorly last night. tummum croup must have been very scary glad ds1 is all better still and hugs for the reminder of it.

with all the panic here I missed saying big hiya long time no see & welcome back to sherrytom

re santa.. belgina i've been trying to remember what my mum and dad did about santa and was on the verge of asking them as dh & i were disagreeing on what to do! you prob remember we also disagreed what went in the stocking too! we decided in the end santa would do stockings and give one special santa amazingly wrapped present under the tree for each of us.. that will magically appear for xmas morning. we've also taken the rest of the presents downstairs to my mum and dads so ds will be occupied while i cook xmas dinner down there on xmas day.

momino we get the odd phase of every nappy being poo ones.. never figured out why they happen but after a day or so it just returns to normal all of a sudden. so hoping it'll stop for you too soon..

Firelight so glad it isn't croup as it is a real nightmare. I don't think I slept for 4 days whilst G had it. Apparently it's much more prevalent in boys.

Had a bit of a nightmare yesterday. DH took DD1 to the cinema, and ran out of fuel at 8pm on a dual carriageway. (Our petrol gauge doesn't work and is being fixed next week), so I had to get someone to sit the other DC, go and rescue DD1 and go get more diesel from a garage and deliver it back to DH on the side of the road. We did this twice but it didn't work, so in the end got towed by breakdown home, where the car is sitting sadly on the drive. . It's kinda my fault because I should have remembered to fill up. He ho. Let's hope it isn't expensive to fix.

Nice to see you Sherry Jael hope your household is feeling better today

Ses Hope you get some joy from your boss. Oh, and good news re: cleaner !

Belgia we did the same as Llare for Father Christmas, in that he brought stockings and all presents from mum and dad. The rest of the presents were placed under the tree as and when they arrived, and this tradition we follow after a argument discussion with my DH who wanted all the pressies to be from FC. Although I like Febes idea of also getting a present from parents also.

Have lovely days everyone !

tummum hope the car isn't too expensive to fix.. will keep fingers crossed. with croup i can totally see why you didn't sleep for 4 days.. i was in and out of ds's room checking on him until 00.30am. just had the NHS direct call back from last night!! i re-enacted ds's cough and the lady said it could well have been a bit of croup.. so i suppose we'll see what happens tonight.

Ooh! Where is everyone today??!

We've spent the day cleaning up the house and moving DS's cot into his room finally!
Let's hope he has a good night tonight!

Tumm - sorry for the drama with the car. Hope it's all sorted now.

Sorry not to name check more, gotta dash as O is crawling across the floor to the marble fireplace

hiya ses i think we'll be moving G into her room over next few days i kinda wanted to leave it a while longer but dh's coughing is disturbing her so think she'll sleep better in her own room. will all depend on when dh feels up to taking the cotbed apart and re-building it.. something i leave him to do as he's done it so many times he has it down pat.

Hi all

Bad luck with the car tummum. DH is always running out of fuel, even though his petrol guage works perfectly well. The last time he walked into a village hall and asked some WI ladies if one of them would give him a lift to a petrol station - unsurprisingly they were a bit reluctant in case he was an axe murderer or whatever but in the end two went with him together (presumably armed with some kind of blunt instrument in case he turned nasty). Another time he got me to dry steer the car through a 3 point turn on a busy road - even though I couldn't drive at the time - in order to get it was pointing downhill so he could roll down to the petrol station.

Ses hope it goes well with O in his own room tonight. Let us know.

Fi glad it wasn't croup. Hope your DS is better soon.

Busy day here, my mum & her husband came over. They were supposed to be coming in the evening but were worried about snow, so poor H had to sit in his jumperoo for ages while I rushed around to get the meal ready.

H is a bit off colour too at the moment. We had another bad night last night, including being awake crying and squirming between 3 & am. Calpol sorted him out though and we all slept until 7.45am. I'm pretty sure it's his teeth, but he has a faint mottly rash all over his body and parts of his head/face. Anyone seen that before? Doesn't fit with any common complaints in my book so I'm guessing it's to do with teething or some random virus... he's had a few loose nappies too. If it's still there on Monday I think I'll take him to the GP.

hi spangle sorry H is off colour. what does the rash look like? i assume you've done the glass test on the spots?

Fi thanks for replying... no I haven't actually I guess I thought that's what you have to do if you're worried about meningitis and as H hasn't been feverish (apart from Wed night) and hasn't seemed seriously unwell I didn't bother.

It's more of a mottly effect than actual spots, and quite faint... when I first saw it last night it was just on his body and I thought it might be because I'd added fabric conditioner to the wash by mistake. Then this morning it was on his forehead and neck, and his cheeks look ruddy too. He's been grizzly and clingy but not listless or off his food, so assume I shouldn't be too worried (?)

Oooh, quiet here!

spangle - sorry to hear about H, hope he's better soon.

tummum - what a pain abot the car. Hope all sorted.

fi - glad it's not croup, it's horrible. DD1 had it last year, we sat in the bathroom with the kettle boiling with no lid on (so it didn't cut out, iyswim) for hours on end. It did help her, poor thing sounded terrible. Horrible for us though, sat for so long in the steam!

ses and fi - about LOs moving out. A will have to move in with DD1 at some point, but her sleeping is too unreliable atm. Actually, they're both unreliable, we'd never get any sleep!

Nice day here, lots of playing in the snow!

Anyone watch the Strictly final? Won't give away result unless you want me to.

Well 2.5hrs in and so far so good - O's still asleep! We'll see what happens the rest of the night! I have a single bed in his room too set up with a sleeping bag for me in case so if necessary we can lie side by side in our sleeping bags!

Spangle - O is definitely teething atm. I can see his top teeth v clearly now and think we'll have them by Christmas. His cheeks are v mottled red so it could well be teething for H too.

Fi - know what you mean about DH sorting out the cot. I also got him to lower the mattress as O is reaching up to the bars as well.

flippin - I did watch Strictly. Really enjoyed it