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

[essenceofSES]

Hope that works!

Cocktail anyone?!

morning all

Our heating froze up last night so got up with DH at 6.45, luckily DH managed to temporarily sort it out (bodge) so the house is now warm again.

On the plus side I've managed to do one load of washing, have a shower, tea and toast and Matilda is still asleep - her room has a separate heater so she has been lovely and toasty . Right off to strip our bed and wash bedding.
I've bought some lovely brushed cotton sheets so want to get those on the bed before the snow arrives again.

better clean the grate out too I guess so we can light the fire tonight

Morning everyone, hope those with heating woes aren't too cold. We've got out heating on near constantly atm. Our house seems v difficult to heat but we can't work out why. I think part of the problem might be because it was empty for nearly a year before we moved in but surely we should have heated it up by now?

tum am so sorry you had a rough day. Hope you had a nice evening and it is a bit better today. Focus on the positives of that lovely smile from G when you walk through the door.

looby hope your mum gets the help she needs now.

momi/fi I am also doing combi-weaning (tm momi ) as A just wants to eat everything off our plates - greedy like her mum Mainly its mashed stuff and finger food and she seems a lot less interested in milk too. Am interested to see how much she weighs now as am sure she has grown a lot in the last few weeks.

Our colds are a lot better thanks momi. A and DH escaped lightly but I was knocked out and spent most of new year's day and Saturday in bed.

Well

Morning all,

Not too bad a night here considering how things have been going recently, but I'm considering doing some combi feeding too. C genuinly seems hungry when she wakes at 10.30 -2.30 and 5 and 7.30... It's not like she has a little suckle and back to sleep, no she has a proper feed. I'm a bit worried as we've got a thing to go to this Sat and I'm not sure if I'll be able to go as things stand. I'm going to experiment with a bottle of EBM at 10 to get it in before she wakes and see if that keeps her asleep until at least midnight. I'll try it tonight.

tummum I hope your 2nd day at work today will be better I've started my search for a new ap properly now. No success yet so far.

looby and anyone else with heating woes. I hope you're managing to keep warm today. It's not a very nice winter to fall without heating

I'll leave it at this now. C's desperately trying to do a bit of typing too and I've got to go out to the osteo in half an hour.

snows coming down thick and fast here now.

Just been out to check on/feed the chickens and managed to fall over, smashing a bowl in the process. Don't think I'll make it out to visit mum today as I don't fancy driving or taking out a snotty baby in this .

Think we're going to wrap up warm and venture out with the buggy to the local supermarket .

Have cleaned out the grate in the lounge so might light the fire when we get back.

Matilda is having a pyjama day today .

running- great news on As sleep. At least if it continues your boobs should calm down. Mine are really full all the time as S doesn't seem interested in milk in the day . He isn't really that interested at night either, but is just wide awake and i am so tired i am almost forcing him to feed as an easier way to get him to sleep . He fed at 10pm, 3am, and 5.30am last night. The main issue at the moment is that he is sleeping more and more in our bed, and DH isn't happy about it, and we don't sleep as well when he is there. He was in the bed from 3am last night, but the other night it was from midnight. Sometimes it's like having a newborn again.

Sorry to those of you with heating woes. Hope you manage to keep warm today.

pula sounds like a good week. H is booked to start nursery in mid-March which will be at least 2 weeks before I go back to work. I'm looking forward to having some of the 'me' time I didn't get at the start of my mat leave, but no doubt I'll be pining for him all day!

Belgina I'm in the same position re weaning. We had 2 nights out before Christmas which I was really worried about as I couldn't express any milk and H doesn't seem to like formula (I was going to leave it in his tommee tippee cup, having admitted defeat on the bottle front)... anyway, I spoon fed him a jar of baby food, didn't let him have too much water with it so he took on his usual bedtime bf. He did wake up both times but at least I knew he wouldn't be hungry, just needing comfort.

I'm thinking of going down the combi-weaning (TM Momi) front too. I'm also now trying to be more disciplined about regular meal times. Before Christmas I wasn't always offering H lunch if it wasn't convenient, since he wouldn't eat anything anyway, but now he's that little bit older I'm hoping by setting up a good routine he'll get the hang of this eating business .

running meant to say, brilliant sleeping from A . If she can keep it up you should get in tune with her before long.

Well my lovely day with just S, drinking coffee with mums whilst B was at nursery and K at school was thwarted by the snow. No coffee morning as the roads were too bad, B was sent home from nursery around 10.30 and K is home early from school, and DH is here too so it's like every other day in the last 2 weeks . And i've cancelled my spa day tomorrow and rebooked for next Thursday. Oh well...

pula your nights sound a bit like mine have been, especially with being away at Christmas I tend to feed A to sleep as I know its the quickest and quietest way to settle her. It is exhausting tho. I put it down to her being disinterested in the day and as that's when she has bottles and I can see that she hasn't been drinking loads either. I have tried over the last week to try to get her to drink more milk in the day - fast teats seem to have worked so am not sure if this is what caused the good sleep last night or that she is being a lot more active in the day (backwards crawling ad bouncing almost non-stop) so is more knackered when it comes to bedtime. Am hoping it wasn't a one-off although now I've said that she'll probably have us up at all hours now Sorry to hear your nice days have been snowed off. At least the spa is rebooked so you have that to look forward to.

There's no snow here although it is freezing. The car read -2.5 when we went swimming this morning.

spangle we've recently slipped into quite a pattern of fairly regular mealtimes too. I noticed A was quite unsettled over the hols when mealtimes were a bit all over the place, although could also have been to do with the amount of over enthusiastic GP's, aunts and uncles around the place too

running at your night. Really hope you get another good one. I think we have all had enough bad ones now!!

pula sorry your day didn't work out as planned. Just think though a lovely spa day next week. You can get some sleep in the sauna!!

looby really hope your mum gets the help she needs.

mealtimes for R. I've been quite good and have kept him to three good meals a day. ALthough sometimes they are just toast and cheese or even pizza . He is taking more and more food everyday. Just wish it would mean that he sleeps more at night. ALthough he does seem to be getting slightly better and has been only waking once.

DS1 had a fabulous first day at school although trying to get any info about what they actually did is like getting blood out of a stone. So far it appears to be dancing and playing on the computer.

meal times Spangle, I think our BLW experiences are very similar. I do the skipping lunch thing too when we're out and about and I know I have to stop it. With 2 older dcs we do have regular meal times, but only during weekends and holidays, lol. However C rythm doesn't seem to be in sync with the family's normal meal time and she's either napping/ready for a nap when we have lunch and tired when we have dinner (around 6) No matter how early I start preparing food, somehow I just can't manage to get it done for 5-5.30 Today I started at 4.30 (ready made pie + veg) and it still wasn't ready until 6! I don't know how I managed that, but there you go... I think I'll just wait with the combi weaning until I managed to have a good chat with someone I know who's got a 15mo who was purely BLW and see what she thinks.

headless It's only recently that my ds started actually replying to what he's done at school. When he was little he just said: 'nothing' and when I asked what he had for dinner he also said 'nothing'

Oh and extremely bad mummy alert I didn't send the dcs to school yesterday thinking it was an inset day and I had been wrong. Everyone thought they were ill ... and we only live less than 100m from school and I hadn't noticed that people were taking their dcs

Happy New Year!!!!

Namecheck amnesty please, I'm too tired, tbh. Have managed to read most of what I've missed - glad Christmases were good, ILs tolerable, sorry about the snot/thrush/vomitting. Hope things improving. tumm - hope you are ok, thinking of you and work.

We had a good Christmas. Set off from home on the 23rd as planned, made it to the midlands for lunch with DH's aunt and uncle as planned...after that it went a bit wrong. Left the rellies at 5, raining there but then 10 miles down the road it turned into very heavy snow, and when I phoned my mum in Wales they had heavy snow there too and the roads weren't clear. We turned round and went back to aunt's and stayed the night there and then went to my parents on Christmas Eve - and had a lovely time! DD1 admitted finally that she did like Christmas after all, and that presents are good. New year was spent in Shropshire with friends - 8 adults and 4 children and we had a great time. Bit too much drink and food, and not enough walking due to the extremeley low temperatures but lots of fun was had by all.

We got home yesterday afternoon and DH had to fly to Asia for work this morning - great! Not looking forward to this week at all, DD1 is at her highly strung best right now and is really not very good at too much disruption, so going from being away for so long and having daddy around all the time to not having him will be challenging I think.

Right, I need to think of a new name. Or at least go back to the old one.

belgina - lol at you not sending the children to school!

Fogot to say, A ate 4 roast parsnips and a roast potato for Christmas dinner! And she is sort of cruising now - she very slow 'creeps' along the sofa. Eeek.

belgina, at missing school! also, in a way I'm glad to hear you can't get meals on until 6pm as I'm exactly the same. H is usually too tired as well so I put her down for a 15 min nap about 5pm if i see she's not going to make it to bedtime (around 7.30).

combi-weaning, i was mostly going to do BLW but it seemed like H was getting too frustrated so I started helping her by spoon feeding things whilst she gnawed on toast or carrot sticks. She eats so much more this way and sleeps very well now - 11 hours through (wish I could say the same for dd1&2).

spangle, I think offering 3 meals a day is good. it's taken awhile, but H seems to be doing well on 3 meals and is now taking less milk - she's all but dropped the lunchtime feed and is getting bored at the afternoon/post nap feed .

headless, so glad ds1 had a good day.

flippin, sounds like you had a great holiday. hope your week flies by until your DH returns.

looby, is the heating fixed? ours is keeping the house at a stable 16C so not too bad. hopefully the engineer coming on thu can fix it.

running, impressed at swimming (wish it were me).

had a good day here: made rice crispy cakes, went to friend's for lunch, made a fish pie, did laundry... but didn't take down christmas decorations. do I have until tomorrow, or what does the tradition say?

my dd1 starts pre school tomorrow and I'm a bit worried as she cried at her 'settling in' session - i hope she's ok.

and dd2 called me 'ju-leh' in a broad Yorkshire accent today . where did she get that?

I just tried giving C a dream feed with a bottle and it worked!!!! She's been waking at 10.30 for the last few weeks now, so I expressed 2oz and give it to her at 10. She just took the bottle without a murmur and then finished off on the boob of course. Tomorrow I'm going to do a bit of expressing throughout the day and try the whole feed from a bottle. I'll try to get loads because I have no idea how much she normally takes.

flippin Welcome back. Sounds like you had a great time. Will have to change my name back to something non-christmassy too. V. impressed with A's mobility. C still just sits but does not tolerate tummy time and pushes herself well up on her arms and tries to get onto her knees, so she's getting there.

momi Good luck to your dd1 on her 1st day at pre school.

momi ay your DDs yorkshire accent. I wonder what my DCs accents will be?? NZ? SA? or Sarf London??

febes, I'll be interested to hear what your DCs accents turn out to be. I'm surprised my DD's sound so British. the only bit of my accent I hear is when dd1 says 'pah-sta' or both dd's call our dog 'gee-oi-ge' (trying to mimic my 'r' but more like a Brooklyn, NY accent rather than my Ohio).

Jingle, great news on the dream feed!

must go to bed, must go to bed. gotta get up at 6 to shower (that is, if I really want one).

going to catch up with a cuppa but first I wanted to shout WE'VE ACTUALLY GOT SNOW!!! there'll be no pre school today.. it's been snowing since 10pm last night and it's coming down thick and fast atm. I haven't seen this amount of snow here in years.. G will be intrigued and ds is v excited.. but he keeps saying he wants it to snow inside

good job we went to doc's yesterday.. still got sore thrush nips and G has now got conjunctivitus.

and must. take. xmas. tree. down..

Morning all,
Think we're officially the only part of the UK with no snow! Its blimmin cold tho and v grey so maybe its on its way.

Another amazing night here. A did wake twice (at 11pm when DH got in and 4am) but all we did was dummy in and music on and she went back to sleep until 6.15 . I am keeping fingers crossed that this is the beginning of some good sleep habits in the running household

Interesting re accents. I don't have a strong Welsh accent anymore but I am hoping A will pick up the few oddities that DH always laughs at - tuth instead of tooooth, and bathers for swimming cossie are just a couple

Jingle lol at the 'inset' day. Always happens. One teacher I work with (not me!) turned up in jeans on the first day of term once thinking it was an inset day and hadn't planned any lessons - kids and teachers alike didn't let him forget it for a looooonnnnngggg time

hi flippin glad you had a nice Christmas and hope your DH free week goes ok

momi I think today's the last day for doing the Christmas tree. hope DD1's first day at preschool goes well.

Right I really should go and do something useful, later ladies x

Morning all,

It's funny about accents- neither DH or I have strong accents but the DCs have some 'Yorkshire' which they get from the ladies at nursery .

Well I was surprised to find school and nursery both open today so am now at a loose end with nothing planned and feeling all anxious inside thinking about how S is doing on his first day. He burst into tears at one stage (think it was a bit chaotic as lots of people arriving together) but calmed down as he was walked around.

So i think i will do some chores this morning (I have been getting very down about the mess whilst my cleaner is away), then maybe go out for lunch, and then start the school/nursery run around 2.30. Although i probably could have made it to my spa session, i'm not sure i could have fully relaxed as my tummy is all churned up, so probably better that i go next Thursday instead. Just a shame that my friend can't make next Thursday so i will not have anyone to have a good chinwag with.

Bathers! Yes, running me too! DS hasn't picked up any Welshness though DH has adopted "now in a minute" and "cwtch." My accent in pretty bland these days but I have a cold, have spent the last week in Swansea so I currently sound like Nessa. DS sounds very English.

sleeping is still rubbish here. DS2 just will not settle and sleeps for about an hour at a time in his cot. I give up at 11pm and take him to bed where he sleeps beautifully until 8am so can't really complain. I just want my evenings back!

Belgian lol at missing school. It sounds like something I would do. And all those teeth! Wow. None here at all.

Tummum how are things?

Fi any news on the viewing?

Reggiee how was work?

Headless your DS's description of school sounds pretty normal! Is he enjoying it or has the snow stopped play?

No pre-school here today because of the snow. We've lots, with more on the way.

Morning all!

running - yay about the good night! Ok night here, A woke about 10.30 and had a quick feed and went back to sleep, then woke again at some point later. Both girls were up for the day at 5:45 though, gah.

We've got snow here in Essex - about a cm overnight, then it started again about 7 this morning and there's been another couple of cms, and still snowing quite heavily. I really need to go out later, we haven't got all that much food in the house so I think I'll be brave and venture out of foot with the big double pushchair.

The accebt thing is interesting, isn't it? I think LOs pick up a lot from their peers. My accent isn't very Welsh any more either (apart from when I'm drunk ) - but like you running, I get laughed a lot when I say tooth! Year and ear sound remarkably similar too, come out as yur. DD1 doesn't have much of an accent yet, although she has started dropping t's at times.

We did the Christmas tree yesterday, my job now is to find homes for the toys and things that have arrived over Christmas. Actually, books are a bigger problem than books. Much better to have too many than not enough though.

sorry, lots of cross posts! My girls get cwtches too, and DH (a northener) bizarrely now says 'fair play to him/her' quite a lot. lol llaregub at sounding like Nessa!

A cold good morning to you all.
pula, hope you have a relaxing day despite the churning stomach. just do a little bit of the housework then make yourself a cuppa and relax. ok?

well, were out of the house at 8.40 and trudged through the snow with a phil&Ted and slow toddler. The whole pre-school/nursery run took 50 min (i think mostly because of the snow on the pavements). I think I'll have to have them at breakfast at 7.50 instead of 8am. with H eating breakfast now and needing help, it slowed me down even more.

Any case, I'm surprised and that I left dd1 at preschool without her crying/tantrumming. I assured her it was just for the morning and she'd be at home with us for dinner.

finally sitting down for breakfast whilst Harper naps. and relax. ok. finished. off to do some laundry, bread, take the tree down, make meatballs, etc.... oh, what should I do first?

does anyone else set too many tasks for themselves unreasonably? I think I'll just manage the bread. H will be awake soon.

Hopeyou're all well and those having Snow Days having fun!