Sept 08: last year they were cute little bundles that smelt of milk and vanilla, but now they've been replaced with a babyzilla!

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

A new thread for us as the last one was running low.

hi sunshine, your dd sounds lovely. I have a climber too - it's hard work isn't it?

I never cease to wonder at what they learn though. Today I gave M a strawberry and then she grabbed one with the leaves on. I though oh well the leaves won't do her any harm, then saw her go over to th bin, remove the leaves one by one and put them in the bin! I normally take them off before I give them to her so I have no idea where she learnt that!

Yesterday she did something similar, I think it was a banana I gave her and she peeled it and put the skin in the bin. She's far tidier than the rest of us put together.

Ninja that is so cute.

Ahhhhhhh home sweet home. So lovely coming home after visiting relatives for waaaay too long.

Am v impressed at advanced babies! T has no words, a few 'sounds' for different thing (he can go 'mamamamamamamamamamamamama' if requested to say Mummy, and generally points at everything and goes 'da!' with much glee, expecting me to explain/hand it over/feed it to him/do a dance/whatever

Incidentally, should I be interacting with him more? Have realised he plays independently a lot more than most children his age. He actually seems to prefer it (often ends up in a frustrated strop if I try to play too. Suspect I am Not Good at playing), and probably only wants me to actively play with him for about 20% of his awake time. He hates not being in the room with me, so I generally follow him round the house and get on with something in whatever room we're in while he empties one of the cupboards he's been given access to, plays with his toys, or pushes the chairs around, or whatever. I read to him a couple of times a day as he seems to like that, and I chat on and off to him, but generally don't sit on the floor and actively PLAY with him, iykwim.

Is this allowed? Am I setting him up for a lifetime of therapy after being ignored by a neglectful mother? Or should I just praise be that he's happy to entertain himself and make the most of it before he demands my attention for every little thing?

Hopefully I'm sure that's fine. He sounds really independent and for me and DH confidence and independence are two of the main things we're hoping to instill in the kids.

I have to tell you that DD's favourite word is so indicative of her - shoe. She loves shoes and clothes of all kinds and is always trying to change her clothes (pretty successfully sometimes). It's very very funny.

Hi there
I would encorage this independance if I were you hopefully there is nothing harder than to entertain a child 24/7.
"shoe" Like mother like daugther is the phrase sunshine lol
I have a massive urge to redesign our house this morning. I am thinking knocking down walls here and there . Obviously not me but a builder. I ve planned the furniture and everything! Just need to convince dh which as always is the hardest part.
Have a nice day xx

Funnily enough I've chosen a godmother for her (obv. not purely based on this as she is a very very good friend and DD loves her) who has more shoes and bags than anyone I've ever met. She bought DD her first party shoes for Christmas.

Nice to see you sunshine. Carriebo - so sad about your friend's funeral.

Hopefully - you have got me worrried about the freezer! We have a little one attached to the fridge, and a bigger one in the garage. It is really useful when I cook ahead and keep loads of nice meals ready for us to heat up. But as I have been a lazy arse recently the outside freezer currently contains one bag of chicken stock and a frozen guinea fowl. I think I know what we'll be eating this week, and then I'll be turning that one off for a while!

I took DD for a walk in the buggy yesterday - first time for ages. Didn't get far as we still have so much ice on the tracks I was slipping all over the place. We did pass the ducks "wak, wak", and we saw the donkeys too. When we went to say hello DD said "neigh neigh". I had to explain that was very close but donkeys actually say ee ore. She just looked at me like I was stupid and said "neigh neigh" again.

lol at a frozen guinea fowl - get you Ponymum

It sounds like T is fine Hopefully. But then I would say that as that is what M does too! Even when we go to groups he doesn't play with other children, he just happily does his own thing mostly. Maybe it would be different if he had a sibling?

mama - is it you who's off to somewhere nice and warm at the end of the month?

Toby up most of the night....hallucinating with fatigue

Poor you Becaroo! Is he teething or something?

We have just spent an hour in the library. T completely destroyed the children's area with a look of deep joy on his face (I did tidy it up afterwards!), then fell over, banged his head and screamed until about eight librarians came rushing over, thinking he was dying

Glad you don't all think T is a freak! Am working on the sibling thing as fast as I can ILTMIMI . OMG, I haven't emailed you, have I? I couldn't not be more of a waste of space.

Oh bugger, Baby einstein's finished, better go and pretend to entertain him again!

Poor you Becaroo. It's so hard to cope with broken sleep when you've got out of the habit isn't it? How is Toby today?

Hello sunshine!!!! Good to hear from you!

Toby is fine The poor thing is teething and doing a fine job of cutting 4 teeth (inc molars) at once but that wasnt the problem last night.....

He was asleep by 8pn but very restless. Began crying by 10pm fairly constantly with the odd break. Gave him calpol at about 1am as thought it must be his teeth...no temp of anything.

Dh took over as I had got no sleep at about 2am. He basically let him cry for a further 3 hours...when I could stand no more I went back in and took his temp again (fine) gave him some calpol and asked dh if he had checked his nappy. Cue dh lokoing at me as if I had asked him to lop his arm off with a rusty knife

Basically the poor thing had been lying in a dirty nappy for at least 3 hours - his bum is now red raw and I am not speaking to dh...ffs, you dont let a baby cry for hours without trying to find out whats wrong!!!!!!! I am livid. No sleep and rage are not a good mix!

Hopefully - I darent take Toby back after our last trip to the library He and Tom basically ran round the shelves sqealing for about 20 mins....lots of hostile stares but we were in the kids section!

Toby squealing, not tom obviously!!!!

The libary I had not even considered that I do remember taking ds1 in his early days for special story telling sessions.
I hope t sleeps better for you tonight becaroo
Yes il2mimi Its me going to dubi a week on sat! To be honest I am all packed and ready to go already. Any tips for entertaining e on the flight??? any special tavelling toys ??

I hope your night is better Becaroo.

Ooooh, Dubai. How lovely. No idea about entertaining on a flight, books maybe? And LOTS of snacks.

I was just watching the Hairy Bikers and they previewed next weeks show and it looks like some of it was filmed in my village

Poor toby and poor you becaroo. Sympathies, DS gets a sore bum if we don't change a pooey nappy within minutes of him doing it. So it's become one of the first things I check when he's grumpy. 9 times out of 10 I can smell it way in advance of him getting grouchy.

Hello hello sunshine! Oo oo do I know the chosen godmother?

hopefully I am sooooo very envious of those with independent babies. Ds is the very opposite, he is most happy when I am sat on the floor reading to him or readily available to accept toys, trinkets or bits of fluff he's found/needs help with.

I may have a maximum window of 15 minutes where he will play independently and I can get on with chores. After that he'll come find me and demand to be picked up and/or I get down to his level and play with him.

It seems most of my rl friends with babies are also blessed with happy independants, so for a while I felt like I was doing something wrong (or worse, that there was something wrong with ds). However, I have since learned that he is not the only clingy toddler in the world, thanks to a few threads on mumsnet. And that has made me feel slightly better.

Just checking in quickly while I'm using the free internet in the hotel along the road from me! (I did buy a coffee from the starbucks so it has cost me £3.75 to be fair)

Have only done a quick skim of the last few ddays but Carrie reading about your friend's daughter made me cry.
Hopefully it's good that T is so independent, I'm sure he'll go through phases of wanting you to play with him too. I'm better than I used to be but I used to find playing hard work. I much prefer colouring, painting, making things. Which is good as dh prefers lying on the car mat playing and hates 'crafty things'

We move house tomorrow Can't belive the day is fanlly here! The removal man packed everything for us today, there's no way we could have done it ourselves, there is no room for boxes in our house for any more than 24 hours. So it was good not to have to do it over the weekend. Now all that needs done is the loft emptied and the cleaning done but can't do any of that until the boxes are gone.

DS2 is almost over the chicken pox. After being quite poorly the 1st 2 or 3 days he's been much better since. He hasn't scratched at all even though he's had a few big horrible ones. Hopefully ds1 will han on till after tomorrow before he gets it!

Right, I'd better get home and disturb dh's football watching! Will be back in about 6 months when Talktalk connect us! (actually I can get on here at work, it's just facebook I have to live without)

Good luck for tomorrow Debi - how exciting! Let us know how it all goes and how wonderful your new house is

What am I still doing on here? I am supposed to be looking at boilers on t'internet

Good luck for tomorrow Debi

Mama one thing I did with DS (he was a little older at 21m but I think it will help) on a flight solo to San Francisco was to buy a lot of little things like a colouring book, some new DVDs (we took our portable DVD player), small toys, puzzles is wrap them up and every so often, when he was starting to get bored, we would open one and he'd happily play/watch for a little while. Don't give him chocolate though! I gave it DS for last hour of the flight and he went a bit mental.

One really good thing we had on flight to NY last year was one of those magic colouring books where they can't draw on anything else with the pens. It kept 3 year old DS mostly occupied (along with the Monsters versus Aliens film on the in-flight entertainment) for the whole flight.

Digi you do know the godmother. Did you recognise her from the description?

Good luck on the move Debi.

mama - Valium?

sorry - that wasn't helpful

I meant to say hopefully I would cultivate the not being very good at playing bit, you don't want to end up being the best ever playmate!

I'm guessing T might end up being one of those little boys who make perfect, intricate spreadsheets models with lego and I'd really love one of those (that was me as a child!)

Just dropping by whilst DP picks C up from nursery.

DG you are not alone and i have the same clingy baby here. i too can't get much done (I marvel at Hopefully constantly baking etc). She can't walk yet (C that is!) and always wants to be picked up, with tears if i don't. She'll play on her own for about 15 mins, like A.
I find it hard to be honest as I always feel it's cos i work FT and she may feel like I'm never around. We do spend nice time together and have started reading before bedtime, which I'll never tire of.

Back later - i have 2 qns for you all - as you're so wise!