May 2009 - Don't forget to wear your good shoes...

[belgina]

Right, new thread...

Sorry about the title

Cocktail anyone?

ok so A has been asleep for her usual 40 mins and will wake up any min but I think I have caught up...

saus grrr at phD people. Will poke tongue out on way past on Fri. Glad your mum is ok. Hope you get date for hip soon.

Loobs hi, nice to see you back. Glad you are ok. Sorry you are still having stresses re your mum

Jael nice to see you too. Hope your DP is ok.

belg and ses I am also back to work next week so sharing your wibblings and worries.

dandy 21 children in pizza express sounds like fun!

So sorry re the sleep woes. Sounds like you had a much better night last night pula so hope it continues to improve. There is a definitely correlation between A's night waking and how much milk she drinks in the day so I do try to make her drink at least 5oz per feed. When I was bf, I offered milk every 2.5-3 hours in the day as it helped her go a bit longer at night. Other thing that helps is something carby for tea like pasta or rice.

brekkie A usually has a banana and some weetabix about 30mins to an hour after waking up milk. She definitely eats less if its any closer to milk but if we offer her milk after breakfast she doesn't drink any at all which affects sleep massively.

naps I also try not to let A sleep after about 4.30. We have had a major breakthrough this week though and she has had almost all of her naps in her cot just in time for me to do some lesson planning. Whoop de doo.

ses grr at your DH and his birthday rubbishness.

fi and muddled sounds like you had a nice meet-up

Hello to everyone else, spangle, headless, febes, flip, emmabemma

Sorry for any typos am finishing this post and not previewing as A has woken up and I can hear her demanding attention so am going to get her - she has a great way of banging the side of the cot in a 'come and get me mum' kind of a way.

Back later ladies x

Morning

Re: breakfast.
M usually wakes between 7.00-8.00 has a small milk feed (usually too excited as awake) then has her weetabix and fruit at about 9.00. Try to give her a milk feed/rice cake at about 11.00 but she's really going off BF don't know whether to start offering her a FF at 11 instead as she may actually take more then

Really struggle to get her to nap at all during the day or Bf so she has started waking at 12-1am for milk instead of sleeping through thinking of giving up the BF and introducing FF as a result.

M is watching BabyTV at the better go put my face on as we're off to visit my mum b4 the snow arrives later

Oooh! Have fun at the meet-up.

For breakfast G has a feed at around 7ish when he wakes up and has breakfast around 8am/8.30am with me. We have porridge with sultanas and he has a banana too.

As for naps, he has a short nap around 10 or so and another in the afternoon. He sometimes has another around 5 or so which I just go with.

Not had a bad morning here...J woke at 7 for his milk feed, so I brought him in with me and fed him, I didn't bother putting him back today, as he seemed very wide awake and knew he would just wake DD up, so I thought I may as well just let her sleep until 8am. So J fed, and then thought i'd cuddle him and see if he'd nod off he never comes in our bed to sleep so he wern't having none of it! He sung a little song to me, which went something like "MaMa DaDa BaBa Ta Ta Ta...." and then tried to bite my nose so I gave up with trying to get an extra half an hour in bed!

I've also caught DD with a fork in her hair this morning it wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't all tangled, and if she didn't have hair down to her bottom! Her response to why she had a fork in her hair....She was trying to brush her hair, like ARIEL

I'm also very of your meet-up. (In a good way!) But I know you'll all have a great time!

arrrgh it's snowing here! great big chunks of it and really heavy!! it's hitting the road and trying to stay.. but melting into mush atm. i hope it stops as i wanted to spend our nectar points on a wii this afternoon

Fi We had a tiny sprinkling of snow yesterday, which melted as soon as it hit the ground, but have got nothing here, we don't get much

I sooo need to get round to putting some recent pics onto FB! Have got a very cute vid of J walking too, but I have no clue how to put video's up Can't believe our babies are almost 10 months old!

Hi all.
just got back from town, saw grumpy and her lovely 3 DD's. always good to see a mnetter friend. Hope to meet some of you as well someday.

baby Mandarin? crikey, no wonder your HV was impressed! am really amazed you can't speak it yet, Dandy. better start studying in between your writing.

Not sure I can find Baby Mandarin classes locally but can recommend '16 Filastrocche per Bambini'/Italian children's songs on Spotify .

not that H is going to say anything more than 'mamama, dadada, bababab, nanana' etc. at the moment.

dd2 is doing ok at potty training but for every time (twice) she's made it to the potty, she's had 5 accidents. not sure she's getting the hang of it.

be back on to namecheck later. thanks all for asking, just anxious at the moment. have a visit to colorectal clinic tomorrow that I'm very nervous about. at the moment it's an assessment and possible biopsy. as you can imagine, really playing on my mind.

looby, can imagine you felt similar before your recent tests?

Afternoon,

Popping back on while a asleep again - had 4 friends and their little one's round this afternoon, was chaos now they are all rolling/crawling/cruising around the place but much fun.

Lots of cross-posts this morning when I posted and ran.

younger I missed your post earlier and hope you are ok. Sorry you are feeling anxious, please do offload here if it helps. How have your sleep issues been lately? Its no fun when you are sleep deprived anyway then can't sleep yourself. I think Fi mentioned getting up and doing something can help - I often try to read a bit as it helps me to focus on something other than what is worrying me.

dandy am v impressed with your mandarin speaking dc's. our school is offering lessons for the first time this year and the take-up has been impressive. Thanks for checking out the meet-up venue.

jael at the singing. A sometimes seems to give a running commentary on what I'm doing, lots of bla bla bla and bee bee bee's this week.

Its grim weather here, was supposed to be running tonight but think I'm going to chicken out as its horrible rain and big blobs of sleet.

Oh, A awake again. Best be off.

Thanks running, just xposted you. sounds like you had fun chaos this afternoon! grim weather here now.

I have two whingy kids with temps and bad attitudes. I hope they have a big recovery before tomorrow or I might be stuck here with them . DH is painting the kitchen/ dining room (willow green-we are both a bit about the colour) so I'm in the lounge keeping the kids 'entertained'. I think we might have to go out for a quick bite for dinner as I can't get to anything in there.

Ah, Dandy - ni hao? Ni hao ma. I do find Mandarin more harsh than the Cantonese dialect, don't you think?

M doesn't sing, say words, or communicate in any fashion at all. It is most disappointing. She just pants a lot like an overexcited puppy. No doubt Londoners will see this tomorrow and look at me and think 'stupid woman'...

Pula - I am SO pleased about your night last night! Hurrah!

So I went into work today (Dandy I would have popped in but I was driving and it was chucking it down and I was on a mission. And I have realised I bloody hate Camberwell now and couldn't be arsed to faff about in the traffic). Told Consultant and nurse manager that I will be resigning. I could tell my Consultant was sad but nurse manager was very matter of fact about it. Ha.

On a happier note I nipped into the weighing room in the outpatients department and weighed and measured M - all the baby clinics I've been to with M either don't have the measurer there at all, or do it really, really badly. I was advised to lie her down the other week and lay a tape measure next to her Am not usually so prissy but growth and development is my bleedin' JOB ffs!

Ahem.

Anyway, mini-sausage is now on the 50th centile for length and about the 60th for weight - hurrah! She's been mooching along on the 25th or so, so she is finally podging out a bit

Spangle - see what you mean re silver lining for PhD thesis thingy, but it was actually a professional doctorate if I want to be pedantic, so I had already done 4 years and 60,000 words worth of assignments, so our thesis only had to be a shorty of 20,oo - 40,000 words. Just seems bloody STUPID to fail at the poxy proposal stage. Pah.

Right bath time. DH is out tonight so I might be back later.

Dandy- not surprised your HV was impressed with the Mandarin speaking. My DS2 doesn't babble yet- still just A and E sounds- Saus- S sounds a lot like M- we think it's like having a puppy too- especially when we pat our knees and say "come on S, over here, good boy!"

I am so glad we have tried the sleep training again. As you may remember we tried in early December and didn't get anywhere- still up for an hour in the night even on the third night. That was the first time S has slept in his own cot in his own room ALL NIGHT so it was pretty monumental - he usually end up in our bed or the cot in our room. Tonight he was very tired (fell asleep feeding) but i roused him by going to say night night to the other DCs and then he went down with a bit of whimpering as I rubbed his back. He didn't bother with the trying to sit up/roll over business. I shouldn't get too excited and should be prepared for another difficult night waking but it feels like we have nearly cracked it . And i am off work tomorrow so can have a lie in if things get tough.

Phew...I am sooo glad that today is over with. I've been running around like a headless chicken, but I have just had a lovely relaxxxxxing bath which DP ran for me, without me even asking, I think he could tell I'd had a stressed day. I cannot wait to marry this man my bath however was LUSH, and I feel soooo much better...

DD thought it was a good idea to cover J in glitter to make him look pretty he was covered! So I had to bath him around the time I should have been making dinner, and then I had to SUPER SUPER clean his highchair before he could sit in it again, and then vacumn twice, before I could start dinner...So dinner was an hour late and J was a grumpy baby.

I've since had to vacumn again, and should imagine i'll have to three times tomorrow too, I just keep seeing glitter!

On the plus side while J was having his afternoon nap, I managed to tackle a job I've wanted to do for several weeks now, and thoroughly clean the oven, shelves etc...I can now sleep tonight knowing that my oven is sparkling

Now we don't get alot of snow really where we live, but weve had an inch in the last hour, so I should imagine you ladies down south have way more than that round about now

We have lots of snow here. It has snowed on and off all day.

Jael oven clean? Why on earth would you do such a thing? That way madness lies.

So jealous of you all meeting up tomorrow. While you lot are gossiping and cuddling babies I shall be watching Postman Pat Live. Oh, the glamour!

Off to do some work now...

You're only an hour away from me Llare and the difference in snow is amazing isn't it?

I don't like mess, I like everything clean hehe the oven has been on my mind, and at last I got it done today, I mean, yeah, I could have sat down for an hour and watched day-time t.v but nooooo, I cleaned instead

Postman Pat Live, my DD would be VERY jealous!!

oven cleaning I think mine needs cleaning. After only 6m! or is that a long time without cleaning an oven. The ap said it smelled

dandy Wow, really impressed with the chinese. I used to understand a little bit, because I was an ap myself with a half chinese/half Belgian family, but I've lost it all now. C doesn't pant like dog, but snorts a bit like a pig sometimes, complete with nose wrinkles . She mainly does bwabwa and awawa sounds, sometimes a boo comes in there too.

pula so glad you're feeling more positive about the sleeping now. Fingers crossed tonight will be better than yesterday.

running sounds like you had a lovely, but busy afternoon today.

younger Hope you're OK. Hope your appointment will go OK tomorrow.

looby Nice to see you back

flippin No routine as such here really. I was only saying yesterday that C can nap anytime she wants, but after 5-5.30 is just too late or she'll be up too late in the evening and then that will have a knock on effect on dc1&2's bedtime. It's all a case of a finely balanced balancing act in this family, lol.

The ap was a little about lying with C to put her down for a nap. I told her that I do not want C to cry on her own, so that I want her to stay with C, even if she's not lying with her, IYKWIM.

We had a busy day here today. First swimming with everyone. All the dcs including C had a ball. C just loooves the water! She was splashing away, full of excitement. After that we went to the local town and popped into the Designer Outlet Centre. There I got myself a glam dress for this ball we have to go to in March. It's like it was made for me, clinging and skimming in just the right places. It makes me look slimmer than I really am AND it was part of a buy one get one free, so I had a jacket and this dress for only £25! The dress alone should have been £75!! I also got myself some new boots, ready for tomorrows meet . I really didn't want to come in my falling apart scruffy things, lol.

evening all. DH is out so I'm already in bed. Just can't sleep yet. Ironically, I'm not tired (when will it catch up with me?).

Fi, if I wake up tonight/early morning, I'll try some of your tips, many thanks. I like the hot chocolate idea. I do have a book to read for bookclub but it's depressingly about someone with Alzeimers (The Wilderness) so not very uplifting.

Jael, at your DD being 'Ariel'. DD1&2 love Ariel and pretend to be her when they're in the bath.

Pula, great for last night and hope things go well tonight. It's good to know you can have a lie in if necessary.

llare, your story of G waking and saying 'mamamama' made me smile. also can relate to the 'who can be cross...' feeling.

Belgina, what a great shopping trip. would love to see you in the dress, sounds fabulous. it's nice to have an event like a ball to look forward to, dressing up, etc.

sausage, hurrah (right?) about resigning! bet that's a load off your mind.

febes, how's the kitchen? is it finished? ours is still slightly unfinished (started it last Mar) with just the skirting boards/doors to be painted and shelves to be put up. doesn't feel like we'll ever finish it completely.

all who are going tomorrow, have a great time meeting and do toast us absentees with your coffee/tea/hot choc/wine (!).

Anyone watching Masterchef?

gosh, no. forgot it was on and am upstairs. might go switch on now.

Gahhhh R has been up already but can't feed properly as he is so stuffed up he can't breathe through his nose at all. I've put him in the steamy bathroom for 15 mins and lathered him in vicks and karvol. DD had diahorea before bed as well. We could be in for a long night... DH is working all day from 6am tomorrow too. I'll wait till tomorrow to decide if we will head into London or not .

Kitchen Well the green is way too green so we will have to redo it which is a pain as DH was painting all afternoon. It's NHS hospital green- yuck!!

Not watching Masterchef, I'm watching the programme on C4 about travellers' weddings, Incredible!

jael - sorry, had to lol at the glitter. But oven cleaning? What's that all about then?!

sausage - yay for resigning! My (soon to be ex) boss emailed me today acknowledging my request, and has already started blaming HR for being slow about it all.

dandy - Mandarin? Wow! I'm trying to teach DD1 bits of Welsh.

What's the weather forecast for tomorrow? Really hoping that snow doesn't mess up my trains!

flip, my friend came over on Monday with her DS. He was 3 in September and she has painstakingly taught him "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" including a very rousing 2nd verse! My DS is happy to shout Wales but only when reminded that Fireman Sam is from Pontypandy. I suspect that languages aren't his thing.

belgina - fab shopping trip! Hope your boots are comfortable AND elegant!

llareggub - Postman Pat live? Sounds great!

pula - hope you get another good night. We really need to do something. We still haven't moved A in with DD1, not sure what order to do things: improve sleep first, then move her, or move her and then hope(!)/tackle the issues?!