June 2008-keeping little hands off mummy's creme eggs

[poppy34]

New thread here

Rolf - I knew just what you meant by a Barney moment!!

Thank you Biscuits, I like the idea that I am the most superior here in life experiences!!

Bugger - good luck at work, and I too smirked at Sybils comment!!

I feel very torn sometimes between my 3 boys, it isn't easy to give them all attention, and when dh wants attention too it can get too much!!!

Oh the people are coming back on Saturday for a meeting/2nd viewing, and they are bringing with them the Austrian agent and the English agent that they found the Austrian agent through IYKWIM. Sounds very promising, I'm hoping that I can get the 2 big boys out of the house and get Ethan to sleep whilst they're here.

My widowed friend here with 6 children has her youngest(8) in hospital, they thought it was meningitis but thankfully it's not, and she's improving. Why is it that some people have so many things to cope with and others sail through life without a worry?

And before I go has anyone watched 5 daughters? We just watched part 2 tonight(iplayer) and I got so upset, part 3 tomorrow, tissues at the ready.

Just to add to the sons/daughter's chat. I'd always imagined having a girl but kind of suspected that I would end up having a boy just to remind me that there are things outwith my control!

If I was pg again I'm sure I'd feel a bit lost if presented with a girl. Mind you, DH and I haven't budged from our 'probably not' stance in response to questions about having another. Neither of us can face going through the exhausting babyhood stage again.

Eddie I'm appalled at the comments about having 2 boys. I appreciate in you circumstances it's a particularly insensitive comment but even in general it's a pretty horrible thing to say. It's a baby ffs, not a fasion accessory. Why is everything fair game when it comes to pg women/women of a 'child bearing age'. Grrrr.

Amber have you been around since the w/e. How was your night out? Hope you're doing ok.

X posted deb. Sorry about your friend. Glad it's not meningitis.

Fingers crossed on the house - do you know the offer yet?

Your poor friend Deb . Glad it's not meningitis.

I forgot to add my confession the criminal confraternity of June08. I forgot to pay our tax disc (for 10 weeks) and the car got clamped. It's cost us £100 to get is released, and £40 fine from the DVLA. I also had to pay a surety of £160 and poor DH needs to go to Widness to claim it as it's 5 miles away from the nearest station. Oh hang on, I've already posted all this I think...ignore...

DD1 has been so good and lovely recently. It's been wonderful. To fill the gap, DS1 (10) has become Mr Hormone. I feel very sorry for him as he gets so upset but it's difficult to know what to do with a big 10 year old who is having a tantrum that could put a toddler to shame.

DS2 came downstairs late last night saying he couldn't sleep and asking casually what our country code was. I told him without paying much attention. Then 5 minutes later he came down and asked what a PIN is . We trapped him in a pincer movement: I kept him downstairs and interrogated him, and DH went up to his room and found my mobile phone in his bed. We were furious, and even more so this morning when we found that he'd also taken my bank card, which he must have got by rummaging through my purse.

T is banned from drawing with anything other than pencils as she is destroying the house. She sneaks off and scribbles frantically until she is caught, and giggles as I approach her and scribbles faster.

Does anyone else think this Gordon Brown "gaffe" is a ridiculous non-story?

I'm thinking of Karen , Essie.

Deb I also wonder why some people have such awful luck. A girl I know has just been diagnosed with breast cancer (yes, another one ) and she's 28. She has no mum, as her mum died of breast cancer, as did her grandmother. Her mum also had a baby who was very badly disabled and died soon after birth. Her father also got cancer but recovered luckily. But still, that's more than one family should have to deal with, surely.

Rolf thanks for remembering Karen. I still haven't seen her - well, she needs time and space more than visitors asking questions, I assume - but she's very upbeat. It's just this long wait.
Rolf that's shocking about DS2 - what on earth was he up to? Just casual trying things out innocently, I hope? (How on earth was he planning on getting to a bank, then? ) Also sorry to hear about the tax - we forgot to pay ours last year. Actually, not our fault really (officer), because the reminder was sent to some other address, and we weren't caught anyway. Which is just as well because DH lives in fear of the 'judge caught -- -- '(insert scandal) type headlines.

I'm having a big stress out about work. Grr.

Hi to everyone else!

I'm so sorry about your friend. Some people ready do get bad luck in spades. I hope she comes through it ok.

I've just started a thread here am looking for tips on the shopping list for our hols in France next month, having never really done anything self-catered. There wont be many shops open the first couple of days we are there either so don't want to be stuck without anything we're really going to need.

Oops, that should read I'm sorry about your friend Essie

Bugger, great news about work. I hope it goes well today.

Rolf, that really sucks about the car tax. Where was the car clamped? Not somewhere embarrassing like at court was it

Essie, sorry for your friend, I often think how lucky I am that nothing so awful has happened to me or my family (fingers crossed). Some people do seem to have awful luck.

Remember the Multimac car seat? I wrote an article that got published on the f&p parenting website so I'm getting 35% off the Multimac . He offered me 50% off if I got something in the Express or Star where I work, but unfortunately they don't do much parenting stuff atm so I can't find anywhere where it could be placed. I haven't ordered it yet cos we don;t need it for a while so hopefully I can get it on some other websites or in some other mags. I emailed Prima baby but didn't hear back so I might do a follow-up call to them. Can you think of any other websites or mags I could try? We are trying to do something with MN but I don't feel comfortable doing a normal review because they are supposed to be done by parents who have bought/used the product and I haven't done yet, plus it would be unethical to write it and give it marks out of 10 when I am getting a discount.

The GB story is on the one hand a non-event, because it does not affect his ability to lead us out of the current economic crisis which IMO is the big issue of the election (I think he is the best person to do that), but it did show very clearly that he has some lack of judgement in that he didn't realise the initial convo had actually gone quite well, he got a lot of points across and the woman was happy and said she was going to vote Labour again. But in the car he just felt it had gone terribly and blamed 'Sue' and said the woman was 'just a bigoted woman', well it was not a well-informed comment from Gilliasn Duffy about 'all these immigrants flocking in' but I have heard a lot worse. It showed how much pressure he is feeling and how exasperated he is that Labour's message is not getting across. He is not the best one on one at all and while I don't think that affects a lot of issues in govt, it does affect some. I grew up in Rochdale and there is a very large Asian and now Polish community, and a lot of asylum seekers are housed there cos Rochdale is just one council estate after another really, plus lots of unemployment, so there is some tension. Lovely place to live though , and certainly a lot better than it was 15yrs ago under the Tories!

Neenz . Can you imagine how embarrassed DH would have been if the car was clamped outside court! They put a big sign on the window saying something like No Tax Disc! It was outside our house, so I assumed Steroid Bob had shopped us, but apparently they were trawling every single street in our area. It's completely my fault, of course, but DH is really cross and is muttering about how much he has to earn gross to pay the fines, and how much time it will take to get to Widness...

Neenz - round here there are two sister magazines: "baby Surrey" and "baby Hampshire". Not sure if every county has a version, and never bought it as it looks like a load of aspirational crap. Might be worth contacting them about your article though. (I am sure your article could in no way be described as aspirational crap though

Neenz - round here there are two sister magazines: "baby Surrey" and "baby Hampshire". Not sure if every county has a version, and never bought it as it looks like a load of aspirational crap. Might be worth contacting them about your article though. (I am sure your article could in no way be described as aspirational crap though

Hmm, Internet connection playing up. Sorry for the double post.

I currently smell of cigars because P was having a moment in a carpark earlier on, sat down on the ground and shredded what looked like a leaf, but turned out to be a cigar butt. I picked him up mid shred and got covered. Yuk!!

lol at aspirational crap, Spider! Yuk at the cigar. I will contact those mags, thanks very much.

Rolf, you know who to pass on responsibility for paying the car tax to next year then

We have a families online magazine here Neenz. The paper format is available all over the place for free.

Great! Thanks DG.

Neenz, what about the supermarket parent mags, you know, Tesco's baby and toddler one, Sainsbos Little Ones or whatever it's called, and Boots parenting club? Oh, go and do Netmums as well, and then you don't destroy your mumsnet cred

My campaign went down a storm, it's all v exciting and I'm chuffed it got the go ahead, but quite scary now that I've got to make it work! I'm sure it'll be fine...

Bugger, congrats .

Essie, forgot to ask you why you were emailing my bro'?

M has got a stomache bug and I'm feeling very dodgy .

make me go and do my logbook. I HAVE to finish it tonight. It is SO boring it's untrue. I keep getting distracted by GB shaking his head in disbelief on the leaders' debate. I remember him doing this in the last two. It makes him look like Churchill the dog!

meant to say I don't remember him doing it before.

Go do your log book biscuits!

I should be revising for my exams which are now less than a week away, but am in fact watching the debate while following chatter about it on Twitter. Revising too would be a mult-task too far. David Cameron's shin is very shiny..

His chin is shiny too

I am trying to watch the debate but keep getting distracted. I know I am voting Labour now anyway. DC was made to look silly on tax IMO. I agree with the shaking head thing GB is doing!

Bugger, thanks for those mag ideas - I will contact them too!

this debate is not exciting me at all. DH just walked in while GB was talking about helping pensioners and said "he really doesn't give a shit about families like us does he" and walked out. I think that's the downside of a single party system - it makes parties cater to certain voters and ignore the others. We need a more comprehensive system - I like the idea of PR. And then more viewpoints would be on the table all the time - I think a Cons-Lib parliment if they can act like adults is my first choice.

As for Labour, I know a lot of people here are huge labour supporters but we've been hit really hard over the past four years with recession, childcare costs, finances etc, and it just means we can't afford to vote Labour. We are definitely not upper middle class or even aspirational either! I've shed more than enough tears about all of this - Labour's policies really do hurt families like mine.

I've not been watching the debates but I have been mugging up on the local candidates and have chosen. (Plaid, couldn't really go any other way!) The conservative is v. dodgy - doesn't speak Welsh, is doing a PhD in London, is a councillor at Runnymede apparently - so clearly hoping for an easy seat. He won't get it, there's an ex-conservative independent here. The conservative one looks like a Playmobil figure and his name has clearly been made up following the game on mumsnet!

Eddie it was about the queen making an appearance at Bangor university but nobody's quite sure why. Very suspicious. Plus, prince William is swanning around here going into local shops. With Kate Middleton. Doesn't she have a job?! If I see either of them I'll give them a good shove. She looks so weedy I could easily take her.

Was going to do a long post but just realised what the time is...nos da bawb!