April 2009 - Episode 13 - 'I've been looking for the exit for months!'

[Schulte]

Fanjo Warriors, here we are

Thank you Boff. The voice of reason

We seem to have found a compromise where the girls will eat my food tonight, and then we'll barbecue whatever MIL is bringing for lunch tomorrow. I still think we won't be able to fit everything in the fridge though

Oh well. Must stop being an ungrateful cow.

So we had a lovely time 'away' only to come back and find Hazel's ear infection has come back for the third time. Can anyone help here please?

Bebe - No idea but allergies do run in the family.
I am taking her back to the doctors this week.

How was the barbecue? I hope this week is more relaxing.

Broke cars do indeed suck. Not least because my girlfriend had her baby at the weekend and I can't face taking 3 buses with two children to see her so will have to wait until the weekend when my Mum or Andrew can take me.

Incidentally, she had an EMCS. What can I do or get for her? I have don't know anyone who has ever had one before. Schulte?

Oh shit, poor Hazel. I know nothing of such things but I see Boff has already responded.

Bio Oil - good for rubbing into the scar although it hasn't made mine look any prettier!

By the way - what did she have?

Thanks, I'll get some.

She had a little boy. 7lbs. His name is Lief.

Puzzle, how are you finding it having the girls share a bedroom?
I have just put A's cot down in DS1's room, and am wondering how it can possibly work, as A is waking twice a night. Noisily.

Schulte, hope H is OK. Listen to da Boff.

Auld - Fortunately Ellen sleeps just like her father. That's to say, a rhino could tap dance on her head and she wouldn't wake up.
I have quite literally had to punch my husband in the head to wake him before.

Having said that, Holly doesn't make too much noise, she mostly wanders into our room or sits trilling on her bed like an exotic bird.

Blimey, what wonderful kids you have!

Oh I don't know about that. Ellen told me yesterday that she loved cake more than me and if I didn't give her a slice she would "hate me as big as the world".

lol Puzzle. Poor you, children can be nasty .

BBq went ok. It rained just as we started cooking and rained until pretty much everyone got done eating. Then it was sunny but by then my house was trashed by the kids ...
Dh and I had a major fight on Saturday, but it was mostly my fault being as I was short tempered, though he was a bastard tbh for a few minutes which hurt my feelings and made me storm off and decide I did not want to talk to him for the rest of the day. I left Moo with him for most of the day while I did errands and cleaned up.
We made up Sunday night and have been talking once again abt moving. Though the same problems exist as they always do...wanting to be near mtn biking, near the M4 or a train station for commuting to London, out in the countryside, and needs to be on the cheaper side (no more than 250k) but have a garage and at least 3 bedrooms...wish there was a way you could put parameters into a search engine and they tell you where the ideal place to live... and we'd still have the 'what to do with the cat' problem

Poor Hazel. Don't know anything abt ear infections (touch wood)

Schulte - Poor Hazel but glad you had a good night away - did you get a chance to have 'the chat'?

Auld - don't worry, mine is giving me hellish nights at the moment too so you're not alone. He was up twice last night and then up for the day at 5.30am. I was woken by a sodding pigeon at 4.45am.

Bebe - we're thinking of moving out of London too at some point in the next couple of years. One of our restrictions is that DH has to be close enough to wherever he is working to be able to cycle in

O is toddling now - he is so so sooooo pleased with himself. And he said 'pear' today which apart from mama, dada and shhhhhh (for fish) is his first intelligible (sp?) word.

He is very very clingy at the moment. The childminder mentioned it as well. And much much more cuddly than usual. Could it be separation anxiety? I thought we were past all that?

Bicnod, DS1 reverted to being clingy when he started toddling. As if the sudden realisation that he could actually walk away was scary for him.
Annoying about the pigeon. We have been sleeping with shutters & windows open to try and cool the house down at night, and I am soooo close to buying a gun and taking pot shots at annoying show offs on noisy souped up Mobylettes and scooters.
A is sleeping in DS1's room, to try and settle him in there while DS1 is away.
Our bedroom looks huge. But I can get at my desk after baby bedtime, which means I can tiy up papers and stuff of an evening. Suppose that is a good thing.

bebe, sorry about your washed out BBQ.

Thanks Auld - hopefully it's just a stage then. How long did it last with DS1?

Bloody bastard pigeons. I would happily have blown their tiny brains out this morning (so says the vegetarian).

Very very annoying about the show offs on chicken chasers.

Bebe - Do you think it would be worth starting a thread on here giving said parameters? You never know.

Bicnod - I second what Auld said about toddling. Unchartered territory and all that. I don't recall it lasting very long.

Bicnod, it doesn't last long IIRC, a week or maybe two at most...

AAAAGH rant alert! Very long!

I have two French 11-year-old boys staying with me at the moment in addition to the usual hoards, and

One of them is a very horrid little boy.

I simply have to list his youthful crimes to get them off my chest.

He is not homesick in any particular way, btw. He is just used to being manipulative and getting his own way, methinks. The other bit of background is that he is a very pale and ill-looking boy who is clearly clinically malnourished to my seasoned eye, and indeed most of the other parents around here. Plus I have A Level French so there is not much of a language barrier.

1. His idea of breakfast is to grab the family's entire provision of natural yoghurt (500g), tip it all into a bowl, add Shreddies, and then eat two spoonfuls of the resulting mess, leaving the rest .

1. He refuses his dinner each night (all home cooked lovely stuff pre-approved by my offspring) and says he is not hungry, no longer hungry, or has already eaten while he is out, so his dinner goes in the bin, then he greedily grabs dessert or in the case of this evening, bought himself loads of sweets at a disco thing they went to.

1. This evening when he announced in a know-it-all voice "Well, I don't eat vegetables" I replied in my best French, "Well, you do in this house, young man. They are necessary for health. In this house everybody eats everything. And incidentally when our nanny has just spent an hour in a hot kitchen cooking for you, it is very impolite to reject the food". To which the response was "Well now you are making me depressed, asking me to eat my dinner" to which I replied "Well you need to do as you are told then, and eat it up".

1. He refuses to get washed in the way that pre-adolescent boys do. Only none of the others in this house take it to this sort of extreme. He is also very messy and leaves his stuff everywhere, much to the chagrin of his room mate.

1. When I went in there being all nice and friendly to put their light out at 9.15pm, he announced that at home he stayed up until much later and therefore shouldn't have to put his book away, with no reference to the fact that he is sharing a room and his compatriot is already settling down to go to sleep, or that we have to be at the coach at 8am tomorrow morning for their trip to London. To which I responded, "Well, this isn't your house, this is my house, and in this house, we eat what we are supposed to, we get washed when we are supposed to, and we sleep when we are supposed to. So there you are."

1. I gave him some spending money to go to the children's disco here, and there was not so much as a thankyou.

1. I spent £60 plus petrol taking them to a realy good zoo type thing chosen by my kids on Sunday and again not so much as a thankyou from either exchange child (mine fortunately were very grateful and pleased).

I am thinking two things.

1. No wonder people like having my kids back once they have been to stay. Presumably the parents are pathetically appreciative of any child who will eat a dinner without making a fuss, and say thank you for days out.

1. Is there something odd about people from this particular region of rural France that makes them taciturn and strange? Is it like Lincolnshire? (I can say that being 50% genetically Lincolnshire stock, but the effect has been diluted in me I hope).

Boff he sounds ghastly. Can you lock him in the cellar for the duration? Doesn't sound like the lack of food and daylight would bother him.

My brother had a Canadian exchange boy who peered at the shepherd's pie my mum had made one night and then turned to my brother and said 'Are you gonna eat THAT?' in a Canadian drawl. It has become part of family folklore.

We have DP's brother living with us still. It is not working out well. Crimes are too long to catalogue, but let's just say it's time he left.

bebe ignore feet on table, too little to be naughty, she's just trying to get a reaction

clingy children? yes. Orbit is walking now and despairs when I leave the room. DS1 starts school in Sep and is being much the same as Orbit. I spend most of my time being clung to by one or both children. Hence very little MN.

Puzzle people who have had EMCS appreciate cake, in my experience....

work still terrible. applying for new jobs as we speak. Well, trying to, obviously.

Must go to bed. I miss you all.

quick post, as need to go and get 2 new rear tyres for car...

Boff, where is he from? Which bit of rural France?
He sounds like a real PITA. Hang in there. One tip maybe: IME French youngsters are fond of the idea of "respect" (they tend to use it against adults who are not being lenient enough with them). If you suggest that he is not showing respect for you, your family, his room mate, etc., he may hear the key word and think things through a bit more.
Then again, he may be such a wee shit that nothing works.

WFH, sending you supportive vibes for the BIL and job situation.

Well I have a few gripes this morning but suddenly i'm at least grateful I don't have unwanted house guests.
Sorry Boff and WFH, I hope they are both gone soon.

Get this. We have just found out he is a haemophiliac!!!!! How could they not have told us this when asking us to take him????? It certainly explains why he looks like a ghost. And why his mum probably is terrified of dealing with his worst behavioural excesses. She probably tiptoes around him. I will raise the respect agenda, though. There is a distinct lack of respect there - well observed, Auld.

They hail from Picardie. Not a place I am now in a hurry to visit, if truth be told.

Think Moo has chicken pox ....I'm itching all over like I have fleas (tho I've had it before); she's just itching the one on her belly...

She was out playing with the neighbor kids yesterday too (inaddition to the bbq on Sunday), I really should let their parents know shouldn't I? I don't know any of the parents...I'll wait 'til I take her to the gp I guess.

I need to go to the grocery too I cannot really do that if it is can I? We were going to visit dh too this week to help solidify the 'peace' we found again on Sunday as the general thought is we spend too much time away from each other...
GP first and then we'll see...

Boff We've had terrible trouble with young French house guests in my family. Find that respect is the key.

WFH very difficult when it's family. But need to move him on in the friendliest fashion possible. (Didn't realise he was still with you.) The added stress is definitely not helping you and may not be helping your boys be less clingy either; they may sense things are up in the air. LOL at the cake I'd agree that anyone who just had a baby would probably want cake...perhaps with paracetamol 'sprinkles.'