Fab Feb 2009: when they're good they are very very good, when they're bad they're todzillas...

[dinkystinky]

New thread for us to chat about our little jekyll & hydes...

Danny is currently stood next to me rearranging my DVD collection - I will be doing a work out to charlie & lola tonight apparently, while DS1 will be watching Billy Blanks Taebo with his pre-bedtime cup of milk and DH's history docu is hiding out with Diego in the city of lost toys...

Im very jealous of all you domesticated godesses I can make flapjack does that count!

Im so proud of izzy her speech is really coming along now. She is such a cutie, i love her soooo much

sorry rosie hope it happens soon for you xxx

clara basically you mix 1/4 of a cup of brown sugar, 1tbsp tarragon, 1tbsp ginger, 1tsp of garlic powder, 1 tsp of cinnamon in a big bowl, then rub it all into the lamb chops, cover and place them in the fridge for an hour and then just fry them off.
Really easy and really yummy!

littlesez I can't make flapjack.
POleased Izzy is doing so well. Luke just screams and cries. he's crying now and has been for nearly an hour. I'm pretending I can't hear it. So draining. Gonna get him in the shower in a min and chuck him in bed.

i too cant make a flapjack.. or tablet..my claim to failure.
That's great about izzy..its great when that happens. i remember when louis first started talking..it was amazing to feel like after months of gaga's he finally got something. We call Sandy Harpo as a wee nickname..as he's all silent facial expression.

Here you go: easy and very yummy cheesecake.

My smallest son is careering round the living room shouting "D'you want to play chase daddy?". We are not amused.

THOM - I am amazed at your DS2's vocab (and that your DS1 was like that too) - that's fantastic. Danny mostly runs up to one of us, roars and runs away giggling when he wants us to play chase with him. Though he can put his own shoes on and put his own coat on and take it off if its a duffle coat (zips still defeat him) so he's clearly more of a doer than a talker I guess

A just does his pointing monkey impression until we give him our hand and then he drags us around with him

He's taken to trying to put on his own nappies now... he can manages sposies but cotton doesn't go as well He mastered shoes ages ago and seems to change pairs every 5 minutes (bit of a shoe fetishist in the making)... nobody's are safe, he quite often wanders in in dp's shoes, my boots or wellies or even dd's party shoes!

He's tidying up atm: read rearranging all the tidying and cleaning i've spent all morning doing [sigh]

I swear Danny and A are cut from the same cloth SummerRain!

God help us both

I have eaten too much pizza. I am stuffed.

Hello.
Busy day. Jacob had his first session at nursery in the afternoon. he was very excited to go and when they opened the gate, he was off! ran straight into the classroom, then became slightly overwhelmed when all the kids bombarded the carpet area and had a mini-meltdown, so the teacher sat him on her lap and told me to leave. He was fine when I collected him and said he wants to go back tomorrow. When I asked him what he'd done at school he said "my eaton apple" (and made eating an apple sign and made a crunching noise)
He picked a truely shite reading book to bring home. Was really boring, even the pictures were crap and he was not at all interested. And yes, I did note this in his reading log

I popped to Tesco after dropping him at nursery, and halfway round, the security guy came up to me and said "where is jacob?" lol.
Felt odd without him, like I'd lost something, but think these few hours a day will be the saviour of our relationship.

Luke was funny today. He was in his pushchair and was pointing up the road yelling "tha thay. nah" "tha thay. nah"
Jacob points in direction we are going and Luke screams "tha thay yeah!"
They do make me smile.
Luke yelling "Ca-ca" outside the school was sweet too (that's his way of saying Jacob)

dinky and SR Shoes? Wow, Jacob can't even get his own shoes on! Although he did a good job trying today.
Luke hates having his coat on and is able to take it off if I unfasten the zip.

SM... dd still puts hers on the wrong feet 90% of the time and i actually walked ds1 to school with no shoes this morning as he refused to put them on ('Want mummy to do it! Don't know how to!') [vodka]

Lol.

Still haven't heard anything about a permanent job at the school but I have been called in to work tomorrow and friday.

A friend of mine is having the boys for both days, how much should I offer her? She says she doesn't want anything, but I know she is struggling financially too, so would be nice to give her something, what do you think is suitable for 2 days? (I get £50 per day)

its been raining buckets here. we toddled to nursery in dressed like fisherman. Went to my first ww class. i have put on over a stone since i stopped dieting..feel a bit flat about it all but at least im doing something about it.
Got the keys for the new house yesterday so walked about and decided what really needed done..dont think the double glazing needs replaced at the moment that saves us some money and its not as bad as i remember it being..but it is tiny. i mean TINY!going to need to have a mass cull of stuff/toys/books..urgh! The boys will need to be in bunk beds AND they're sharing the bigger of the bedrooms.
Silvery- id say £20 a day is fair..she did say she'd do it for nothing so i think 40 bucks is a nice wee perk?what u think?

I have no idea i'm afraid... over here the average is 100euros a week for one child and 150 for two children so 2/5 of that would be 60 euros (around £45/£50) but then she wouldn't have them full working hours would she so probably less again

Given what you're earning, transport costs, food costs etc I'd say between £15 and £20 a day (whatever you think your friend will accept without being embarrassed) sounds good SM.

Had a rubbish night last night with Danny who was awake crying and yelling mummmeeee or daddee, daddeee, MUMMY most of the night. Totally shattered now. Oh well, what doesnt kill me will make me stronger etc.

Clara - clever storage is the way forward with tiny places. And extend up into the loft when you can to make one or two bedrooms up there (though is not cheap). All houses seem to shrink between viewing and offering on them and completing on them (even our rental flat seems to have shrunk) - bet it'll feel bigger than you think it is when you finally move in.

hello all,
THOM thanks for that receipe. sounds fab but sadly can't get creme freche out here and struggle to get double cream most of the time
am going to make 2 or 3 key lime pies tomorrow as they keep well overnight and a large chocolate cake for adults and have cheated and bought 2 frozen blueberry cheesecakes.
Am also attempting a pricess castle cake for kids and a cup cake tower.

Need to make lots of little gold crowns tomorrow for 'pin the crown on the princess and think about a few other little games. Oh, and finish doing party bags. Meant to do today but ended up rushing out shopping with a friend this morning so DH doens't have to take me tomrrow (our saturday) and then rushed back for a book sale at the nursery. Since yesterday am have sold around 60 books and made around 250 GBP. Thank god as we are off on holiday in just over 3 weeks and had no spendng money. Also, end of month on supermarket sales tomorrow so hoping to have made a bit there.

clara I've just started WW (again!) have been worried about overeating at party on friday so have been saving points since last saturday (doing ww online) but today wen I looked my saved points (14.5 and 8.5 activity) had disappeared!

dinky sorry about the lack of sleep, I had that last night, DD has terrible cough and temperature and came in at 1.45am Fingers crossed she is better by Friday.

SM agree with dinky ref 15 to 20 other wise its not worth your while.

LOL at shoes/clothes antics. H has never worn a coat but often puts on mine or DDs shoes. he does try to get dressed too but never really manages it.

Clara What is storage space like? Do you have a loft? You could do a toy rotation so they're not all about at the same time. That's what I keep meaning to do, but can't seem to find the time to sort them out!
We have bunk beds too. Luke is not yet in the bed and Ds1 is still on the bottom, but they will move in the next few weeks and I'll get shot of that massive cotbed!

Thanks for all your thoughts on money for my friend. Tomorrow they are spending the whole day with the same person so I'll chuck £20 nat her and tell her I'd like her and her dp to get a nice take-away or something.
Friday has changed and 2 people are spliting the care and handing kids over at lunchtime so tenner each?

Jacob cried again when I had to leave him at nursery, but sure he will settle down and get used to it. He comes out happy and says he's had a good day and that he's going back to school another day, so he must be settling down quick enough

MoS - WW online is having lots of gremlins at the moment. The idiots on the WW tech team simply have no idea what they are doing!

So, lovely ladies, I'm doing final clear out and I have lots of 20% off at Early Learning Centre voucher codes (from muller little star packs) to be used by 17 October. I've listed below the codes so those of you who have your eye on presents etc (esp those v organised bods xmas shopping) for your kids can make use of them online - first come first served:

Codes are

• 601CCNK3CH3
• 601Y4XM791Y
• 601WL4RRT7J
• 6015J3X5L4H
• 601TJH2KJ4T
• 60119R5F34Z
• 601TXR3KFK3

Happy shopping!

morning i am dying! all self inflicted i have an audition next saturday for teamUK cheerleading so i have decided i need yto get my roundoff flick unaided for then, i must have done over 50 flicks last night ouch ouch ouch my back, my shoulders,my legs, but i neeeeeeed to have this if i want to stand a chance

all auditions and training is in milton keynes though, 1 weekend out of 4 my mum has offered to come on some of them though so i can see izzy

BF question, if i ddnt see izzy for 2 days would she wean?

bad mum question, is it too selfish to leave izzy for 2 days? or shall i just try to make it so she comes with me.

SM will you e able to ask at school re permanent job? hope so

hey HOM how are you?

Dinky hows your shoulder, hope its eased off

RE shoes, izzy loves them it was one of her first words! shooooooooooooos! she can put on her own wellies and likes putting my shoes on

izzy has always been more physical but this last month has discovered lots of new words and its so lovely. little squishy

ouch littlesez... the mere mention of cheerleading makes me ache so i'm in awe of you being able to do it at all post baby

I have no idea about the self weaning i'm afraid, never had a chance to leave ds1 for so much as a few hours much less two days so never did find out. My only thought would be that as you're mentioned Izzy feeds quite alot there's a strong chance it will be extremely unconfortable for you unless you cut back drastically beforehand.

As for whether you should leave her... if it's something that's important to you and you won't get another chance at, and you have someone she likes who's happy to mind her then I don't think you have to feel guilty about going for it... we're people too as well as Mummies and sometimes we tend to forget that when we succumb to 'mummy guilt'

A had SALT this morning which went well... she has confirmed it's oral dyspraxia that they suspect but she stressed that he's still very young and could make huge progress over the next few years so there's no point panicing about him never being able to speak at this point. She was very reassuring and said: 'Of all the children I see he's by far the most well stimulated by you, without it being excessive. So many of the children I deal with simply aren't interacted with enough to progress but you clearly stimulate him and encourage him a lot and that fact alone means he has a strong chance of SALT succeeding' [slightly smug but proud]

Littlesez - am impressed and v envious at all that exercise/cheerleading practice you've been doing. Good luck for the auditions. I sort of doubt Izzy would wean as she's such a fan of bfing - she might go crazy and reverse cycle when she does see you after 2 days though so be prepared for v grumpy child and not much sleep. I think you're quite an attached mum - .i.e. Izzy spends alot of time with you - so both she and you might find it very hard dealing with 2 days separation. May be worth checking if your mum could come with you and help with Izzy. If not, then 2 days wont be the end of the world for either of you.

Summerrain - glad A has a good speech therapist helping him and that the prognosis is so good for him. He's clearly a v bright button and bet that by the time she's finished helping him you'll barely remember his non-talkative years.

SR It sounds like was a postive meet with the SALT (speech and language therapist?) I think i got that right and you should feel so proud and yes smug tee hee I have never heard of oral dyspraxia. I have worked with children with dyspraxia though and they were just fine

Dinky i think she probably would feed tons when i got back because thats what she does when i get home form work now. I can cope with that but yeh i am very joined at the hip attached.

I just found out my mum cannot come next weekend I have looked at doing train instead of driving and might just do that twice coming back on sat night.

Izzy feeds between 4 and 8 times a day. Last weekend though I didn't feed her from about midday friday until 5pm saturday and was fine. I reckon i would be fine saturday and sunday and just might need to express on sunday night whilst i am home.

I was just thinking is she too young to be left for 2 days withouht mum she would have a ball with dad though they could do alsorts of fun things like watching unlimited TV without mum nagging or eating ice cream!

SR That didnt read right! i meant yes please do be smug (as in i would be) not Yes you are smug. sorry im waffling now [rolls eyes at myself] and the next bit sounds daft too sorry im not very good at putting things down on.. screen sometimes

lol littlesez, it read just how you meant it, don't worry

bet Izzy will have a ball having her Daddy all to herself... all my kids love spending time with dp without me as he lets them get away with murder