Dec '06 - Still clinging onto sanity.

[EasilyConfusedIndith]

New thread

Thanks for the commiseration on the chair :) It is was one of the last remnants of single life living on the lake....

Indith, I can empathize more than you know. Ds2 did not sleep through until age 2 (same with ds1) and of course we had the horrendous constipation/fecal impaction/colon rehabilitation with ds1. Our solution:

1. make sure no impactions exist - may need to do one or more enemas. Not fun, but effective.

2. start regular dosage of cod liver oil. I still give it to both boys. I pour the dosage in a juice glass, strawberry syrup in a second glass then draw up a mixture in an oral syringe.

3. no dairy. We substituted goat's milk - it is closest to human and easier to digest. Also switched to orange juice with added calcium.

4. probiotics added to juice - helps digestion and can clear out any yeast in the gut. But you have to get the really mega kind. I think ours has 20 billion good bacteria. It should be refrigerated when you buy it and needs to stay refrigerated or the bacteria die.

The other thing is to rule out tethered cord

As far as the sleep, my best recommendation is some type of Mother's Day Out program to a) wear her out more during the day and/or b) give you a chance for a nap. There is a reason sleep deprivation has been used as a form of torture!

jabber, will fb you about ds1. Looking at probiotics but not sure. No dairy doesn't seem to be going that well...

Shall give it some thought Castles, thank you :)

Jabber I know you do and you give lots of very sensible advice :). Ds is seeing the Dr on Tuesday on the advice of the early years practicioner to double check everything and rule out all nasties. I have specifically booked in with the Dr who actually took the constipation seriously last time. However, I am 99.9% sure it is all behavioural now. For a little while after the early years woman came he was enthusiastic, loved his new reward chart and was doing very well, only really forgetting if he was watching TV or something but now the novelty has worn off and he is slipping, dancing around with his legs crossed and refusing to go . We clearly need to stay on the fibrogel for poo just because when he starts to hold onto it it does cause other problems but I think that basically he doesn't place any importance on it, he doesn't see that doing wee in his pants os a problem, he just merrily takes them off and shoves them in the washing machine. I guess I just have to hope that when he starts school he will see the importance since he won't be able to strip off and go around naked

Dd has slept pretty well past 2 nights so feeling much more alive but not enjoying the side effects from industral quantities of iron. I'm taking around 1500% RDA!

Hello, no useful ideas to add re: sleep/poo so just saying hi and keeping reading...

Helllloooooooooooo

Hi Jabber and Lenni!

Early Years woman called today and I would quite like to murder her so I shall shout here instead. He piece of wisdom today was that if ds sees that I put the poo from his pants down the loo he will start going there himself once he knows that is where the poo belongs. Ds is well aware of where poo goes thank you you daft woman, we have been at this for a while!

Oh well, I shall ignore the stupid woman, GP is happy to keep giving him fibrogel for as long as we need it and nothing seems to have come back from the urine sample so we'll just keep plodding away and it will happen eventually.

I should take dd away form beebies and go play out int he sun. Horrible period pains, dragged myself out to toddlers with her but got almost all the way there before I ran into another mum who told me it was cancelled :(. Dd has mostly watched TV since then. Bad mother.

Oh dear, indith! Sooo frustrating when you get these helpful tips. Shall get that booklet to you this week. BTW, got house no.2 last week! Text me when you're around at Easter and we can catch up!
Found some school uniform for ds2 on the weekend but could near to see him try it on! 5 months to go!

That's great AQ! Fingers crossed everything happens smoothly and you get to move house soon. We'll be around Easter Weekend before running home without the dcs to do some decorating so maybe a park on the Saturday or something?

Ds is still asleep, think he must have had a busy day at nursery yesterday

Ta, indith! Apparently only going to take 6 or 7 weeks so I'd best start getting organised! We're not moving in for a few weeks so we can get a few bits and pieces done.
How are sleep/poo?

And, yes Easter weekend would be great to catch up!

Humph. Didn't get the school we wanted :(

How about the rest of you or do you not find out until later?

Shall be appealing, got nothing to lose!

Indith :( I have 2 applications in at the moment for infants and juniors. Dont find out until end April.

Is it school notification time? Only just got over the excitement of the secondaries. Sorry to hear that Indith. There is usually a lot of movement between now and September fwiw.

Oooh, AQ, are you moving into the big house?! Piccies please. Am a property porn-queen, in case you hadn't realised!!

We are considering moving all our DCs to a private school and DH said that it would put the house buying on hold (wasn't aware it was happening except in my dreams). He said "obviously you would put your childrens' education before a house". Er, we have been married for 15 years and the man still doesn't know me

Erm, castles don't know what to say to that! Men are just weird sometimes. What's prompted thoughts of going private? I'm going to put ds1 up for scholarship exam at local private next year, but really don't see how we can come up with 4 sets of fees for them as it would be overlapping most of the time. Instead buying a huge house, hmmm, clearly value that over their education!
Buying a different house now, castles, still big but not quite so and doesn't need loads of work. Not online but I keep meaning to put photos on FB as my sis is asking!
Indith, grrr about school, was it oversubscribed or are you out of catchment? How bad is the one he did get into? I think appeal, definitely, you never know and castles is right, a lot of children don't take up their places. We don't hear until end of April I think, but ds2 assured a place as ds1 is there even though we are now moving (slightly) out of the catchment area.

Hmm house or school, guess it depends how bad the school choices are. Is it that schools are bad Castles or do you just think private has more to offer?

AQ which private? H or T House? I went to H, it is a good school.

We will appeal. It is a faith school we wanted and it is very popular,we are both not Catholic and in the next village. However, pretty much every appeal gets in so I am hopeful. His friend has got in (older brother already there) so I really do hope he does. The catchment school is not very good. It isn't too bad but the very big but is that the catchment secondary is dire, very dire, has always been dire and is not going to change in the next few years but the Catholic school feeds into a very good secondary whcih has always been good and there is not reason for it to not continue to be very good. If we don't get into the Catholic school then we probably will have to move beofre secondary and while I know a lot can happen before then we love this village.

Thinking about the move to private, as even though the state primaries are all excellent here, the secondaries ain't, though improving (no 6th forms though). It's all about standing a better chance of getting into (private) secondary. Even academic/gifted kids, like my DS, need to go down the private tuition route to stand a chance of getting into the grammar/academic secondaries and I don't know if I can be arsed. Plus he's quite unstimulated where he is and definitely not achieving potential. As is DD1. All sound's terribly Tiger Momish I know and I'm really not. Just live in a part of the country where it is hideously competitive. Feel like legging it most days. Sigh. I wonder where Elibean is these days? She lives near me and must be having similar thoughts. Maybe. Oh, Elibean, where are you?!!!!

The appeal sound's very positive. Good luck with it Indith.

AQ, good luck with the scholarship. I sympathise. These are the times when having had the foresight to have just one child appeal. Just joking of course ... wouldn't change a thing

And yes, post piccies on FB for me and your sis!!!

Awww, hope you get the school indith, the one you want sounds perfect. going to try ds1 for H. DP opposed I think but I went private in Oz. We'll see, they're building a new secondary so things are changing.
Hard to say whether ds1 will need challenging in same way, castles I do know what you mean. He's not 'fulfilling his potential' at present (parent's evening thurs) but that's cos he's on the toilet much of the day at school! It's a hard choice, partly why I'm panicking about moving really. Primary is fine for all 4 but what happens when we get to secondary? But all our friends and my family in this area.
Will try to add porn shots tonight from dp's phone. Currently trying to persuade ds2 that he doesn't want to share a room with the dts. I stupidly asked older boys what colour and ds1 wants organge and red stripes, ds2 wants pink.

Sorry to be awol so long. This week has been another long one at the office. I have one staff member who is really burned out and it's difficult to deal with.
Can totally sympathize with schools. It was quite an ordeal getting ds1 into the one we wanted but it was worth it in the end.

AQ ds wants me to paint his bedroom pink too Sympathy for the schools, secondary is so hard in your area.

Castles too, the school situation sounds really difficult.

Jabber sorry work is so busy.

Jabber someone is asking about constipation and going dairy free

Got it. Thanks Indith :)

Being busy at work is good, the one employee is just stressing everyone else out. Am going to do performance reviews today and tomorrow and hope that goes towards resolving her issues.

My goodness my daughter is pushing boundries at the moment! Trouble is she does it all with such a charming smile that she has us all wrapped round her little finger

Ds has had over week with just 2 wee accidents and no poo problems at all! Started on goat milk at the same time as being really persistant with his fibrogel and drinks so remains to be seen what is doing it. I tried to reduce the fibrogel to every other day but he didn't poo for 2 days so right back onto every day for now. Shall see how we continue. It has had a knock on effect on dd too and she is back to being accident free which confirms my suspicions that she was copying him with wees! It is rather nice being able to go out without several changes of clothing!

Thanks for the book AQ, ds thinks it is very funny!

Toilet issues are the pits - you have my sympathy.

DD2 has been particularly miserable recently although she has just comeout with a cold so that's maybe why. We have otrhoptist this morning to see how effective the patches are. Then paed tomorrow about her conituedurinary problems.

Have just seen that the nice weather looks to disappear by the end of the week too :(

how is everyone? It's pretty quiet here lately.

Goodness you have all been quiet! I expected lots of catch-up reading. Just got back in town yesterday evening from 4 days away at convention. The house looks like a small bomb went off in it, lol. Very glad to be home :)

I am thrilled that ds is doing better, Indith! and dd as well, the little pixie

Have fallen off the radar a bit lately. V v pleased that things improving with ds, indith. Goats milk here too and probiotics, slow improvement. Was just saying to dp just now that we need to rein dd in, she is incredibly charming but behaving much worse really than her twin and ds2. Glad the booklet arrived, it spent a week in my bag first.
Ds3 has croup poor lamb, and snot shared equally between rest of kids and me grrr. Trying to book a week away at Easter still, I am useless!
EV fingers crossed for patching, I know how anxious I got about it all and I suspect he'll have do it again tbh. Is this 1st paed appt?
Jabber getting away for a few days always good work or otherwise but I miss home!
Ja