Jan 09 Summer sun, peachy bums and... toddler tantrums..

[120]

New thread here...

Lol books. Great job description. No. I wouldn't take it.

Moose, my poster says bread for taking it off the wall - have you tried that? Can't remember whether I sent you the cleaning or the well woman poster. Not sure that it works with toddler scribble in mind, though.

Dog, thanks for felafel recepie. I'm starving. Was nicking bits of the kids lamb chops - they were sooo nice. Now I have to wait whilst DP finishes cooking the steak and barley salad. Smells yum though - he popped out whilst I was putting DD down to get some sumac. Will report in a bit, just going to finish the painting (hopefully).

Oh I see Dog. Doh!

I tried Slimming World years ago and it wasn't for me. Just felt too controlled by it for some reason, although my friend said she felt it gave her more freedom. I don't usually get like this when I want to lose some weight, I'm just stressing and brooding because I have too much time on my hands. (Well that and it stops me looking at the absolute bombsite my house is turning into while I'm immobile.)

Books, love your job advert idea - I think I might have to ask for a pay rise - or hand my notice in.

It was the cleaning one 120. I already knew about the bread trick - apparently it doesn't work with F&B paint though.

evening
gr8 suggstions 4 miss j
hi all
on my dsi
have decided to upgrade to an htc wildfire looks gr8!! my current mobile contract runs out thurs

Hkz - don't know any details yet, need to see them in person before I feel I can ask things like that. Are in a large hospital an hour and a half from here so things obviously underway treatment wise. Have already started chemo as was intwined with spinal cord so tryin to shrink before try to cut more out. Just doesn't bear thinking about, especially after everything with J. Has made something so remote seem so possible iyswim.

MissJ - think it's normal to experience those feelings right now. I was the same with DD after mc early on with previous pg. I think it was the powerlessness that scared me, in a way worrying felt like a positive activity as I could at least do that. I have no good suggestions I'm afraid but I do know (from my mums unfortunate pg history) that statistically if a heartbeat can be seen on an internal scan at 6 weeks then something like 95% of those pregnancies go to term. If you are finding the anxiety too much then I would see your GP and see if they'll let you have an early scan. Tree might know more about the chance of that.

120 - hope things gradually get better. Know exactly what you mean about kids being demanding of your personal space. I find that the hardest thing especially when I've got my nephew to care for too.

Chef - you make me smile, I love the way you describe your rows with DH. God I can relate to them too.

Tea - any joy with booking your hols?

Pat - did you have a great weened? Come tell us about it so can live vicariously through you. I'm an hour and a half from your family btw. Would def be on for meeting en route if that were an option on either direction.

Dog - do you think it might be worth talking to your gp about how you are feeling at the moment? You sound worse than just a bit low iyswim, and it has gone on longer than just while DP has been working. I had AN depression when pg with DD and it was horrible but although there wasn't too much docs could do just having them and the midwives talk to me regularly about it really helped. Am always around to talk if you want to talk to someone in the day. Will only be enduring same washing/chaos from kids trade offs! Why do we even bother to try and do housework!

Moose - weightless sounds amazing, am envious. You should be proud!

Am sure I've missed stuff. Will wave to books and tink and tree and go read more. No news here, graduating tomorrow! Yay!

Moose- I meant to add, I get arthritis in all my joints and absolutely the most painful when they flare up are my ankles. Worse even than my knees as they bear your full weight and there is no way to protect them like there is your knees. I have much sympathy and sod the other mums!

woohoo. finished V

off to bed. sleep well all.

And Tree - on the childcare thing. I am in same boat and get the car seat thing all the time. It rots me that one as it isn't even a negotiable in my book, it just needs doing right. I don't even attempt manners and manouvering over it, I just pick up their car keys and gp and install them right when I drop the DCs off. I dread to even imagine the convo that takes place while I do it, but they'll be glad of me if (touches everything) anything happened. I let all else there wash over me now though, have adopted a 'their house, their rules' approach and tell DD so, I think she is old enough now to appreciate we do things differently. It does irk though but I try to be serene. The veg thing sounds like many an incident here, why is it the innocuous helpful things that turn out so controversial?!

LeonardAndDeidre - oh that's so sad about your friend Good luck to them, hope all goes smothly and well.

We left H to scream it out. 40 mins, after the 2 hours we spent trying to get her to sleep. Smae as last night. think we will just go for it this week, although mum has them on Wed when I'm on nights and I don't think I can ask her to do it.

Dog, I am so so so glad your man has work now. A lttle less to worry about. Anyone who could come and stay for a few days? Or could yo all just ship out to your mothers or something? For help and to have a change.

Our playhouse is blue. It's nice, much nicer than the lemon before. Took a surprising amount of doing. What a fiddly job! Just the decking to attack.

Thank you so much for your sympathy LAD. I feel like such a moaning minnie and am quite ashamed of myself really. Especially when I think of people like yourself that have chronic pain to deal with on a daily basis but never moan and just get on with it.

Just had panic stations with dh. He has been in such a mood over the past few months - mainly about money, as he took over doing the household budget from me in January when I was feeling really low and said it was just one thing too many for me to cope with (I had always taken care of the budget up until then.)

He started going on and on about the state of our finances - again, about an hour ago (he always does it just before bed so that I can't sleep [hmm). So, I decided to run through it with him, as I honestly couldn't see how it could have gotten so much worse in just a few short months.

Well, the silly twonk had only missed over £5,000 of our regular income, plus all his freelance work off the budget sheet! What a wally! He has been stressing himself to the point of ill-health over it all and it turns out he was literally hundreds of pounds a month out.

There are still some financial issues, but nothing that most families with young children don't come up against.

He was instantly like a different man. It was like I could actually see the moment that the huge load lifted off his shoulders.

Downside is that he's just asked if that means he can go to a gig on Thursday night.

It actually feels good to have sorted it out together, as we have been quite distant with each other lately and we've never been like that before in the whole of our relationship.

It was a viscious circle really, as I kept refusing to listen to anything money related because he was making it sound so dire - so he kept stressing and worrying about it but not being able to unload/share his worries and I didn't look at the figures and pick up his error.

There's a lesson for us as a couple here methinks - we are most definitely getting the message that we should stand together and share more - loud and clear!

Another thing that gets me is they always give me disapproving looks if I let the DCs have anything sweet like they are thinking 'we don't want them fat like their mother' but then give them loads of sweet stuff themselves so I have to be even more careful to balance things out. I can barely let them have anything at home as they get so much there. I am venting now and may live to regret it so will go to bed before the hole gets deeper.

Well while I'm digging, guess what already started last week - 'you'll be getting the potty out with the good weather then?' Er, no I won't cos he is 17 months old. 'well DH was 17 months when he was dry.' yeah, we've covered this ground before and I think you'll recall DD was potty trained in 3 days at 2.5. And what I really want to say is....

Moose -it is totally different so you aren't moaning. I have a different perception of joint pain now as I am so used to it. I don't even really feel them hurting, I'm just aware that they do hurt iyswim.

Aww Moose. Bless you, I'm so glad you haev that sorted. And moan on and on about your ankle. It hurts, and you are too busy to have a sore ankle.

Oh Leonardanddeidre - I sooooo hear you. Sooooo do.

V is brilliant. Another triumph. It must feel good to be finished. I jiggered if I know where you get the time!

Another beautiful picture 120, well done. Actually he looks just like ds1's best friend when he was younger. I had to do a double take for a minute there.

Oh, apparently all my MILs dcs were potty trained at - oh - 1 month or something! Actually I'm always being told how her dd in particular was potty trained by 15 months. Er no, she wasn't, she was plonked on the potty every 5 minutes and had lots of accidents. I know this, as my Mum says that's what everyone did back then, shoved their dcs on a potty all the time, dealt with the inevitable continuous accidents and called that potty trained. Fortunately my Mum agrees with me that later is better having seen both my boys go from nappies straight to the toilet in 3 days straight.

Well we can't potty train as we have too many pretty nappies that need wearing out

Sadly H is already patting her bum when she does a wee. dd1 was 2.10 when she trained, but I bed H is way sooner. Naturally, as I love her nappies

Speaking of potty training, dd has recently started saying 'poo' and walking around sniffing whilst pointing at the nappy change basket - but - every time without exception, she is clean and dry when she does it and giggles her head off when I take her nappy off - she is soooo cheeky!

Right am off to bed.

Hopefully, dh will sleep better tonight than he has in months - and - definitely better than he did last night!

Night all. x

Hi all. In London and typing on phone so will be brief but just wanted to say thanks for all the anti anxiety tips. Leonard, I heard that stat somewhere too so may go private if I can't convince GP. Any tips tree?

PIL issues. Don't get me started!

OK. Me post. I did read through though just need to take a shower. DH is watching The Patriot and its too sad.
14 days and counting to shopping overnighter!

... oh and PIL talk, all I can say is thank goodness our family is on the other side of the country.

I meant families, plural. lol

Morning. Keep waking up feeling hungover, even if I haven't drunk anything. I know if is dehydration too, but think it's something to do with breastfeeding too? Not sure.

The PIL thing is so hard. They were always telling me off for spoiling the children (because they wanted to spoil them, but felt they had to do the stern parenting bit!). They now tell me what delightful babies I have and that I was utterly justified in my pampering.

Am very excited today. I've just realised my little business is turning 1 next month so have decided to spend some marketing money doing a promotion to sell 100 posters this month. Already done 15 and it's only the 5th.

Meant to say; thanks for the lovely V comments! I really appreciate a bit of an audience with the paintings as usually you have a class/teacher/studio. Really hard when you are painting at home and then send the pictures off to their Mummys, never to be seen together again. I guess I have time to do them as I don't have a TV and don't clean!