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

[120]

New thread here...

pat - here if u need to talk too glad relate helped

hi mm - hope sinuses better today

hi dog heres hoping baba turns too

off to sainsburys with girls in a mo

Evening all.

How you dong Pat?

Hope all the packing etc is going ok Moose. Did you choose your shoes?

The party looked really lovely Tea, I'm so glad you got good weather. Was it fun?

Was ll geared up for making the famous 120 brownies, but went to Morrisons with the girls. Well, H bomb was a nightmare, so by the time I got home I would have curdled the mix with my mood.
I've cancelled our Asda order, I seem to have....er....overspent. Allt hose Frugi and GreenBaby bargains have added up. I got a Boden pair of pants int eh clearance too, but mum says she'll get them for me. Bless her. £22! Bargain!
A boo-boo at work means my enhanced hours [for nights and weekends etc] won't be paid this month, so on basic pay only. COuldn't have happened at a worse month!
So with the Asda order goes all the butter nad lovely stuff required for baking.

Hey ho. We will get by on cheapie food and baking is for better days. I'm even out of caster sugar so would need a big spend to get up and running again.

Fancy having no spends for 6 weeks hols! There went flamingo land and the gym club dd1 wanted to do. It just can't be helped.

Funny how when one thing goes, you start gong crazy worrying about everything else! Still no news of tax credits...so am dreading being told we are getting nothing or worse. ANd stressing about the roof and it's leak. If only we could get up there and see what we are up against, but it's too high for any ladder.
ANd the plastering in the would be playroom has cleared me out big styleeeee. It's cast more than I thought.

Phew. Sorry to off load.

H has screamed all evening every evening for about 8-10 days [and wasn't ever anything to advertise motherhood iyswim], and for the first time in 5.9 years of parenting, tonight I was a)close to tellng her where to go b) could actually imagine myself loosing it with her completely and c) reduced to sobbing.

Not like me at all!!

Had a read, good to catch up on all the news.

Pat - can't believe 3 months have gone by since your friend's baby was born. That was so quick! Good news on relate, hope a break gives you time to think and some space. Am not coming down now until last week in August and will see you then anyway but if any changes of plan will let you know, thinking of you, is pants - to put it mildly. I'm guessing you won't be up here in a few weeks now?

Dog - DS was transverse and I had awful BH, so many false labours. Perhaps there is something in position affecting them like Moose said.

Moose - you've got yonks til your hols, loads of time to get ready. You've done so well to lose 17lbs too!

x-posts Tree - gawd, poor you. 8-10 nights !!! I'd have cried a week ago, you are a hero for lasting this long. Do you have any alcohol in the house? If so a toast to not losing it for so long methinks.

P.S. LOL at how you DONG? Who remembers cumcumbers?

Chortle.

There really is a very dodgy i on this keyboard, and all the letters near it. Honest guv

Cumcumbers. It should be a mn classic really.

Thing is, we've had 18 months of her being like this, and about 5 of those she was like thise 24/7. So for me to crumble after 8 long evenings seems a bit silly really.

Moosey weight loss is stellar. Very very chuffed for you Moose.

Am clearly nearly hysterical, as read new Lenni posts and thought 'oo concidence, Lenni was going to make brownies too.....'. Took me a fair whle to ralise I was reading my own post.

Can hear H downstairs chasing the cat.

More so a hero for lasting 18 months and 8 evenings. Honestly Tree, the stress levels must be beyond measurable. My two are pretty easy really all things considered and I have meltdowns occasionally. You need to let it all out sometimes, human nature. Plus you have a stressful job too, go easy on yourself, where's that bag o' guilt gone? I know you have coped this long but that doesn't make it any easier.

oh tree, poor you. is she quiet now? can you have a swig of gin cup of tea in the garden for a few mins? we have dropped c's nap here, she is like a wet rag by the end of the day, but after weeks of howling and refusal to go to bed we've been at a complete loss, so we are trying to get her past the bad habit, iyswim. feel cruel but think will reintroduce a short nap the day after tomorrow and see how that goes... the things it does to stress levels is incredible, i think you are a shockingly good mum to have got to this point before feeling a bit edgy...

pat, i hope that taking space will help.

dog, hope the bhs have settled down. so sorry about the restless legs. i had forgotten them. shudder.

moose, 17lbs is fab. i have decided that 9lbs have to go before my birthday, as a start. cake is history in this house...

tea, i hear you with the snottiness - poor c has had a runny nose for, seemingly, weeks. i think it might be a teething thing (three teeth half way through) but it's thicker. i am half thinking if it doesn't clear up soon of taking her to the doctor to make sure it's not a sinus infection, as it's been hanging around and isn't a nice colour.

lenni - nice pics

waves to everyone

Oh and I haven't made 120 brownies yet either, despite several purchases of ingredients. Now where is all that chocolate I bought? Oh yeah, hum, in a big lardy tyre round my middle. Best get to the gym, er, next year.

You are lovely. Thanks folks.

DH gave her some sedative [nearly gone now, eeek!] and took her to Sainsbury while it kcked in, then stuffed her with ready brek.

We await the results......

I think I'm mournful for the nice baby experence. SHe's not a baby now, and there will be no revolution, and this is how it is.

Stripey - wow at dropping all naps. WOw. How do you get through the day. I nearly conga down the stairs when the H-bomb ticks in her bed!!

I have to say, dh and I have taken a battering. Our relationship has been strangled. Hopefully some revolution thing will get easier amd we can build a few bridges. Or at least eat in the same room

He brought me back a little Green&Blacks. He's a good boy

Lenni, I was just thinking about cumcumbers today! In fact I now call them that in my head.

Am reading all on phone but too hard to type so will save proper catch up for my return. Holiday fab.

Insert i's where you see fit.

tree, you and dh will be fine if he is still bringing you chocolate on days like today, i'd say... i am in mourning for the naps, virtually, but needs must. am fortunate because dp is home a lot as it's summer so we kind of take turns at child care, which really helps. and we are going to send her to nursery two mornings a week from the end of august. child needs socialising... no ulterior motive whatsoever

He's lovely stripey and starved of all affection. I'm the bag, the idea of any contact woth any human after a day with dd2 gives me hives! I'm nearly always overstimulated by 6pm. Poor bloke.

Right. Gentle ticking from the bomb in the cot - that's a positive. This time last year that would have been my chest.

So quick cheese sarnie and bed! Thank you for your ears

bookmarking

Sorry I've been awol. Helllooooo ladies! J still snot monster, just a cold. Plying with medised calpol.

Tree I can't believe you haven't resorted to cry it out yonks ago, you are an amazing mum. I'd have gone mad by now and done far far worse. You poor thing ((hugs))

hi tea poor j !!

have stripped paper off of big wall in extension leaving it there as aching!!

will do more with parents tom

so chuffed finally receieved cheque for old phone took ages

Oh Tree, you poor thing. Am so sorry I wasn't around to send you chocolate and hugs yesterday, but glad dh supplied the chocolate anyway.

Its too late I know, and all I can do is echo what others' have already said. You are one of the most caring, thoughful mothers I know and frankly you deserve far more than a medal for what you have coped with over the last 18 months. No doubt about it, that little H is a challenge to say the least, but I have it on good authority that I was very similar as a child and I turned out alright (I think ). I nearly drove my poor Mum insane when I was a baby, but we are really close now so I don't think she holds it against me.

Please be kinder to yourself. I really hope you get some respite soon. ((hugs))

Packing is going, albeit verrry slowly, everything is so much more difficult when you have to lug a big robot leg around with you.

I sat and did 2 hours of ironing this morning and I still haven't finished. I HATE ironing!

Dh has just text to tell me the final cost of the new door on the van £400!!!!! OMG we don't have £40 let alone £400. We have been living out of the larder for the last three weeks as we ran out of money halfway through last month. Fortunately this is dh's bonus month - unfortunately half of that has just been swallowed by the campervan. We really needed that like a hole in the head though, what with our holiday coming up. The thing that makes me really is that the garage have had the flaming door for over a year now and haven't done anything with it - then they ring us out of the blue on Tuesday to say its ready. We hadn't budgetted for it - well be had - last year, but that money got raided yonks ago. I am so cross, I thought we could enjoy the holiday knowing that the bonus had sorted the worst of our money worries and I could buy my shoes etc for the wedding when we got back - but nope, instead yet another kick in the proverbials.

Tea, cumcumber was a rather unfortunate mistype in the title of one of our ante-natal threads (I think it was antenatal - couldn've been post, I'm not sure).

Stripey, hope you get some respite too soon, glad you have dp around to support you at the moment.

Right Mum has just turned up for coffee and then I have another 2 hours of ironing to get done - I may or may not make it back later.

Phew. Wine o'clock. Will be back shortly

Made some more of your brownies yesterday 120, my SIL was over and told me how she'd been wanting some only the other day, so I cut it in half and sent her home with half

She is pregnant bless her. Due in October. She deserves a treat

lol tea, I've had my share of being on tv and it's not worth it, I tell ya. Only one a day!

Tree, hope you are feeling better and that H is behaving better. Moosey sorry to hear about the van door

We have a very exciting house development at this end. We found a place we like a lot before we even put ours on the market. Not really sure what to do, but doing our best to convince the seller to take it off the market! Eek. So may well be moving this year from a flat to our very own townhouse, 2 streets from our school of choice! Fingers crossed. The downside is it's a mile from the tube. But it was tube or school, and what can you do? Eeeek! Very excited though. Think I've already mentioned that.

Oooh 120. Exciting

Moose, bollocks about the door love. I feel your pain.

Thank you for all the sympathy.

Today we found out that out rolling tax credits overpayment has hit a wall. Gits. Seems we owe them a cool £1900. We might be able to pay back £440 this year, which is our total award. Because of my enhanced hours and dh's manic overtime, we are over 40k per annum.

The come April we get zero award, and so will be let with a £1500 debt. Or thereabouts.

So that's something to look forward too. The lady was nice when I rang. After a 50 min wait in the que, it was as well.
She said it would have all been ok, we would have just had zero award until the debt was repayed from the basic £440 yearly payment to those earning over 40k.

Now Mr Cameron has decided 2 people earning 22k and 22k are loaded we won't get any credts at all to pay them with, come April 2011. The tax credt people have been told nothing about what will happen to outstanding debt. Because obviously 2 people earning 22k each are so loaded finding £1500 is no problem at all.
So we'll have to find it ourselves I guess. So that's something to look forward to.

I feel I am swimming against one fucker of a tide here.

Apologies for swearing.

My enhanced hours haven't been paid this month, which is a pita. It's about £400. Maybe I should take that money as soon as it lands at end of Aug, and put it into dd2's account. She has £450, so that would be a big chunk of the debt ready to pay next April. What a pita!

I knew they were overpaying us, but I had no idea we were carrying debt to that amount! And like them, I always knew it was fine, once this year came we would simply loose all our awards until the debt was paid. It would take 2-3 years and that was ok. Now Mr Cameron has really screwed that for us.
Dh thinks they will write off pre existing debt for those who loose their credits. I don't.
We are going to see is we are better off earnign less, going under £40k to trigger the payment, to pay their credits back. Because if DH does go to uni, we will need them big style. We can't be loosing them all to overpayments.

Crazy crazy system. So penalised for working.

Many many apologies for the rant. I don't expect anyone to read it [grn]

Also bothering me, dh has to take holiday this week. He forgot to change it and now he has to have it. He has only the bank holiday in August off...till Christmas!!! I have no dea how he will cope, nor how we will manage with his fatigue.

Oh tree, that is really shitty for you(((hugs))).

I'm repaying HMRC £35 pm for a tax credit overpayment last year. They agreed I could repay it over a year.

I suspect they'll do a similar deal with you. It maybe spread over several years as you won't be the first or last to suffer under the cost cutting and they'll need to find flexible ways to help people but it is a major b*gger for you