any other over 35 first time mums?

[SabrinaKat]

It was a TERRIBLE idea regarding the reins/harness -- well, it was okay for a few minutes, but then we had to cross a big road, so I scooped him up in my arms to cross and he was not happy (arching back, screaming) and that continued all the way home -- anytime I let him 'lead' it was fine, but anytime mummy decided that it wasn't safe, then the screams and tears began. Honestly, I felt like the world's worst mum, particularly using the harness....sigh. angel - we got the lindam one at argos, and I think it's okay, but be prepared, e.g. don't use a handbag or shoulder bag with it, as it was pretty tricky to balance both and hold the reins (and I'm petite)...so, I will have to persevere (sp), but I left the stroller at the creche, but we just bought a travel one (but even that's tricky for me)....sigh

re: meals. We buy meat and veg at the weekend, and I usually decide that morning or usually, on the way home from work. One night, we might have chicken, potatoes and broccoli or another salmon, potatoes and cauliflower (my OH must have potatoes (he's Irish), and I always offer LO carrots, which he eats most of the time. I will also give him some macaroni, broccoli and meat in a bowl for him about once a week; and he will feed himself with any yogurt/applesauce (yes, very messy) and he loves rice cakes (we offer him adult ones now) and raisins, so he's very healthy!

I will try and get some pictures taken soon -- my OH left the camera in the car and I just keep forgetting!

hugs to all and to all, good sleep!

 

[Storm1jet2]

Ladies can you see my hugeness

https://www.flickr.com/photos/100380294@N06

I don't get Flickr yet no clue what I'm doing!

 

[AngelUK]

Aww! You look great with a nice little bump but I don't see the hugeness you are talking of!

Man I am broody! lol

 

[Storm1jet2]

Angel I'm only 17 weeks lol

Will update properly tomorrow ladies, too tired for this one finger phone typing!

 

[Borboleta]

Hi ladies,

Storm: you look beautiful! I am not sure why you think you look huge !! And I love your highlights too! It looks great

Angel: I love the pictures of your backyard. It is bigger than I imagined .
And I love the story of how you and your OH knew who to name Dominic . And when indigo asked about the little bull, I thought that Dom would fit right in.
And the meals I am trying to be better about it and I subscribe for a magazine called cooking light and I love their recipes and they are pretty healthy. So now I go everyday to the store pick up the ingredients. I have multiple supermarkets around me so no big deal. Maximum 5 min ride. And I think little t likes the grocery store so it is part of our daily activity . Even though he might not touch what I cooked !

Indigo: thiago is definetely not a little bull. He is a thinker and very cautious. You can see his little face analyzing things before he does anything. Isn't it amazing how different they are.
And I am with angel, how wonderful to have no mortgage!!! After a whole year of no money coming in you can imagine how our finances are !! Oh well, now back on the settle and move foward right .

Sabrina: I am so sorry Finn didnt like the harness. It sounds like you will have to use the stroller again. Can you give him some food during the ride to entertain him? I do that with thiago anywhere where we have to put him in the stroller. The boy just hates it but does fine as long as we have something for him to munch on. Or maybe a game on your phone? I have this little app on my phone called lunchbox and he loves it. He does so good with the memory game! And it teaches him numbers and colors and letters.

Lady H: glad to see you hear too!!

Leeze: does Kia ever get her little fingers pinched on the door with all the opening and closing that she does? I hope not. And thiago loves spinning like her.

Claire: sorry for L's cold and I hope you don't get it either .

Yesterday was a tough day with thiago, it felt like someone stole my kid and left a temper tantrum kid here. He was crying and didnt want to do things most of the day, until we got stroke by a lighting and we decided to try to give him some Advil !! My gosh 15 min later my sweet boy was back !!! Not sure what was bothering and why it took us so long to figure it out that maybe he was in pain poor thing. But he keeps jamming his finger in his mouth and is drulling so it could be teething or maybe he was a bit constipated but had a humongous poop today. I was worried that the terrible twos was hitting my child earlier. Glad to have my little t back.

 

[clio]

Angel--wow! They really did a number on that book!!! I'm glad they're getting another one and that they like it so much. I find it so incredibly cute that they are so imaginative with that book! J is no where as interactive with any book! I think they are very creative and inventive young boys! And rascally! :wink:

You do sound very frugal. I try to find things as cheaply as possible, too, but when I'm manic... Well, even when I'm manic, I still look for the best deals! Just too many of them! We couldn't have gotten this house without my parents' help for the down payment, but this is the story all over Canada. Baby Boomers are finding that they have to support their adult Gen X children because we grew up in an economy with no jobs, or under-paying ones. I hope things will be better when J grows up.

What a wonderful garden! It doesn't look much bigger than ours. Did you put the sod in yourself? If you did, it looks soooo luscious!

That's rough about the mortgage. I understand, though. Now I also understand why you're frustrated that your Dad wasn't more helpful!

Oh, I was thinking cutlery for just Dominic. Maybe it'll slow him down or distract him. Baby forks are the best, I find, because they can actually use them when they spear things.

Thank you for the compliment re: J's eyes. They're actually a family trait on my side, and I have them too. People used to stop my mum on the street because of my eyes, just like people do with J. But mine stopped looking so big as I grew into them, and when I smile, I end up squinting, so they are quite nondescript right now. J's lucky though; when he smiles, his eyes stay wide open.

Indigo--I am SO impressed that you are debt free, own your own house and can already pay for N's college education. Though isn't it outrageously expensive in the states? We can only do it through investment and compound interest over the 18 years we have before he has to use it, and even after 18 years, we still wouldn't be able to pay for J to go to an American school. You said that your OH works at a uni--do you get free tuition for N? My dad did for us, but I only went to his uni for my graduate work, when it no longer applied.

R&T--okay, J wouldn't go down the stairs head first with no thought. He is then 100% not R&T. But he is still a careful daredevil, if that makes any sense. He'll try something really hard, but considers it from all angles first. How so unlike me... Okay, who else? Little T? I don't think we need to ask about L.

Though he's been practicing walking up and down the main stairs, and he is so proud of himself! The first time, he actually stood on the landing, put his hands in the air and said "Hooray!!!" I also want to get him a tricycle because his two yr old friend next door has one and we've been borrowing it. He is absolutely determined to use the pedals, and when I push him, if his feet fall off, I still have to push until he gets them back on. If he really can't, then he says, "Wait!" and I have to stop until he's fixed his feet. So, definitely not R&T, but he believes he can do anything he sees another kid do, and works on it until he can do it too.

SK--that's too bad about the reins. I've been thinking of getting some, too, but I suspected that they wouldn't work. Your story just confirms it. Angel was talking about those rucksack ones; do you think the novelty of wearing one would distract him from running away? I've been working on crossing the street holding J's hand, and I'm so glad we live in a quiet residential area. J would otherwise have gotten to see his beloved cars up close and personal many times!

AFM---Grrrr!!!! Again, another OH rant. Yesterday, he dried all of my cotton shirts and pants ON HOT and I don't have any clothes left because they all shrank. Neither does J, I suspect. I lost it. I had given him such specific instructions, and he's done it before so he knows all of the laundry "rules." And he broke the biggest ones. I couldn't stop crying, either, because I felt/feel SO helpless and hopeless. How many times can you even WRITE OUT instructions and have them ignored over and over again? Luckily he didn't get mad at me for me getting mad at him. He was actually sorry. I hate fighting with him.

Then, this morning, I came down, and again J was crying. OH said that he had given him Tylenol, but his cheeks were still incredibly red. I asked if he had also given him Advil (you can administer them at the same time), and he said no. Then I found J's oatmeal sitting on a plate in the kitchen, untouched, and rather solid looking. Confused, I gave it to J, and he ate basically nothing of it. Even more confused, I asked OH if he knew what was going on. "Oh," he said, "I gave him a banana. He's probably not hungry anymore." A banana? Why would you give him a banana before breakfast??? So J got no grains nor protein nor milk this morning, only one of the most sugary fruits out there. Why not just pour him a bowl of Chocolate CoCo Puffs in Pepsi? This way he'd at least get some fibre!

***
sigh... many hours later...
***
I just phoned my mum. It's become clear that I need some help around here, and OH is just too busy with the beginning of the semester and getting all this administrative crap done. She also feels badly that it's only Eric's family that is helping out in her daughter's (me ) crisis, and is going to try to make things a little more equitable.

Okay... On we march!

 

[clio]

Sorry guys--looks like 50 million posts went up before mine, which is very old. I also stopped it mid-post, so I missed people. So, um, ignore the irrelevant stuff.

 

[Claireyb1]

Storm- you look lovely and not huge at all! Don't forget you "pop" earlier with subsequent pregnancies as everything is already stretched!!
Xx

 

[kosh]

I agree with the ladies storm - I know you're only 17w, but still you don't look huge, you look great!

been very busy at work these days and incredibly tired, so now time to reply properly but I've been reading here and there.
hope you are all well

ps - feeling better in general and very excited (and a bit anxious too of course) re. our coming first short holiday

 

[kosh]

a friend just sent me this link. some are hilarious!!

https://imgur.com/a/e0iIj#5XWGLyE

 

[clio]

Morning guys! Okay, so lately J has been informing us that he just had a poo in his diaper. Does this mean we need to start potty training? I don't want to; it's really not a great time right now. Plus, the stress for all of us, especially J! And he's not telling us that he is about to have a poo. Telling us after and not before isn't really helpful, anyway. Oh, I don't know. Poop.

Off to ask child-rearing Dr. Google to see what he has to say...

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/ekater/th_horsepoopsmiley-1_zps81ddf7ee.gif

 

[Storm1jet2]

Arghh had typed post in work and forgot to post it!

Clio L tells us when she has done a poo, I'm not even thinking about toilet training! I've got the toilet seat with ladder and have it out forher to get used to, but she's not interested I was thinking over 2 before that fun started!

 

[SabrinaKat]

another day, another biting....and LO was so stroppy this afternoon that I had to ask a member of the creche to help me put him in the stroller. Reins/harness are a good idea, but not by yourself as you will need help or another person to have the stroller for when little legs get tired (from yesterday)....and he proceeded to throw a massive temper tantrum for about half an hour when we got home. I just kept popping into the other room as I was at my wits' end, but eventually (and with some sippy cup lemonade), we had a reconnecting cuddle and he's been okay since. His teething is very bad and I've written out permission for meds at 11am at the creche as I think it builds up and when I get him at 2, he's beyond any help....sigh (and wonderful for ttc-ing!)...

no real personals, sorry, but have read the previous posts....

hugs to all and to all, GOOD SLEEP!

bye!

 

[Leeze]

Kosh - that link is hilarious. Makes me want to send it to my brother and get him to recreate some of our childhood photos together.

Seems like quite a few teething toddlers right now. So hard. Hugs to all

Clio - Kia has recently started asking to wee in the toilet so we've ordered her one of those seats that fit on top so she can sit on it. But, I don't think she's really ready - I think she's just becoming aware that she uses a nappy and we don't. We're not going to rush into.anything. Just experiment a little and take it at her pace.

My main news is that AF arrived today - finally - so hopefully this will be a lucky cycle for us! Fingers crossed!

Love to all. Chat soon x

 

[Borboleta]

Hi ladies,

Have been having a rough couple of days. Today we have thiago 18 months developmental appointment and OH are I are a little concerned about him. His eye contact is not very good ( not terrible either) but his little eyes are normally looking at other things than at you sometimes. And we have to call him a lot of times for him to look at us or sometimes he just doesn't look. OH is worried that he is not saying as many words as he did before, but I think he still say most of them. He is very cuddly and like us to play with him. He does like to look up to the sky to lights or fans. He points at things all the time. And does his occasional tripod position. He shakes his head once in a while but manly when there is music on ( like he is dancing) or if he sees someone on one of his shows doing it.
He ignores other people and doesn't pay much attention to other kids, he did go out with his grandma yesterday and she said he did great ( at a indoor play place).
OH and I are not sleeping well just wondering. I have a feeling that the doctor will say that we will have to wait till he is 2 to have him evaluated. Pray for us, but it doesn't matter what he is our sweetheart and we love him so much.

 

[Storm1jet2]

Afternoon ladies!

You will have to excuse my shoddy replies but as usual I am pretty shattered so can’t half remember what I am meant to be replying to!

The food thing, L pretty much eats what we eat, there is very little that we eat that she won’t eat. I’m pretty rubbish at planning meals but do a weekly shop online and then try and make dinners out of that. Typically we have spag bol, chilli, meat potato and veg, curry, pasta bake etc.. nothing overly exciting as I just don’t have the time to make fancy meals anymore!

As for university funds – oh my word I have no idea how we would ever cover that – the price of university in the UK is soaring. I do have a bank account for L and I put about £60 a month in there (DH doesn’t know, but hey the kid will need money) – so hopefully by the time she is 18 she will have about 12-15k in there - which won’t cover uni but will certainly help! If people give her money for Christmas or her birthday it goes in there too. Unfortunately we still have a mortgage and will do until L is 18 ½ - I can’t see us being mortgage free before then? I can but hope though.

SK L is a nightmare on reigns now, we have the strappy ones and one that is like a little monkey rucksack but unlike a dog she doesn’t go where I want her too and its such a hassle! She hates the pram now too.. sigh…

Angel L has destroyed many a book, but she is getting better at not ripping them – I HATE ripped books – probably cause I love books  She had a lovely book about ten hungry caterpillars and at the end they turn into butterflys and the last page was a pop up of all the butterflys – not anymore – they have been demolished!

Good news about AF Leeze, hopefully this is your month! Now save some energy for around O time! SK how are you getting on – is DH getting jumped on every other day? I have to say this time around I didn’t even bother on O day, but we did the day before so I guess some of the little guys were still hanging around 

I have less than 16 weeks left at work – how mad is that! In many ways it feels like I’m only back and I will have completed just less than a year before I am off again, except this time I know what hard work it is going to be  Last time I thought it would be a breeze, I hadn’t counted on a non sleeper! Hopefully this one will be a sleeper – please! We are trying to think of names at the minute and its just painful – I’m terrible at choosing names…

Oh Borboleta I just read your post - try not to worry - he is very very young and I know you have worried in the past about some things but T is a delightful little boy and remember not all kids are the same! L can totally ignore me, at times she point blank refuses to look at me - even when I'm calling her name etc etc.. maybe little T just can't be bothered at times? What do you mean by tripod position? Do you mean stands on his legs but puts his head on the floor like the yogs downward dog? If so L does that all the time, she thinks its funny! Oh and she is obsessed with planes, birds and helicopters - basically anything that flys and calls them all bees... Try not to read too much in to some of the little guys actions - I know its easy to say and hard to do - we all worry about our little children - I nearly said babies there but they aren't babies anymore! Also try not to compare T to all the other children, children come in many shapes and sizes and are all very very different! It would be a boring world if everyone was the same. Maybe we need T quiet contemplative nature to even Ls nuttiness! Big hug my dear and I hope you and OH get some sleep soon.

 

[Borboleta]

Thank you so much storm. It made me feel better to hear that L sometimes ignores you too. But little t sometimes doesn't look at you when you are talking to him. But there are times that he is look straight at you and it feels so good when he does that . I don't know. I saw a little girl that she is about 3 months younger than thiago and he was actually looking at her and she was looking straight at me when I was talking to her. Thiago doesn't really do that. He might look at you for a little bit and than he is gone. Hopefully the doctor has some answers for us today.

 

[clio]

Borboleta-- I hope you're back from your app't and that it went well. I also wanted to add that sometimes I want to smack J upside the head (just a saying, not what I would really do!) because he won't look at me. He's either distracted to such a degree that I don't register, or he doesn't want to hear me, and up close, if I'm trying to tell him something, I have to hold his chin and make him look at me, because he won't otherwise. As for playing by himself, J does that all the time, even if his cousins or new friends from next door are there. I think it's great that T's such an independent little boy! As for language, the boy is learning to be bilingual. Maybe this is a slight natural regression in language as he tries to sort things out? Are there any articles you can read about speech development and bilingual toddlers?

 

[clio]

Leeze and Storm--thank you for the reassurance re: potty training. I really don't want to think about that stuff right now. I even gave the Potty book to my nephew because J hasn't seemed too interested lately.

Sorry guys, I'm a bit too grumpy to write personals, but I wanted to boast about my latest Customer Service face-off and win! I had ordered a costly set of wooden tracks--before the draining of my bank acc't--and discovered when the package arrived that they had left out a really small piece. But I still phoned our Canadian version of Amazon--Indigo Books--and briefly explained the situation. The guy said, no problem, we'll just send you another set of tracks. And, he said nothing about what I had to do with the ones I already had. Yay!!! I love it when it works out like this. Customer Service may make you wait a long time, but the rewards can be immense!

What an incredibly boring story.

 

[SabrinaKat]

Borboleta - I hope you got some answers! I think it's normal to read into anything we think is 'not normal', but T's physical skills are amazing, plus maybe he is a bit more of a dreamer and that's okay! I worry as well about my LO as he seems to be good as gold most of the time at creche, but acts up for me and OH! and I agree with the others - Tiago is growing up in a bilingual environment and that can only be assessed much differently!

must dash as LO is throwing another strop (but he was very good all day (no bitings today)....bye!