Mums Running Club

We just had an interesting run my friends and I. Quite lucky re: water but the paths through the woods were getting on for unpassable in road shoes, but not enough off road in the run really to warrant off roaders. Good run though and so nice to have some company. 9.5 miles flew by .

Should be cleaning bathrooms as S asleep but am not, so must get on ina  bit.

Camlo sorry to hear about Archie. Keep us posted ...

CM. Sorry to hear about money. Is it worth holding back the maintenance for a couple of months until you can find your feet again? It is there for the kids at the end of the day. My kids will have nothing in ISAs I'm afraid. We pay £10 each a month into TF but thats it sadly. We need the money to get through the month. Have to climb the university mountain when we get to it sadly!!

I have used lots of tesco vouchers this year as we have tonnes of the things. However had major problems with my orders this week. Vouchers are taking off silly amounts like 87p instead of £10. Was trying to be really organised and get all presents to take up to SIL's this weekend in Newcastle but no. Tesco have screwed up their system so much that they are now issuing me with a gift voucher for £60 which won't be active for another 48 hours so thats my present buying to take with us scuppered. GRR!!!! I have rung them and asked for them to pay the delivery and the postage for these items as I'm not amused, which they agreed to. Hurrah!! Some justice! Will be nervous to use their clubcard exchange again though as its been a debacle this week. We have soooo many vouchers though so many more days out me thinks!!

Thinking of you lots EF. Keeping everything crossed!! I was sick from the gun with both pregnancies. Sophie was actually far worse than the twin pregnancy tbh, but that might have been cos I was more tired with having the twins around.

I am another yeller I'm afraid. They all go nuts on occasion and thats when I blow.

Right must get on...

yes, it's the university mountain i'm stressing about. i know too many people whose kids can't get any form of loans for their tuition fees because their parents earn 'too much'. and a couple of girls have had to drop off their courses because they can't fund them. i find the thought of that so utterly awful. not that i assume my kids will go to uni (although E is going to be a doctor apparently - and once she sets her mind to something...). but if they do want to, i would hate for them not to be able to just because i don't have the money to pay for their courses. i will still most likely have a mortgage when they start uni as i have had to start again from scratch with this mortgage on my house. so i won't be bill-free to help them out. it worries me a LOT. but then i do stress inordinately about money and always have.

the only thing i have bought new for E was her barbie hair doll thing she wanted (eeeek) and that came from tesco on their voucher scheme. it's great when it works but not good when it doesn't. i always shop in Aldi these days so only had about 20 quids worth of vouchers this year. mostly from fuel i think.

i try not to yell at my kids. spent my childhood being screamed at and i hate it. i don't yell much at all. when i do it makes both my kids stop in their tracks. J ALWAYS cries when i shout, and E generally just looks defiant! i do probably nag them too much tho - without yelling. particularly about getting ready in the morning

good news about your friend's baby!

vixo - i agree that something plain like a biscuit or toast is one thing if you have a bug. but he tries to get them to eat a full meal and if they won't he tries yoghurt, chocolate, ice cream - anything he can get them to say 'yes' to basically. he is the same with himself. we met on a mountain biking holiday in mexico and we were camping wild. everyone (apart from me and the only other girl on the trip) got REALLY bad d+v. as soon as i felt the slightest grumble in my stomach, i just went onto liquids and forewent the meals. as we were camping wild, nothing was being refrigerated / washed up properly etc, so really hardly surprising everyone was ill.  T kept eating, and drinking alcohol, in spite of vomiting copiously and having terrible runs. it took him 3 weeks when he got home for his stomach to calm down - he was still having the runs after about 2.5 weeks! i have to say that in this situation i did blame the fact that he carried on eating and drinking when he was clearly ill! and i HATE the fact that he does the same things to the kids. whenever we went on holiday, he was always the one who ended up with a stomach bug which lasted at least a week - it happened when we went to sri lanka and nepal. whereas i was always fine because i was cautious as soon as i felt dodgy!

last time E was sick was at his house. she had been complaining of a bad stomach all day, had the runs and hadn't wanted any tea. he persuaded her to drink milk and eat yoghurt and ice cream. then she threw up all over him. ha! served him right. but really NOT fair on her and i think probably totally avoidable if he had just allowed her not to eat anything (which is what she wanted to do)...

E has drawers-ful of plastic tat. mostly plastic food and also loads of princess things like wands, tiaras and stuff.  they ALL get dragged out and played with repeatedly. then i have to put them all away. she doesn't play with themed stuff much. J has always loved his sets of things, but she is much more into free play - as long as it involves princesses making food. hmmm...

vixo - i agree, there will almost certainly be a different system in place. my only fear (because i worry about everything incessantly) is that it will be worse than the current one...

Definitely not worrying about uni yet!  But I am a bury your head in the sand type person......

Had a nice lunch in Brentcross with my cousin, never been there before and you can tell it is the UK's oldest shopping centre!  Got m stocking bits - hairbands, toothbrushes etc plus a jigsaw for under the tree.  Found a vile sparkly pink hairband that said Matilda on it - she has nothing with her name on so I bought it.  Isn't father christmas cleveer knowing her name!  My cousin pointed out that M might wonder if E didn't get a stocking, so I guess maybe I should get him a new toothbrush and some organix sncks or something.  Wasnt going to bother!

My cousin commented that Father Christmas is rather practical, whereupon I replied that in my day FC used to give us camera film, amongst other stuff.  I just object to buying horrible plastic tat when my house is full of it from party bags.

I am saving up all my tesco vouchers for when our friends from America come at easter with their 2 little girls, then we can go to the aquarium or something.  I have never tried the exchange thing, but I always use them for days out rather than just spending it on boring food shopping.

We buy our Legoland annual passes with our Tesco vouchers, I am hoping when they expire next year, we will have enough vouchers to get Merlin passes.

Toy wise, Leila is very much into Princesses and Barbies and I bought a load of second hand ones from a local buy and sell board on facebook for £25. Bargain and she plays with them for hours. For Christmas I think the grandparents will get her a house for them, and we have bought her a car for the barbies, dressing up stuff, lunchbox, pens, paints, socks etc. So I think we have done practical and playstuff.

I too am hiding about costs of University for L... we have mine to think about at £6k per year next September and have no idea where that will come from. I guess when I qualify my income will just have to pay off a loan (if we can get one) or go straight back into savings.

Midwife appointment went ok. She didn't go near me with a tape measure, my bp all fine and fetal hr good. The only thing is that baby is currently breech, but she said at 28 weeks they quite often are and will move by itself. But of course there is a huge part of me thinking "but what if it doesn't!?"

Anyway, we are going to Germany tomorrow for the Christmas Markets for 4 days so I should really be packing. I think it is colder there than here so better pack some thermals!

Camlo, hope that Archie is on the mend. Sorry to hear that he is poorly...no fun for either of you x

Yes we used them on legoland, thomas land, conkers and longleat this year. But we do have loads of them. I get a tesco shop every 2-3 weeks plus have a tesco mastercard which we use for everything and pay off each month, so it all racks up on that too. Not complaining but when their system can't cope it drives me nuts.

My two will be getting a 2nd hand nintendo ds each we think off ebay. Not totally decided yet as might wait until 7th birthday. Otherwise its 2nd hand knight costumes off ebay and currently bidding on and S some proncess stuff off ebay too. grandad spending the most on them.

I am def not worrying about uni yet, like living in the present too much and we might be much better off by then. I might be working more etc. We just don't have the money to stash away anyway so no point thinking or worrying about it tbh!!

definitely burying head in sand re university, can't do anything different to what we are doing so figure no point worrying!!! The only thing going into those savings accounts we got free is £10 each from me each month!!

glad the midwife appt was OK Anj, lots of crawling around on all fours then from now on in!!

well it's about 2 degrees out there at the moment, but still just about light and my two are rolling around on the trampoline best be off to sort stuff as have a lovely trek out for Js guitar lesson now (2 hours round trip) and tea to squeeze in before I teach my other 'pilates class' at 8pm.

well AF has hit with a bang this afternoon which explains the 7 toilet trips and banging head this morning. i NEEEEEEED chocolate but have no change for the machine at work. this is truly an emergency of catastrophic proportions

oh and vixo - i think we had that a bit with E when she was just turning 1. she picked up a horrid bug - we all had it. but at that point, all she would drink was milk. wouldn't drink water, juice or anything else. so we had to keep giving her milk and it just kept making her worse. she was so dehydrated and it did get to the point where i was worried she was going to get really really ill.  the HV came round to do J's pre-school assessment thing and she was also really worried about how she looked as her lips were all chapped and she was limp. but she did perk up in the end. to me that sort of proved that you really do need to starve some bugs - even just giving her milk was prolonging it. in the end i was syringing warm orange squash drop by drop into her as it was the only thing she wouldn't spit out again that wasn't milk!

Camlo, lovely to hear I am not the only one saving a token £10 each per month!! Also agree with you about the rest - maintenance, going to uni etc.  Hope with Archie very tired, and asthma under control you get some sleep tonight?

Ummm Christmas, well Joshua wants a guitar (s has been angling for a DS for ages. J didn't get one until he was seven but no way we'll make S wait that long. Up until now her presents have costs us virtually nothing - second hand and/or very simple so it's not a problem (grandad will be covering that one I think anyway), aside from that they want things like bubbles (the ones you blow) and really small simple stuff.

CM - hope found the chocolate of some kind

Camlo - what sets off Archie's asthma?  I'm trying to keep Aidan's under control and hoping we don't have any emergencies while Alan is working away.  Hope Archie feels better soon!

CM - I did the same as you with our bug and it was all over v quickly - didn't even do liquids until the vomming stopped, either it was the nature of the bug but it was over v quickly.  Great once they are big enough to spew in a bowl!

Liking the stocking ideas, have got a bigger scooter for M and a blue one for Aidan, they had 15% off so I didn't feel like I was totally ripped off!