Pickle

What a great thread. My "past life" and the life I currently live are polls apart. Some aspects of my old life remain, in that I still play my flute and perform regularly (which is great, and something that I do which is completely removed from life as a Mum), but the city commuter, power dressing, stand up in a meeting and confidently discuss all things finance girl has gone. As has the WeightWatchers leader, although every now and then I find myself helping people with that (which is fun, but not something I want to do as a job anymore). I was the kiwi girl always up for a good night out. These days I get nervous if I'm out after dark, worry for days about what I'm going to wear if I go to a pub as I have no idea what the fashion is outside of the ED Mum's circuit, and would much rather sit and watch X Factor in the warmth of my living room on a Saturday night. In some ways I've felt like my life as a Mum has gone in cycles. First 6 months with one child I found a breeze therefore felt quite confident. Then I got pregnant with #2, and for about a year I basically disappeared from society - combination of quite a bad pregnancy related illness, feeling rubbish, unplanned pregnancy which I really struggled to come to terms with etc. Once I had my 2nd child I found my feet again, mainly due to a great bunch of ladies that I met through my 2nd time tea group, and the fact that I preferred to be out at playgroups rather than stuck at home with 2 children under 18 months which meant I met lots of new people. That's probably about the time I started becoming an obsessive EDF poster too! Now my kids are older, and in the last 6 months life has changed again. I now work... just 8 hours a week... but it's something else in my life that's not kids, and is brilliant. Pathetically, at a rehearsal last night, I was really excited when someone asked me what I do; (a) because they didn't realise I had children (b) because I could give them an answer other than I'm a Mum I almost find myself laughing when my bosses ask me for my opinion on something accounting related, I have to remind myself that somewhere in my brain I do have knowledge of things other than weaning, potty training, sharing toys and wiping snotty noses. Oh, and I switched my Heat magazine subscription for a knitting magazine one. I don't know who anyone in Heat is anymore!

Reading this post makes me appreciate how lucky I am... as a stay at home Mum there have been quite a number of occasions where my hubby has taken days off to look after the kids when I've been sick - his firm don't even blink at it, all of the senior management have small children so it's almost part of the company culture to be able to take the time off when needed.

Lovely post Saffron :) I really don't have much to add other than my support. We went through the same things. I used to sit crying in the evening trying to express and getting nothing out, until one day I realised I was putting myself through trauma for nothing. As we did enjoy being able to let Mr Pickle do a bottle in the evening I switched to expressing at the same time as I was doing the first feed in the morning (took a bit of practise, but I would have the pump on one side and baby on the other) - and by doing this could fill a bottle in no time. By doing it this way it meant it took no extra time out of my day, and was so much easier. Stick with it, you are doing a brilliant job. P x

Dulwich Medical Centre are excellent, the Lanes midwife team operate from there.

I've also been told that kids can't sleep on the floor. You may be lucky and end up with a spare seat beside you - certainly on Singapore Airlines flights they try to do that if possible when you're flying with a little one on your lap.

Brilliant re: the cycling! Mr Pickle cycles to work (near Moorgate) avoiding most main roads - not exactly sure how, but it involves following cycle paths that bring him out near Tower Bridge. I think there are lots of little secret cycle routes, it's just a case of finding someone in the know! Personally, when I first lost loads of weight on WW I ended up in the bottom third of my healthy weight range, which was great but not sustainable. They key is to find a weight that you can easily maintain without always feeling like you have to watch what you eat - for me this is pretty much dead in the middle of my healthy range which is where I've managed to maintain (albeit apart from the couple of blips relating to having kids) for the last 8 years or so. A lot of my members used to put the top of their healthy range, but then found that even though they switched to maintenance points they continued losing weight. In this case I used to encourage them to find the point at which their weight loss stopped on the higher points and use that as their ideal weight.

I appreciate the sentiment of it being his Mother's ring and all, but bet she really wishes she could send it off to "Cash for Gold" and get herself something a bit more modern!

Hey Ryedalema, I'm doing a couple of weeks of tracking just to get my head round the new system - feels a bit strange to suddenly be back in the world of having to read the books after having been a leader and knowing the old system inside out! I like it, feels healthier, forces you to think about your protein and fibre intake rather than just focussing on calories and fat. You're right - fruit and veg are free (with a few exceptions in the veg department like before), you get a set number of points every day which you can't carry over. You then use the weekly points as/when you want to over the course of the week and earn activity points as you did before and use them at your discretion. Are you signed up to WW online? If so you should have all the calculators/database etc. that you need to do it successfully. Give me a shout if you need anything else clarified. P x

I remember being told the "bottle of wine is fine" thing in both the breastfeeding workshop and my NCT class. In fact, embarrasingly, at the end of my NCT course the teacher went round the room asking what thing we had learnt had really stuck in our mind, and the only thing I could think of was that I could drink a bottle of wine and still breastfeed :-$ You can take a girl out of New Zealand... When feeding both of mine I did have the odd glass of wine, but like others found that one, maybe two glasses was my limit before I either got a headache or fell asleep on the sofa! Even now, 2.5 years after having my youngest, I can only manage a glass or two.

Such a shame, any other time I would jump at the chance for my daughter to get them (she somehow avoided them when my son caught the pox) - but I don't want to risk them appearing just as we're about to board our flight to NZ next week! P x

I never had this problem with my cloth nappies, but I remember reading on a cloth nappy forum somewhere (because I was that sad!) that "stripping" them by washing with vinegar can help. If you google it you should find more specifics, but I'm pretty sure that's one of the common solutions. P x

We've always just gone with it, each year we've had small children at various stages of crawling/walking and been fine. Firm ground rules set out from the moment the tree goes up and my kids seem to understand. In our house the main problem when it comes to the tree is our cat, who sees it as a climbing opportunity!

Cor, controversial result! I feel for Aiden given that Wagner is still in the running (how the feck?). EDKiwi, the lip-synching was the most cringeworthy thing I've watched in a long time, terrible. Is it just me, or did Take That look really uncomfortable throughout their (decidedly average IMO) performance? Something tells me the "we love each other, best mates forever" thing is a rather inconvincing act.

Has Tea Amore shut down? I thought it was still open, just under a different name?

I agree that Rebecca has a great voice, but just don't enjoy watching or listening to her... she is very boring. I think the "shy girl turns into pop star" line is all well and good but I think she needs to shake the shy girl thing sooner rather than later! Once again I enjoyed Cher's performance, just the fact that she's different to the others keeps me interested. Hadn't heard the dirty shagger stories about Matt, off to Google him now! ;-)

As much as I'd love to join you I'll be soaking up the sun in NZ until January. But count me in for the New Year drinks!

It's a hard one... my daughter (2 years 5 months) often tells me she has a sore tummy. These days I find the way to get more information is to ask her what would make it better. Often the answer is (in true Hungry Caterpillar addict style) "a nice green leaf", but other times she will say food - so I've worked out that often when she says it's sore she means she's hungry! If she answers medicine, or that she needs a sleep I take it more seriously. P x

Actually he's only just watching it now (has managed to avoid hearing the final score, which I already know). At the start he said "I reckon this will be a good game", bless his poor deluded soul. He's now at the "I think I'll just fast forward this bit" stage, and give it another 5 mins I think he'll probably switch it off ;-) Let the gloating begin. I've already lined up all the kids All Blacks merchandise for them to wear tomorrow, nothing like rubbing salt in the wound.

My son started off having colostrum (and then milk) by syringe. When we were still in hospital we tried little cups (the white paper ones they give you in hospital with medication in them) and a spoon, but found we were loosing too much of the precious milk so stuck with syringe as the best and easiest option.

Me (a kiwi) and the kids (scottish kiwis that know already which team is best to support) are supporting NZ today, my Scottish husband will be sitting quietly in a corner covering his eyes while his team get a pasting (that's my prediction anyway!).

Shame I missed you Help-Ma-Boab, would like to shake the hand of the man that renders Mr Pickle unable to move/speak every Thursday night...

In my son's class there are 3 Callum's (including my son) out of about 8 kids, very confusing. Here I was thinking I'd chosen quite an uncommon name.

I agree with CurlyKaren, if no parent/carer around I tell the child off!

Very pleased I came, good night, nice to meet some new faces. Thankfully my stalker is absolutely normal, so I can once again sleep easy :) Nice to meet you AnnaJ, likewise ???? (owe you a drink next time),LM, Declan, FloatingOnion and co.

You've had such a tough time of it over the past few weeks, I can't imagine how I would have coped. You have managed to get through it and still have a smile on your face (at least you did when I saw you the other day!), which speaks volumes about the strong woman you are. Hope for the best, things may turn out fine, and I know that even if things don't go the way you would like them to you will cope brilliantly. P x