Ole

We have just had that but the reverse - it was a case of 'go away mummy i only want daddy' or 'i don't want mummy to read to me'. I realised that i was unconsciously responding to it by perhaps being a teeny bit more impatient with him so after a particularly bad day of 'go away mummy' day (bearing in mind i work part-time and my husband full time), I gathered myself and was extra patient with him and within a couple of days he stopped it. At the same time my husband had a man-to-man chat with him (as he put it at the time) and told him that it is not a nice thing to say to mummy, and also neither of us bow down to his mummy (or daddy) preferences as and when they happen. I think this is probably a common phase for most children and they probably alternate between mummy or daddy being flavour of the month (this is our experience anyway).

he has had it for as long as I remember - it manifests itself in what I now know are called 'shiners' (redness and marked creases around the eyes - makes him look like he has not slept for about a year!). The shiners come and go without any specific patterns, although it is worse with pollen and changes in temperature (sudden onset of cold/hot weather spells), in department stores (flourescent artificial lights, strong perfume smells), eating certain foods (no obvious pattern i.e. I have tried elimination etc, without traditional urticaria). Etc etc, basically I have known for ages (since he was a little baby) that he is very sensitive to all sorts of things that trigger the shiners but until now I have just put it down to 'one of those things'. However last week he developed a particularly prominent one (he looks a bit frightening at the moment!) and I have been wracking my brains as to what could possibly be triggering it and I thought that if he has underlying sinus problems then there could be a link (allergic sinusitis vicious circle type thingy). Taking him to the GP this afternoon anyway to ask, but I thought I would ask here if anybody has had a similar scenario. xx

Does anybody have experience of sinusitis in young children? If so, what treatment does the doc give (or that you figured out yourself) and does it work? Any advice welcome! (I have a 3 year old). Thanks.

My son had very bad eczema and the doctors pussyfooted about, and then my dermatologist friend told me to do the following and I have never looked back. 1. Initial blast with strong hydrocortisone cream to get in under control 2. Banish all bath products and only use cetraben or oilatum bath emollient in the bath 3. slather him from top to toe in cretraben, up to 6 times a day initially for several months, reducing the number of times as it gets under control (talking here about reducing it to 3 times a day about a year later) 4. Use hydrocostisone cream to blast fare ups when they occur 5. Maintenance cetraben twice daily. The days I am lazy and don't smear the cetraben on it comes back (and after 3 years of having to smear him in the stuff twice or more daily believe me I am ready for a 'day off'). Atypical eczema runs in families and unfortunately it is a case of growing out of it or learning to manage it, as far as I know.

My husband is english, I am spanish, our son has both passports, I am happy for him to have both because you never know what could happen in the future (e.g. imagine spain brought back compulsory military service, shudder....).

Does anybody know of a local artist who would be able to paint a children's mural on an outdoor wall? Sarah Beeny's programme, annoying as I find her, inspired me to do something about our boring white balcony wall!

Could it be something he is eating? I had something similar with my son when I was weaning him - every day he would be sick at precisely 2pm. I kept being told it was a virus, until I worked out he was being sick 2 hours after giving him mashed potato. It turns up he had a potato allergy (yeah I know, rare, comfirmed by tests). When I stopped feeding him potato at 12pm for luch he stopped being sick at 2pm.

One of my son's favourite toys is a doll he chose by himself a year ago when he was 2. He calls her his 'baby' and is very caring towards it, but sometimes he will also use her as a weapon of mass destruction, throwing her around, and sometimes he completely forgets about her for a few days and plays all day long with his trucks and cars and boy stuff. I am not worried over his enjoyment of playing with his baby and neither is my husband, and it is great to watch him have fun and develop a range of 'pretend' play. He also has a toy buggy (which he insisted on getting) and takes her out for walks, and sometimes it is the trucks that get put on the buggy and get taken for a walk!

I would avoid the Crown and Greyhound in Dulwich too, on the two separate occasions we have been there (two years apart), each time our food took over an hour to arrive, last time just a couple of weeks ago it took 1.5 hours from ordering before they bought out our food, and once it did it was definitely nothing to wait that long for. The children were desperately bored and fed up and we vowed not to make that mistake a third time. We should have walked out really.

I bought a fantastic one from Just Williams toy shop when my son was 2. It was only ?6 or something like that, kept him amused for hours. Has sounds and flashing lights.

Talking of skiing, I have not been since I've had my son, but now he is 3 I am thinking that perhaps he would be ready to start learning now, so I am wondering if anybody has experience taking a 3 year old on the slopes. By this I mean - is it allowed and would children's ski schools take on 3 year olds? I started skiing when I was 3 (lived by the mountains) but that was 30 years ago before health and safety became hysterical. Also, any recommendations for child-friendly resorts? not looking for nanny-type advice but rather nearness of accommodation to lifts, being able to get around resort easily, range of restaurant options, good child ski schools, etc.

Our top indoor games are: 1. jumbo watercolours and plain white paper, and is less messy than poster or finger paints, will keep him busy for 20-30 minutes minutes. 2. playdough will keep him entertained for about 20 minutes. 3. He also loves those books which have felt bits which you stick in relevant pages which are good because they can be used over and over again and he also has a book with magnetic bits so it can be re-used (about 10-15 minutes per book). 4. We bought him a board game called 'animal bingo' (can't remember exact name and I am at work so can't look up) which he loves and we play over and over again (he is 2 and a half) (depending on how enthusiastically you play it can take up to 30 minutes to play in total if you each play each board), 5. jigsaw puzzles will keep him entertained for a good hour on a good day 6. when it is not pouring I fill a small shallow paddling pool and throw in his plastic tea set and he pours me tea

Last year we hired an apartment in the catalonian pyrenees and had a great time. Lovely beaches are about 30 minutes drive (take your pick but we went to Ampurias which is very shallow great for paddling and overlooking the ancient roman ruins and pine wood forests). we would alternate beach trips with hiking trips (there are lots of good trails as you would expect and there is a volcanic national forest near there so a bit of geology thrown in), visits to charming maedieval villages, a trip to the estany the banyoles (massive lake where you can hire bikes to cycle around, and has a designatied swimming area). Would highly recommend. We went in the second half of september so avoided school holiday prices and overcrowing and had great weather. Really wanted to go back but hubby wanted to explore another area, but we will certainly be going back.

I had an emergency cesarean and I received zero information as to what to expect afterwards. There was a lot of info out there on episiotomies, tears and anything to do with natural birth, but nothing on, for example, what your scar should look like, how the muscles should heal, what exercises would be good for improving muscle tone etc. This is coming up to 3 years ago now and I still suspect that I had the most awful stitch-up ever (my scar is still red, lumpy, uneven and crooked), but because it didn't hurt I have never thought to get it checked out. Eventually I found a book about exercises to strengthen muscles but by then I was 2+ months post-op so not much help. My post-natal midwive was clinically useless. Very chatty though.

we have the same with our 2.5. Some days he will have a nap and some not, and the days he does he will be up until 8:30-9, and the days he doesn't he will be sleeping at 8. However, what we have found - and this will be of no use to you but it makes no sense to me and therefore I am going to add it- is that no matter whether he has a nap or not and regardless of how long he will have slept the night before, he always, ALWAYS, wakes up at 6am. Go figure. We were hoping that on the days he drops his naps he would sleep until 7am the following day (and give us a 'lie-in') but, alas, it is yet to happen.

I know that now sillywoman, but at the time as a new mum and with a fuzzy brain high on meds I thought it would be best to get it checked out (I think it was the weekend and could not get a doc appointment and my postnatal midwife was still to make an appearance). Apparently though they were worried about some tiny black spots that were also appearing on his skin rather than the rash itself - I can't remember what they thought the black spots would be but he was also covered in them and apparently that was what they were more concerned about. We were not allowed to be in the same room as him during the lumbar puncture because we were told it would be too stressful for us (I guess it is more important that they get him to be completely still so that the needle goes in the right place). It was a hassle dressing and undressing him with the catheter in situ, but it was such a relief when we were told that he was fine, I had to control my urge to kiss the paediatrician. I have to say that in terms of clinical care I would not want to be anywhere else apart from Kings, within a couple of hours of arriving there he had had the thing done and was hooked on a drip.

During the birth of my son I developed a high temp and was put on an antibiotic drip for the whole of it and for 2-3 days after, and when I was sent home I had to take carry on taking antibiotics for 2 weeks. I don't know if this was because of strep b or not, but a few days after we went home my son developed a really bad rash all over his body and had to have an emergency lumbar puncture thingy and he was on a drip for a whole week. He was fine and I don't know what caused his rash (the lumbar fluid came back clear so it was not meningitis).

well, I arrived home and he had cooked enough meals to last us through the week (he was 'working from home' today), went to the local shop and stocked up on essentials, and right now in front of me is sorting through 2 years worth of his own paperwork. Gotta throw strops at him more often. Today I have learnt that: 1. Need to lower expectations as it is a well-known fact that few men can think outside the box anyway 2. Men need to be told what to do and to ignore their sulky faces 3. Ignore their mess and create a mess of my own to make a point 4. If something does not get done then it is OK, the world is not going to stop spinning 5. Let him get on with his flawed proposals and try not to laugh too much when the ice cream ends up on the floor 6. Husband can jolly well learn to spend more time with his son 7. Stop risk analysing everything Has been a rather cathartic day after all!

yes I guess our backgrounds have pretty much set us for for unrealistic expectations. Me: father academic, mother stay at home who did all the house admin too and kept a pristine household husband: father vet with a very successful practice and working all hours and not very involved in child rearing, mother stay at home so i guess we both grew up in an environment where the father brings home all the bacon and the wife gets on with the assessing, storing, preparing and cooking of it. My complication in that I want a career too but I also have the 'pristine household' principle imprinted on my brain, so i am going to have to compromise on something pronto before I explode (unless we throw money at it but unfortunately our choice of careers are not of the moneyed type). God I feel like I have featured one of those 'a session with Dr Persaud (was that his name?) type articles' in Cosmo of old! Thanks for all the advice, I think I will leave my boxing gloves at the door when I get home from work today and try to have a sensible discussion about the splitting of chores.

No you are right it wasn't a disaster. I don't want to give the idea I am super strict about our routine. I am mediterranean and I take a very mediterranean approach to routines. Our son may or may not have a nap depending on what we have decided to do, and as much as I would love him to be in bed by 7-7:30, often he is still up at 8-8:30. Since I am putting all my dirty laundry out in public I might as well add that for the first two years since we had our son on top of working full time he has been doing a distance LLM (now thankfully completed, with distinction I might add) meaning for the first 2 years I spent most weekends on my own and I think that we have never quite recovered from that. My son was more than 2 years the first time my husband took him out for the whole day on his own and has only done it a couple of times since. Part of me is not being able to let go, but another part is maybe I sense a lack of enthusiasm on his part which might have resulted from him spending so little time with our son alone when he was a little baby (or I could well be reading too much into this). But anyway, this is detracting to my complaint that I do all the household work and admin. I would not mind looking after our son 24/7 if he shared some of the chores on a regular basis rather than 'on demand'. I guess what is really frustrating me is having to constantly ask him or remind him to do stuff, and which would be Ok except that he then gets sulky with me (something he would hotly deny though....)

when I say timetable I don't mean a rigid school-type timetable, I mean wake up see what the weather is doing and come up with some form of activity and work it around lunchtime/nap time and a reasonable bedtime hour. An example of a flawed activity which led to a helluva argument was the time he suggested we go to scoop in melbourne grove for some ice-cream and walk to goose green as we eat it. I pointed out that there is no way our 2.5 year old is going to walk and eat the ice cream without tripping over and that the ice-cream will end up on the floor. So my husband started with the the sulky thing so I said, 'ok let's go and do it'. So we get the ice cream and 5 metres away from the shop my son trips and the ice cream falls on the floor. My son is in hysterics 'mine ice-cream, mine ice-cream!' while my husband tries to scoop back into the cone the bits not touching the floor. I just knew it would happen!!!!!! When my husband suggested the trip I visualised the pathway and realised there was a high risk of the ice-cream ending up on the floor (I didn't really have to think hard about this one, the risk just kind of slapped me in the face).

I don't know if I have unrealistic expectations, but I get to do all the chores, all the admin, all our finances, all the tidying/cleaning/sorting, all the logistics (trips, appointments, contractors), buy all the food, cook most meals, work part-time and look after our son the rest of the week. I am also chief nagger, organiser, and risk analyser. I timetable our weekends and holidays, I decide where we go, how we are going to get there, what we are going to eat there, how long we are going to stay there. I pay all our bills, make sure we have enough in our account and shop around for bargains. I do our weekly/monthly/year budgeting. I source everything we need, find the best deal, haggle where necessary and arrange pick-up delivery. Sometimes he will come up with an activity/timetable but he will sulk if I point out that it is inappropriate/inconvenient/flawed. My husband is the main breadwinner and pick our son from nursery two days a week and prepares dinner those days. We will take turns in getting son ready for bed and reading him stories, and he usually gets him up in the mornings (when I mean get up I mean open the curtains and start making breakfast, and some weekends will wash and dress him while I have a shower). Sometimes he will take him out to he park when I need a couple of hours work (I freelance) and once or twice he has taken him out for a whole day when I have needed to work long hours at the weekend (said freelance work). He has been known to hoover and dust occasionally, but usually he pulls such a long face and makes such a fuss I'd rather not ask him. He is very good at taking the bins outside and picking up bits and pieces (bread/milk etc) from local shops when we run out. I have always thought of him as a wonderful husband but now I am starting to think I am being taken for a ride - after all it is his son too but I do so much that I default to feeling grateful when he takes our son out of my hands for a few hours so that I can get on with my work/cleaning? He is forever telling me to 'stop doing things and relax', but if I don't make the phonecalls/write the letters/make the appointment/sort out those bills/clean the bathroom, it never gets done, and when I tell him to do some light DIY he pulls, a face, blows his lid off and calls me a nag to the point where I dread if there is anything that needs doing that is too heavy for me to move/do. In the evenings he goes on and on about me getting an early night to rest, but he does not get that after the whirlwind that is my typical day I need to flop somewhere for a bit and unwind before going to sleep. Is it me or is it him? Answers on a postcard please.

Months ago I threw my cleaning routine out of the window and our 2 bed flat is pretty awful at the moment. As I have not got the momentum to tackle this I am after a company which does a spring clean to start me off again. I have not posted this in the services section because I am after a recommendation. I have already contacted a local agency which has quoted me ?250 which sounds pretty steep to me? (our flat consists of one living room, 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, one bathroom and one hallway) They did say that I would get 5 cleaners and that it would take about an hour. This works out at ?50/hour per cleaner, which makes me think that I am being taken for a bit of a ride. For this amount I could get my old cleaner back for ?25 hours (and I am not calling her back because she was pretty rubbish). Even if I paid her double ?20/hour this would still entitle me to 12 hours, so I am pretty annoyed at the ?250 for 1 hour I have been quoted (even for a team of 5 cleaners). Or am I missing something? Thanks!

A few months ago I discovered nars blusher in orgasm and I have not looked back. I also looked at what shape dresses flatter me the most and found that shift dresses make my baby belly disappear and if they fall just above the knee make me look sleeker, so during the day I wear jeans and any old top, but if I want to feel a bit more dressed up I put on a dress. I bought a couple of black which can be dressed up or down depending on where I am going.

That's great to know thanks. Some weeks ago he also showed signs of being ready - he would ask for a wee and do one in the potty, but after a few days he lost interest so we did not push it. I will persevere with the pants for a few days and see what happens - how long should I give it? For example, could today have just been a fluke? (last time we thought he was ready but clearly after a few days he lost interest). Are there any bribes I could use to keep his interest?