oimissus

I never bothered, just used 2 sheets.

at a guess he's going to bed too early if it's taking that long. At 4 and a half lights out for Miss Oi are between 8 and 8.30, depending on when she woke up and what kind of day we've had. We do bath, milk, teeth, 2/3 stories, lights out, sit and chat about her day then we lie on the sofa in her room for a wee bit, then out. One thing that we changed recently when she was fussing a lot at bedtime is make her room lighter - before we had the downstairs hall light on and her door ajar; when we changed it to the landing light outside her room on and the door wide open it made a massive difference, she had clearly (in hindsight!) become a bit scared of the dark!

have you had his hearing checked?

Miss Oi (age 4) and her cousin (5) are really into dressing up and 'the olden times' and my sister and I would love to take them to a museum or similar when they can do this to their heart's content. Needs to be in London (not necessarily central but not Kent, for example) as sister and niece will be coming in from out of town. I saw from the V&A website that a number of rooms there have dressing up, so that's a start, but any other recommendations would be very gratefully received! thanks

I have a similar feeling about Lyndhurst - it's the only school we toured where not even a teacher was on hand to speak to, let alone the head (the head was on hand for every other school tour - and we did about 7!). We've been offered it and are pleased, but mainly on reputation rather than any real feeling of how the school is run etc. I hope we'll get to meet some of the staff before our daughter starts!

Ruskin Park is one of our favourites, and they have actual bands playing on the bandstand in summer!

I took mine to the lauderette on Bellenden Road, I think it was ?15 for a king size and they did it same day.

do we yet know which schools will be bulging for Sept 14 intake?

second Bugaboo Bee and my BiL who is 6'3 found it fine to push, the handle can come out pretty far. I also had narrow hallway and tiny car boot and it was very good. I also found the single handle handy for when they want to get out a walk - much easier to push one-handed. I don't have the pram anymore (it went mouldy in the shed!) but if you get one I have a khaki footmuff and the maxi cosi car seat adaptors I need to sell.

heh heh, I deleted my first response too. Suggesting that if you don't buy into dressing up for World Book Day you mustn't care about literacy or instill a love of books in your children is a bit rich. And that's my 'mild' response. Your post would have been fine (in fact your school sounds like they did a great job with WBD) but your last sentence was pretty rude, to say the least.

pyjamas and fave book are the best idea I've heard about - I reckon most kids would think it hilarious to go to nursery/school in their PJs! And at least they all have them.

thanks for the recommendations - yes, some photos would be great, thanks!

too long stripy tights? Kind of pixie-ish pointed hat'n'beard combo? My, that's a tricky one.

not FR but posting here for traffic. we need some work done on our garden - new fence, some big shrubs/small trees taken out, lawn levelled and re-turfed, path laid. We had a couple of quotes a while back but they were really very garden-designy and elaborate. We don't have ?000s to spend so just want something quite basic. Is there anyone out there that anyone could recommend? I know we may have to get the fence done separately which is fine, it's the garden side I'm more interested in. thanks x

Pickle, that's so much more sensible. Because really, the dressing-up thing is basically a demonstration on how good the parents are at making a costume/how much they can afford to spend on one.

Miss Oi happened to find her skeleton suit so she's going as one of the Bumps in the Night skeletons. Which is a relief as I thought I was going to have to make her a Meg witch outfit. I really can't imagine how this exercise is meant to inspire reading, but there you go.

Sainsburys Mothercare M&S H&M John Lewis but I get virtually everything from Sainsbo's. They do some lovely stuff which doesn't cost the earth.

it's worth looking at as there is a black hole for schools in ED, and although you'll get a school, it may be obviously not one you'd choose and could be a pain for going on to work, for instance - a lot of our choice was purely down to logistics - which station works best. And St Francesca de Cabrini is a Catholic school which a lot of people don't want, which is fair enough.

piriton and gel - the gel is better than calamine, though I can't remember why! Also, I can't remember what it's called (sorry, not the most helpful post) but the pharmacist will know. I don't think anything helps heal the spots, they just do that in their own time.

the other thing I would say is don't leave all his toys out - familiarity breeds contempt blah blah. Put some in the cupboard and then get them out again in a few weeks. Or rearrange things - we've just moved the toy kitchen from the kitchen to the living room, which has re-sparked her interest in it.

I think he's got used to you entertaining him 24/7, so easy to fall into it, I'm just as guilty as everyone else! What you need to do is fine something that will keep him occupied when you absolutely need to be doing something. Miss Oi (slightly younger) has suddenly got very into colouring in, so I can generally plonk her down with that while I cook, for example. Yellow Moon do very good peel off foam stickers which they can do by themselves, loads of different themes. We have a house shaped biscuit tin which all her old happyland figures are in - again, she'll sit and witter to them in the kitchen. Otherwise, judicial use of the television. And if I see her settled into something I sneak off to clean the bathroom or whatever - sometimes I get 5 minutes, sometimes half an hour! The weather at the mo is such a drag, I think we've been to the park once in the last fortnight!

might this be because they are keeping the children with their school peer group? I know that our nursery started to do this, as there could be quite a bit of upset when friendship groups were split up higher up, as they got more into the pre-school year.

we went to Becky Byrne's NCT classes in Nunhead which were excellent, she covered everything, natural and assisted. It was very thorough and non-airy fairy. I also went to Lindy Lou's yoga classes above Healthmatters, don't know if they are on any more, but again very good without being overly woo. Helped no end when I got to the pushing stage!

might be worth emailing Sainsbo's - if enough people do they might start restocking them.

we have rubber flooring and you can drop pretty much anything on it and it doesn't break. It's called SaarFloor Noppe tiles and it's the kind of thing you get around swimming pools. http://www.polyflor.com/jh/products.nsf/products!open&family=elem&prodcode=fmist58 we have it in red. It's fantastic. Every admires it (except our ex-neighbour, who after feeding our cats one holiday said 'I have to tell you, I really don't like your new floor.' No, you ^didn't^ have to tell me that, actually!).