veryseriousgirl

I repeat the recommendation for the MIU at Thomas'. I have been there with both a broken elbow and a sprained ankle and they have been brilliant both times.

My sympathies! Sounds like your hubby has stepped in, but generally a firm word should stop talk you are not comfortable with around your kids. I, for example, had no idea that my grandmother was deeply racist until after her death. My mother (her DIL) threatened not to let us spend time with her if she "shared" her views on race so she never ever did.

We normally go with PJs for all the cousins - it's one of those things that seem rather like a luxury item (to me at least) and you can usually get a pretty good deal on characters / patterns that the kids think are cool. I had an aunt who always got us pyjamas and we loved it (especially having early pyjama night on Christmas eve - we always opened presents at her house on Christmas eve afternoon and got into pjs the minute we got home).

Hi K, It's been a while, but I think they just asked me to confirm what bills were in my name, what credit cards I had and what bank I used. It was really low key. Hope that helps! V

Our childminder got a kitten recently and kept the kitten in its carrier when it needed rest / a break from the children. This seems to work really well, along with close supervision when kids play with the cat. We have one cat at home (though she pre-dates the children by several years). In terms of homing two cats together, we found that our cats loved being together as kittens, but were quite unhappy once they reached maturity, although they were brother and sister. We ended up rehoming one of the cats as he developed behavioural problems and although we tried for months to resolved them with the help of the vet and (don't laugh!) a cat psychologist, it was clear that he really needed to be the only cat and that the best way to get him to quit spraying was to move home (!).

Thinking of you. Hope all is ok.

We also switched to KFH after sacking our first agent - found them to be professional, helpful, and most importantly, showing the right people around our house to get it sold.

Our experiences as a family that hosted a nanny share were: the "visiting" family (eg, not hosting) paid ?1 per meal to the hosting family. We initially tried to do 50/50 on food, but it got very complicated with some things being eaten by both kids and grownups, etc. We also did a pound per day per child for nappies, which worked out roughly fair as well. It was less stressful for the nanny as she didn't always have to remember whose nappies were whose etc. We didn't address heating bills as we thought that the convenience of not having to drop kids off anywhere and having the nanny do all of the host family's children's washing compensated. We had a chat with nanny about not turning thermostat up really high and layering when it got really cold as I once came home to heating on 25, though. The other key is just to communicate, communicate, communicate and to put EVERYTHING in writing. Our first nanny share eventually fell apart due to a misunderstanding of an informal arrangement after several months. If we had put it in writing, in the contract, I think it would have ensured that everyone understood the same thing and that nobody got any surprises (or if they did, they could just look back at the contract to remind themselves).

We booked Tea Dance for Little People for my daughter's 3rd after seeing them in action at the Dish and Spoon in Nunhead. The party isn't for a few weeks, but they plan to have a storytelling and craft activity for the older children and are setting up a baby sensory area for younger siblings. We are really excited about the party!

I have a rose and rebellion carrier and it is AWESOME. ?46 is a great price.

We have one for our daughter's room which gets really cold compared to the rest of the house - we find it's really efficient (if I set the thermostat to 14, it heats her room to about 18). Also on a timer (one of those that you plug into the socket, then plug the radiator in). We haven't noticed any huge increase in energy bills ourselves...

Is anyone around this week to catch up? We're currently free Wed pm or Thu am if anyone would like to meet up. Vx

Monkey, you definitely haven't left it too late. Biologically, our brains can learn a language as a native speaker until around the time we hit puberty (when the brain assumes we've learned any languages we need to know and then prunes out the native language learning facilities - you can still learn a language later, you will just never "get" it like a native). I also used to teach French at an immersion school in the US - our key was just to keep speaking French ourselves, try to get the kids to respond in French, but just know that they were absorbing the language little by little as we kept speaking at them over and over and over again! :) I'm sure that you will do a great job getting your little one to speak French!

Oh no - I have managed to double book Aisling and her "best friend" is coming over for a playdate. Will be more organised next time!

I have a nearly 3 year old and a 7 month old - my key to sanity is "calm, quiet time". When the baby naps after lunch, my daughter plays quietly in her room with the door closed for an hour so I can clean up lunch mess, set up afternoon activities (I tend to get her to do something sensory / arty while I feed the baby) and hopefully get a power nap in myself.