Sanne Panne

Leo? Nico?

At that age it may be hard for them to just wait for you to come get them but if you use e.g. the Groclock they will know that when the clock is blue they need to be quiet and when it turns yellow they can come get you. We used it from age 2.5 mostly without problems, you may feel you're being tough while trying to enforce it the first few days but they get used to it so easily - in fact now if I come to my daughter's room when the clock is still blue she sends me away.

We had ours done by Camilla Judge who is local to the area and does have legal qualifications. I think the fee was around ?200 for a joint will (with separate clauses). If you search for her I'm sure she'll come up, her user name has something with "will" in it :)

We will definitely finish the course, my daughter deeply hates the antibiotic too in spite of it being pink but she understands she needs to take it so it's not too much of a struggle. We need dressings as it's on the hip and lower waist (i.e. high friction) area and even the softest/loosest leggings would stick to the wound and it's not "long dress with nothing under it" weather anymore.. we now let her soak the dressings off in the bath, jump on our bed to let them dry and reapply dressing. I know it would dry out more quickly without anything on it but it doesn't seem practical. Open to any tips! I may actually let her wear a dress only in the house once she's not contagious anymore which is 48 hours after starting antibiotics.

.

I don't want to care but I still want my kid in a school that I like AND that is rated 1 or 2. Call it superficial but I don't want to go by my own impression and a bunch of recommendations alone. I would like both to be positive because Ofsted looks at different things than parents do.

Thanks so much for the input Otto

Thanks uptime and good luck at the GP. It sounds different what our kids have so I wouldn't read too much into my story but I'm obviously not an expert :)

GP said the area didn't seem infected and the wounds are clean and pink looking. Guess I'll have to wait...

.

More praise for Oakwood. Had both kids with them.

.

She'll be fine, the maxi is just a bit heavier. If L is the type that will be WAY too fast on the Micro you could even have him start on the maxi. Wider foot area too. The lowest handlebar height on the maxi is the same as the micro. btw... I owe you a text but phone ended up in water so please pm me your number :(

Esprit is pretty good for what you describe. They have a nice online collection with free returns, it does take a good week to be delivered though. They have a shop on Oxford Street and one on Long Acre (latter very easy to reach by train: you can transfer to Charing Cross from London Bridge every 5 minutes). I can't stand White Stuff - the colours are so pale and everything is so shapeless after washing it once. Is it me or does everything either pile (anything "wool" like) or turn into a depressing fluffy uniform sheet in the laundry?

Avoid the stretch coming out of central station called Damrak. Lots of hotels there but just a somewhat noisy and unattractive part of town, not a "home" kind of place at all. Anything at/near a canal or river Amstel is generally nice. Zeedijk (Nieuwmarkt-side) is ok too as el Pibe mentioned. As it's a small city you never need to travel too far to get to your hotel so don't worry too much about distance. The "concertgebouw" and "rijksmuseum" area is very nice too, central yet quiet and charming and has plenty of hotels. An apartment can be nice if you like to rest "at home" in the middle of the day (as hotels obviously do room cleaning and the rooms are generally not very big). Maybe less worth the research for just 2 nights but you can consider it. Pm me if you have specific questions about the city as I'm from there.

Battery operated noisy toys drive us totally nuts so we don't have any of those (and when our kids get their hands on one elsewhere they are in heaven). We do have playmobil and duplo and a few more basic plastics like a bus and and oven. Our kids (2 and 4) never spend a long time playing with any toy except sometimes duplo. They end up spending half an hour turning chairs into slides and suffocating dolls with plasters, ignoring the good as well as the crap toys completely. We've pretty much stopped buying toys as they don't seem to provide lasting entertainment. Maybe we just have the wrong toys....

That certainly helps laurac, thanks so much!

That sounds ok to me KatDew, I'm just wondering whether to buy 1 or 2 items of each (jumper, polo) with logo and get the rest/spares plain to save some money or if all kids have logos on their tops. Just thinking the dresses and skirts may have to be grey. If you click through to the "plain" range on the uniform website it shows grey.

Sorry, another uniform thread... I just looked at the uniform website which sells all kinds of things with logo but I'm not sure where to stop. Which items of the DVIS uniform MUST have the logo on them? Jumper, polo? There's not a word about socks/tights so I assume white or grey socks and grey tights/leggings are ok under skirts/dresses. Do trousers have to be real trousers or are decent looking leggings also ok for girls in reception? They don't mention dresses, can I just get red or chequered red/white uniform dresses at M&S? Can they wear any colour coat and raincoat? And wellies? (shoes must be red/navy/brown but can they wear their regular yellow wellies with terrible girly print on them?) Thanks for helping...

My eldest just finished blue class and is going to reception and my youngest will start red class in September, just two half-days to start with but not coinciding with yours. Half Moon is a very loving environment. And as for stability, there's been pretty much zero staff turnover in the 2 years my daughter went there - other parents can probably confirm it's longer than that.

Agree, you don't need to go all or nothing, nothing wrong with extended ramp up time. But give yourself a break with 6 weeks to your due date! Maybe let her wear pull-ups and put a potty in the room so she can use it if she wants it but you don't need to clean after her. Good luck!

The difference in distance between first round of offerings in April and furthest distance a place was offered and accepted by the actual start of the school year can be quite impressive too and certainly worth asking the school, local authority and/or forum.

The way they stated it in the letter is insulting and it also communicates low standards - they are saying they expect people to lie. Not a very clever strategy. They should just make a generic comment in a newsletter or even send a separate message out about it, but not aim it at individuals who are in the process of requesting absence... it would upset me too even though I would know where they're "coming from".

Many Spanish, Basque or Portuguese recipes for bacalao/bacalhau can be cooked with mackerel. One of my favourite non-standard fish dishes is an Arab-Andalusian recipe for monkfish (or another fleshy white fish such as mackerel) with a honey - saffron - pine nut - raisin sauce called "Rape al azafran". Sweet healthy comfort food that's great for kids and adults. Monkfish itself not great in the mercury ratings so find a succulent strong fleshed alternative.

My nearly 4 year old has been asking me how babies come out of the tummy too (and not accepting evasive answers anymore at some point) so I just told her that in your bottom there are 3 holes, one at the front for pee and one at the back for poo and one in the middle for babies. And that when at the end of someone's pregancy the time comes that her tummy is incredibly big and the baby is ready to come out, that hole can get bigger too just for the birth. It matches the way we talk about things, we don't try to take the magic of childhood away at all but I'm not going to pretend that the fish in the sea and the fish on your plate are different kinds of fish ;)