The Ultimate Incentive Part 11 (or 10B) It's The Final Countdown

Tete_en_l'Air

:j I've got a job! I've been so so so lucky - my friend spotted the ad a few weeks ago and forwarded it to me before I'd even started job hunting (or even finished school) but it was just perfect for my experience. They interviewed last week and again yesterday and somehow (because I'm sht at interviews) they've chosen me! And I don't start til September so I've now got five weeks of holiday to enjoy (fully paid from school) and no job hunting to do :j It's doing a similar thing as I was doing at the uni before I started teaching but instead of organising CPD courses for school staff, I'll be organising literacy courses for pupils - something I'm really passionate about. It's a pay cut from my last admin job and certainly from teaching but I'll have so much extra free time I don't feel like I'm losing anything at all.

Shrimpy, my Dad is not so good, thanks for asking. He's not been able to eat for the last few weeks and has lost loads of weight. My big strong Dad has shrivelled to a little old man before my eyes. He is restarting chemo on Friday and hopefully, alongside new tablets, that'll shrink the tumour enough to let some food in and he'll start to feel a little better and have some more energy. Fingers crossed.

I've now completed 7 of my half marathons - number 8 is in Dublin on Sunday. When is your 10k? How's the training going?

How is everyone else? x

Birdie85

That's wonderful news about the job Tete! Enjoy your 'summer' (pfft, what summer?!) and use the time to relax and get back into your hobbies!

Not such great news about your Dad though Hopefully the chemo will have a positive affect and he'll perk up.

archersluck

Congratulations Tete! Sounds lovely, and has a teaching link so I'm sure you'll get to use all the skills you gained over the last couple of years. You'll probably find you're super efficient now! Enjoy your break, you have well and truly earned it, and I hope your dads next round of chemo helps him feel better x

shrimpy_80

Congratulations on the job Tete, great news and perfect timing! Sorry to hear about your dad though, really hope the chemo has a positive effect x

My 10k is in September and my training is pretty non existent at the moment! Had an operation last week which has knocked me off my feet so I haven't been able to do anything really, hoping to make it to the gym tomorrow to get back into it - even if slowly!

Good luck for Sunday - how long are you in Dublin for? Have you been before? (I feel like you have?)

Birdie85

Hope you're healing nicely Shrimpy, make sure you don't overdo it or you'll just take even longer to heal!

I realised the other day that my FB page has been going for a year now! :T Crazy how time flies, I thought it would die after a couple of weeks! I've not made much money from it, but it gives me something to do when the little trouble-maker is in bed!

Lara44

Congrats Tete! Big hugs to your Dad x

Shrimpy hope your op went well and you are feeling better x

We move to the US on Saturday so it's very busy with boring old packing here!! Can't wait to leave so we don't have to do any more.

Cinny91

That's such awesome news about the job, Tete Enjoy your weeks off! Like Archers said, you really deserve it! And I'm so sorry to hear about your Dad, can't imagine what it's like to go through that. Keeping everything crossed that his new treatment goes well today xx

I didn't know you'd had an op Shrimpy, hope you're okay!

Excited for you and your move, Lara! Hope you can still keep in touch and keep us up to date while you're out there How long is it you're there for again?

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days, had my house upside down with getting the floor fitted and feel like I've been rushed off my feet. Upside is I haven't had time for napping so my sleep pattern is back to normal Have our scan next Friday morning too, just hoping everything's okay with the little guy. Will make sure to put a scan photo up on here when I can!

Does anyone have any nice weekend plans? We're decorating our porch/stairs/landing. OH is tackling the wallpaper and I get a nice sit down job of painting the skirting board :cool: Chosen this wallpaper, then hoping we can get a nice softish grey carpet put down. Is softish grey even a real term?! I mean like this

Birdie85

Argh how exciting Lara! Are you looking forward to it? If you have any magic tips for keeping Robin happy during the flight please let me know!

Nice paper Cinny! I saw a pic of your floor on FB, looks fab! I think softish grey is a colour?! Maybe it's officially dove grey?! Exciting that the scan is only a week away! Hope all is good in there!

Birdie85

Is this not the greatest backpack ever?! Operation Disneyfy Z-dogg has begun!

Dinah93

Cinny91 wrote: »

As for the wedding, we're unsure! We don't think we can work the holiday days for going in October after all - while we'd be okay with me taking a week of work unpaid we can't do that with OH's work. And I'll be too far gone to fly in December to do it over Christmas. We're thinking we might wait for a few years if we decide a Vegas wedding is really what we want. If not, my parents have lasted 30 years on a quick registry office wedding so I'm sure it'll do us too

This is going to sound a little batty but in many ways I wish we'd now done things 'backwards' and had the baby first - I wish Grace could have been our flower girl and there to enjoy the day with us. That said the relaxation of the honeymoon would have been very different, a whole lot more sober!

Cinny91 wrote: »

Dinah - don't suppose you have any yoga poses you could recommend for bad shoulders/neck? Been so stiff since my accident and the exercises the Doctor gave me don't seem to be fully cutting it!

Sorry love just seen this, yes absolutely. How far along are you? Before 12 weeks you can do any yoga pose basically that doesn't cause you pain, after 12 weeks you have to start being careful with lying on your tummy etc. I can also send you a flash drive with some antenatal yoga classes on if you would like? A lot of friends have used yoga during birth and found it helped, while I got quite a lot of pain in my lower back and hips and I used yoga in pregnancy to try to loosen that off.

Hats off to you Wendz, I felt like I was losing my mind with two of them in the early weeks and I had help most of the time. How is the separation working out?

Have you worked out the boy name as well as the girl name Cinny? Can't wait to find them out. Are you planning to find out at 20 weeks what you're having?

Nice to hear things are looking up ROTE x

No point worrying about the sleep Cinny, you can't change it and you might get a great sleeper. Ben was sleeping 10 hours by 8 weeks home and has slept 11 hours+ every night since except two nights with a cough, Grace still wakes 3-5 times a night on a good night and never lies in past 6 and she's 3!

You gotta pick whichever feeding is right for you. I have friends who can't believe I find bottle easier, as obviously you'll be getting out of bed, going downstairs, boiling the kettle, sterilising the bottles etc etc up to 6 times a night, whereas with boob feeding you just roll over and pop them on. Technically. It isn't that easy for everyone of course, Ben was an insanely slow feeder so where he could wolf down a bottle in 5 minutes he'd take 40 minutes at the breast. By the time he was done he'd sleep 40 minutes then it was another 40 minutes of feeding again! Breastfeeding is hard work, it can make you feel crazy until your milk properly comes in on day 5, and you get into a proper rhythm which can take up to 6 weeks. Bottle feeding it's the same from day one, except maybe needing to try a few different brands of bottle. Actually if you are thinking of bottle feeding I have loads of never used bottles I'd be happy to send you (and quite a few used once ones, Grace tried about 20 brands trying to find one she liked!).

I'd not be happy with BIL either Birdie, but I would at least remember while he's proud of his iwatch thing, in 5 years that will be completely obsolete and in the bin, in 5 and in 50 years you'll still have brilliant memories of being with your friends and family on your wedding day, I've never felt as happy as I did on our wedding day, just because everyone I loved was in one place.

Sign up to the mothercare club Cinny, they send freebies but also invite you to parents to be events with lots of freebies too - we won their on the night raffle twice, getting about £30 of baby stuff each time, plus gift bags full of vouchers for free nappies, wipes, discounts off clothes etc. Also if you request a mamas and papas catalogue online there is a £5 voucher in it/they email you one, and they send nice vouchers every few months too. If you order something in the sale to pick up in store for free delivery you can get £30 bits of clothing for £2 or £3 or useful bits you may need like blankets, sheets, sunshades, toys etc. Probably don't buy clothes basics just a few key bits you really like, you'll be given an avalanche of vests, babygrows etc in under 1 sizes, after 1 it all vanishes and you get to start shopping.

Had to spend £290 on tyres for my car this week :eek: It's been surging a bit on and off too but seems to have settled a bit now. Road tax was on the 1st too so it's been an expensive car month.

It is hard with 2 little ones Birdie, but I wouldn't change it. I love how they play together, for the first time today Grace told Ben they were going to play chase - and he did! He's just learnt to properly crawl this week, it was army crawling until now. The first couple of months I felt like I was cracking up until I put Grace in childcare part time, suddenly I could think straight because I didn't have two children all the time, I got breaks when Ben napped and I could shower alone, catch up on housework and in theory, nap.

Yep car seat cupholders are actually handy Cinny. Not on the newborn seats, those just need to be as light as possible as you'll carry it about a LOT because the baby is sleeping in it (I got a travel system buggy, used the adaptors all of once, I either carried the seat or did a transfer to sling or li flat carrycot bit, expensive decision!) but when they're 9 months plus, some kids like a drink near them all the time. Grace can go 4-5 hours without drinking, Ben likes a cup of water in arms reach pretty much all the time, and you don't want to have to stop the car every 5 minutes when they drop the daft thing and are screaming for it!

Wow number 3 Flower, when are you thinking? I'm still very on the fence about if we want to go for a 3rd or not. In some ways I look at our family right now and think there is an extra piece to the picture just waiting to be filled in, in other ways I'm perfectly content with my two and I worry I wouldn't have enough time for each of them if I have another. A few years to decide though, another one right now is nowhere near on the cards!

Wipe clean flooring is a Godsend with a newborn Cinny, actually with any age child, I have the hoover out 3-5 times a day and antibac the floor every night as they play on it, eat off it, roll on it, crawl on it, spill on it, and when they're tiny they spit up on it too!

Just as an aside on the hire car front, if anyone is hiring a car soon don't take out their extra insurance, get it from a seperate company, Martin has a guide. It's usually about £10 a day from the hire company but we got ours for a full year for £32.

Lovely to hear from you Tete, so glad you've escaped and you're in a new job. Re the yoga, it just sounds like you've got the wrong teacher. Some have a heavy focus on breathing but other teachers don't do anywhere near as much work with it, it's more about breath control (ie always breathing in when you 'open' a movement and out when you bring it back in). I'd recommend a friend who teaches in Billingham, Intuition Yoga, she's lovely, she's also a runner, I did pregnancy yoga with her but she's just restarting adult classes but unfortunately they clash with my running club. I also very highly recommend Jean who I practice with on a Wednesday, I've been with her for 3 years and I love her classes. I've practiced with another lady too but that's in Marton so possibly a bit far, and it can have 20-30 people so it's quite a large class, most only have 8-10 people. I'm starting my adult teacher training in September, and I'm training to teach 8-12 year olds as soon as Yogabugs give me a date. Still really enjoying it. I'm getting quite into my running, it's just hard to get out when NIM can't cope easily with both kids some days. I also am having some issues with my knee and then the knee causes issues in my lower back, been in pain the last few days so been at the sports injury centre at the uni which helped, gait analysis next week, saw someone to teach me taping yesterday to see if that helps hold me together. Doing my first 10k this weekend though!

NIM has finally been paid, not as much as we expected but paid at least.

Really sorry to hear about your dad Tete, hope the chemo does its job x

Hope the move goes well Lara, so exciting!

The decorating will look lovely Cinny, I love grey.

Weekend plans, superhero day at Stockeld Park tomorrow, then the 10k on Sunday for me, 1.5k for Grace, and the afternoon just pottering in York. Grace was at Forest School yesterday, and I'm trying to start packing for Italy today - 8 days to go

So, I went back to the first page, our debt is quite a lot higher than the start of the year. That's not the way it's meant to go! NIM is still signed off, trying to find something else, but it's slow going it seems. Need to work out how much we actually owe, NIM has the figures. I'm booked to teach 2.5 days in September, which is fine if NIM isn't working the same hours, but if he is I'll be working for nothing due to the cost of childcare. I'm also down to the final stage of a job application I've done with Quidco, I don't know if anyone saw the deal analyst position they had advertised a couple of months back? Work from home, up to 10 hours a week finding the best deal on shopping, I've just done my final stage submission so fingers crossed. I've also been awol as I've been working to finish off an ebook I've been writing, I'm so, so close to finished, so hoping to get it published in the next few weeks. It's the pregnancy journey I went through with Grace, if anyone has a some free time and would care to help proofread I'd be incredibly grateful before I put it out into the world.