The new rolling ILX parenting thread, since the other one was getting unwieldy

Nath, you are absolutely right, no mum should ever be made to feel guilty for her feeding choices and I hate the holier-than-thou breastfeeding brigade too :)

Having said that... in my experience, for every woman who doesn't want to breastfeed (for whatever reason), there are more who would *love* to breastfeed but never do, or give up after a short time, mainly because of inadequate support in the crucial early hours and days -- an even bigger issue here than a woman's right to feed wherever she needs to.

X-posted Sara, although my mum was very pro-breastfeeding, she still raised an eyebrow when I told her he wasn't going onto a bottle at 6 months...

Oh well, Meg, MOMS. ;) That is kind of funny though. Especially because it seems like you'd have to go through weaning TWICE!

(Someday our kids will be talking about us... this is a frightening thing to imagine.)

Ah, to be fair to her, she hasn't criticised me about it, I just think it was an assumption that you just don't feed past 6 months. But yes, having got this far I am way too lazy to bother with bottles...

Someday our kids will Google this thread and read what we've been saying about them -- even scarier!

Okay THAT is a scary thought!!!

hey everyone
dont come around much these days
your kids are all ace

My wife and mother-in-law took the boys to the pumpkin patch today:

Ben:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2093/1626613864_f732026ad4.jpg

Owen:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2051/1626607022_fc4c3bac00.jpg

Ben's gonna get you!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2195/1625699213_76f2432271.jpg

those are great shots!! esp. the one of owen. i like how theyre color coordinated with the pumpkins too! when did those kidlets start walking?

They're not quite walking yet - just lots of pulling up and "cruising."

Wow, mini people are so weird and amazing. Congrats to all!

I remember saying to my mother when I was, like, 14, "it must be so hard to STOP having babies when you know that each one will be a whole new person!" I think I was onto something....

wow. you really were.

Sometimes I think about the people I'm missing by not having any more kids and I'm kind of sad about it - but realistically, I know I have all that I can handle.

It's time for Ben to feed himself:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2070/1718884559_715d686159.jpg

Hanging out with Shakey Mo at the park:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2350/1719741082_261228b06e.jpg

That picture of Ben through the haystacks is great. Also, lucky Shakey Mo gettin' to hang out those cuties!

http://www.appelstein.com/edad.jpg

E. and I on a spectacular autumn afternoon.

(i'd just gotten home from work)

Gorgeous. An advert for parenthood if ever there was one!

Alice gives the thumbs up to having a cold:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2157/1725632957_14e749efa8.jpg?v=0

Even snot can be cute!

Poor thing, my lot are all full of colds at the moment too. Something satisfying about doing a good job of picking out their crusties, isn't there?

Lulu is a mucus machine right now; Ava seems to be on the mend. I'd be home with them but for the fact that the rest of my department is ill too...

Here's a little series entitled Autumn With Ava...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2337/1707232755_c89eeab796.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2074/1623396866_8422d1dc58.jpg

Awww, poor Alice! Aidan has a cold too, but fingers crossed isn't as snotty as that.

Lovely fall/autumn photos! There's something very pleasing about bundling Aidan up to go outside, in cute coats and hats.

Ophelia still has a runny nose, but at least no more ear and throat infection. YAY.

She's been expanding her vocabulary and grammar skillzzzz at rapid speed (mostly thanks to my mother who's keen to teach her new things). First sentence she used: "You 're not allowed!" (to Lucy, our dog, because she likes to steal O's cookies).

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2053/1727290497_d65a312bc3.jpg

She went to the beach yesterday, with my parents. :-)

it's been too long since I've visited here, all these beautiful babes cheer the soul, don't they? poor alice's nose! lulu's got a snot fountain going on 24-7 too, she's finding eating and drinking a challenge since she can't breathe well with anything in her mouth. it's good to see folks getting autumnal! there's nothing better than kids in a pumpkin patch. we're getting in the halloween mood ourselves and made scarecrows this morning:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2292/1730140599_749f4784cf.jpg

I was trying to make our scarecrows friendly instead of scary (friendcrows? maybe not) so they wouldn't freak out the younguns coming to lulu's halloween birthday bash on saturday, but in retrospect faceless = scary. adjustments will have to be made.

we do have another daughter besides ava, she's just too fast to get snapped lately. I put lulu down next to ava and our faceless galpals about 10 times today but by the time I'd backed up again to take the photo she had already powercrawled over to my feet. but she digs autumn too, I can tell by the way she was eyeing my candy corn breakfast of champions this morning.

about the teeth, I happen to be fond of the gap! I won't be all that sad if ava keeps it for a while. who didn't envy the pool kids who could shoot a perfect arc of water through the gap in their teeth?

lulu is about to turn 1?? that went by quick!

too quick! the year has been one big blur. and I'm so conscious of the fact that with the eldest tasmanian devil to look after who doesn't take afternoon naps any more, I don't get much one-on-one time with lulu at all. I'm really looking forward to january when I'm doing mum-n-tot swimming classes with them both - the leisure centre I just joined has a creche, so you can drop one off at the creche for an hour while you do a swimming lesson with the other one. can't wait!

when we were at the leisure centre joining up, we went to the cafe which has big glass floor-to-ceiling windows that look onto the pools and ava said she needed a wee. I had no idea where the loos were but I had the porta-potty with me so she dropped trou and sat down right there to do a wee in front of an entire swimming class of kids who looked about 7-8. they all literally fell over laughing and pointing at ava. not that she minded, thankfully. when do they start to get embarrassed about things, I wonder?

I haven't been on this thread for ages! How do you all find the time to post so much with young children??

Madeleine Alice was born on 1 July so she is already more than three months old; I can't believe it!

Here she is at a few days old:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1028/714691342_7bb8213ff8.jpg?v=1183551651

and here's one of her showing off her red hair with dad:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1366/1462322422_46204faf99.jpg?v=0

Congratulations to Vicky and all those others who've had babies recently - I guess Nath must be due any minute so good luck with that.

I'm going to make sure I check this thread more regularly, so many great photos.

Any minute? Yep. Tomorrow is my due date. *sigh*

Also, be warned: Miffy will TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE if you don't watch it. O is obsessed with Miffy and Hello Kitty. :-)

Hi Nath! Good luck with that...

We went to Amsterdam just before M was born so we already have many Miffy things and we are going to Japan in a couple of weeks so I guess the Hello Kitty avalanche is on its way!

You went to Japan when O was quite small didn't you? How was that? How are things like breastfeeding in public looked on there? I am going without her dad as he'll already be there so any tips on surviving an 11-hour plane trip with a four-month old will be welcome (not sure whether I am mad to even contemplate it but...).

I haven't done this thread for too long either. Anyway:

Hannah is Sharpay.

Oh my god. That viseo is amazing. SO CUTE!

Thanx. She is in serious High School Musical mode at the moment.

You went to Japan when O was quite small didn't you? How was that? How are things like breastfeeding in public looked on there? I am going without her dad as he'll already be there so any tips on surviving an 11-hour plane trip with a four-month old will be welcome (not sure whether I am mad to even contemplate it but...).

Trust me you'll do fine. She was already about a year old and by that time I wasn't breastfeeding anymore. (I stopped around ten months.) But our employee went when her baby was just a few months old and now again with her second baby being a month old. Y'know, I think it is actually easier when the child is a baby, it's not as if s/he will know s/he's on a plane. That said, of course take-off and landing might create some problems due to changing of altitude. I did the horrible mistake of loading Ophelia up with food PRIOR to landing which caused her to do some multiple projectile vomiting. ROFFLE. Otehr than that it wasn't a problem at all. She wanted to crawl, so I let her. She didn't want to sleep in the crib, so I took her and let her sleep on my shoulder. I didn't get much sleep, but I didn't care.

In Japan they don't really breastfeed in public, but according to my mum they have a lot of rooms where you can breastfeed. (I didn't notice this, but I'm sure she's right.) Japan is very much pro-breastfeeding so don't worry if you don't find a place: it won't be frowned upon if you do it in public. Even if they would mind, they won't gawk are you, that's just not in them to do such a thing. :-) (Funny story, my mum once saw a six year old lift his mum's top to suck on her nipple!!!! On the metro!!! WTF!!!!!)

Don't fret, just go to Japan!!!! Be assured, you'll have a lot of people going:"OH KAWAI AKACHAN!" (Cute baby.) :-)

Oh, ask for a crib before you go on the plane. Another tip: maybe breastfeed while taking off and landing, it makes the change of altitude much easier on the baby. It's like chewing gum and swalling for us: it makes our ears pop (or however you say it). :-)

True about babies being easier when traveling than toddlers. E. went to Florida when she was 5 months old and had absolutely no problem. Then she went to Seattle just before she turned 1, and that was a miserable experience. There's no way I'd take her 3-year-old self on a plane now (or her sister, who's going to be 2 in December).

I'm still dithering over whether to take (2.5-y-o) Ava on a long train journey to see her grandma in a couple of weeks. It happens to be a day when the West Coast mainline is riven with engineering works so I've actually booked to Birkenhead North (walking distance from the homestead) with three changes of trains cos it's quicker than going to Liverpool. Aside from the backpack of supplies/porta-potty/her clothes and the lack of any time to myself, I just wonder about keeping her occupied (and not chasing up and down the aisles) in that environment for so long (the longest leg going up = 2 hours, but coming back = 3.5 hours). I may need another backpack for the books...

take the kid on the train, michael jones! your wife might like a break from 2-tot-wrangling and trust me, your daughter will love the train trip. she's better behaved these days than you think. but as a biased party needing a break from 2-tot-wrangling I would say that.

today I just needed a quick dart into the post office from a parking space nearby so I didn't bother putting the buggy together, I just carried lulu and let ava walk. and she didn't run away from me once and she put all the candy back when I asked her to when it was time to go. (mark steel from telly was behind us in the queue, perhaps she was starstruck?). the train seems easy to me compared to a plane, I salute all you jetsetting parents.

you tube isn't cooperating and I can't see the hannah video, boo hiss!

also, congrats on the arrival of madeleine alice, she's a beauty!

yay! maddy a. so beautiful. All these babies are beautiful!

here's a vid of beeps looking not so beautiful as she suffers through a dinner of green beans. added bonus: me making the stupid noises i have to sometimes make to get her to open her mouth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-RHtyQPxgE

and some pics

beeps and her friend the horse dog:

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/5100/beepsandverucalb1.jpg

just beeps:

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/4914/beepsinthesunuz7.jpg

once again beeps does not disappoint in the cuteness stakes. did you try to get a picture of her riding that fab unnaturally ginormous dog?

we went to a friend's house today where about six crazed 2.5-year-olds and their baby siblings all regularly meet for lunch and fighting over toys, and her jack russell was all over lulu like she had baby food smeared on her face or something. lulu was in dog heaven.

OMG Beeps is soooo cute. <3

<3 <3 <3

How much does she look like PP?? Holy moly.

Thanks for the Japan tips. I'm sure it will be fine & I'm looking forward to it actually.

Cute picture with the dog!

We went to the SF POM (parents of multiples) Halloween party in a park today. Here are a couple of snaps:

Ben as a chicken:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2045/1780859694_efe4d44ed5.jpg

Owen as a swinging turtle:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2019/1780014721_2df2643615.jpg

Much cuteness all round! And congrats on Madeleine liz!

Alice eyes up an unsuspecting friend's drink:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2185/1799058910_896b40dc45.jpg?v=0

A cunning plan is hatched:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2219/1798193457_6526f472f3.jpg?v=0

Success!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2068/1798193461_4818521f13.jpg?v=0

All Alice needs now is a white persian cat to pet while she hatches her schemes.

chicken and turtle twins look cute! do they eat candy yet?

Oh look at Alice! She's also dressed so adorable. Those tights! That skirt!

Ophelia is sick again! She's been good for a week or two but has a cold again. :-( Poor thing. I guess it's normal, but damn building up that immune system is really not that much fun for her. Apparently I was rarely if ever sick as a kid which frightened my mum. hah! Then when I was about 15 I was sick all the time (chickenpox! ear infections! lots of other things!)

I went on the monitor for the second time. On wednesday they'll be inducing the delivery. Hurrah? Yeah, but also frightening prospect. :-)

I'm willing to bet that from the time your contractions start to when the baby is born will be under 4 hours.