Have been well and truly tagged, so here goes (finally) with my answers:

1. What's your child's favourite book? "Jump In!" by Ian Whybrow. It is a brilliant rhyming story about Miss Lollipop and here truck. She is lonely one day and goes for a drive, and all sorts of animals jump in for the ride. Fantastic. 2. What's your favourite children's book? I fondly remember "The Faraway Tree" and "The Wishing Chair" series by End Blyton. Can't remember much more than the idea of the stories, but I must have read them at a time when they really slotted in with my imagination.  

3. What's your child's favourite thing to eat? For Leala, I think sausages are high up on the list, along with ice cream. Just last weekend she tried to drag me off in the other direction because she noticed that this was where people carrying ice cream were coming from! Nyle, well, food basically. Preferably someone else's and ideally Leala's. Having said that, it doesn't really need to be food to be eaten. A nice handful of sand went down a treat yesterday.

4. What's your favourite thing to eat? Oooh, tough. After a month of travelling once and dining on mostly rice with fried eggs and fruit (and more eggs) I dreamed of roast chicken with all the works. On a more normal day, I would love someone to turn up at my door with a really chewy meringue, thick cream and strawberries.

5. What's your child's favourite game? Leala loves to play in her house and bring us plastic plates with pieces of play food on. She can do that for a fair length of time. Games? Hiding somewhere and having Mum and Dad pretend very loudly that they can't find her... Nyle will have his day made by anyone who will tickle him, blow raspberries on his stomach and tip him upside down (if possible all at the same time). His second favourite game is to throw up over any adult who stupidly endeavours favourite game #1 straight after dinner. 

6. What's your favourite game? Spending time on the computer whilst pretending not to...

So, now I will tag... KatiePiatt, TheMentorMum, Lindterbean, Nomes and Elizabeth

Well, yesterday was horrible. I felt a bit down in the morning, then as the day wore on realised one boob was painful. By late afternoon, I felt freezing cold, shivery, headachey and needed a bath to warm up. No hot water... yes, another bout of mastitis settled in for the evening. Felt terrible all evening, and despite a short sleep, felt even worse. Leala refused to sleep in her "big girl's bed" and after about an hour of trying to settle her, we gave up and went to shift her cot from her old room (no curtains at the moment, waiting for the builders to move in) to her brother's room. More moaning and tears, so back to her big girl's bed and eventually, at 21.30 - 2 hours after we started - Leala went to sleep.

I foolishly said to Nick "Well, at least she'll sleep in tomorrow." Nope. 0600. And despite having only had 8 1/2 hours sleep, she only napped for 10 minutes today... So, a grumpy Leala, me still feeling a bit woozy, and Nyle dealing with the fall out, we went to a farm this afternoon. Went well and then we came home for tea. Logged on to check my emails and see one from TheMentorMum congratulating me on winning a ROOMBA!! Yeeeeee haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

So, Minti, thank you for improving my rubbish two days no end! My floors are in such poor order that they will not know what has happened to them! Luckily, we are going to get a new floor after our building work is finished, so that won't be too shocked by the idea of constant (let's face it, I'm going to be vacuuming ALL THE TIME) cleaning.

I am now going to help Nick feed the children and ring all my friends... My Dad has already asked for a personal demo of the Roomba when it arrives. So happy...

I am pleased to be the second featured member here on Minti. I have just one great person to try and follow on from, fortunately not stacks! I am looking forward to reading more about all of you others to come along...

Starting with name, location, how many children.

My name is Helen (other initials are R S, and I picked this as a username in 2004…who said imagination is dead?) and I live in a medium-sized coastal town in Sussex, England (bottom of the map, just right of middle). I haven’t *quite* got around to getting married yet, but will have been with my boyfriend, Nick, for 14 years next month. We have two children, Leala, who is 28 months and Nyle, 8 months.

How did you find Minti?

I was assisted in this one – a techie friend (KatiePiatt on here) spotted the launch of the site on some techie site and put me on to it. We had been discussing getting together a list of websites and good information for pregnant friends, and then maybe taking it further, and she thought this would be a good site to look in to. I must confess that the compilation of our helpful list has fallen down in priority as I spend the time I had planned for that on here!

What's your favourite thing or feature at Minti?

I love all the varied articles. I have learnt so many things that I didn’t realise I needed to know through browsing the articles and comments. I would like to thank so many people for making my life easier and more interesting already, but it would take so long, so just thanks to all of you for sharing your experiences. I find Minti as a whole a great place to pick up hints and tips, and to provoke thought.

What's your favourite thing about being a parent?

I just love seeing my little ones grow and mature, and learn to get along with each other and the world. Just this evening I was watching them both standing kissing their reflections in the mirror – Nyle because he saw another little boy, Leala because she was aware it was getting a good reaction from me, and because Nyle was doing it. It’s just great to see how they view the world and being almost able to watch their brains tick – something lost as we learn to hide our emotions.

What has been your biggest parenting challenge?

I think that the first thing that comes to mind is trying to do my best in bringing them both up to be decent, pleasant people to be around. I know this might sound a bit heavy at such a young age, but I want to give them good examples and react the right way to make sure they learn good lessons. I am forever reassessing why I am doing one thing rather than another, e.g. when Leala misbehaves or when Nyle won’t eat his dinner. I also try to find ways to develop them in a positive fashion.

What's the best parenting advice you've ever gotten from someone?

I think that it is probably to always put your baby down to bed whilst they are still awake. I believe that good sleep patterns are crucial to a fully functioning family and I have used various strategies to build on this basic advice in order to try and teach my children to self-soothe and so get decent sleep. Touch wood, they are both doing pretty well right now!

I am so pleased that Leala seems to have taken to her big bed so well - hope I am not speaking too soon. This evening she settled down after her story, having climbed under the covers, and was asleep within 15 minutes without climbing out once! Result! I only needed to go back in to see her once, to turn her nighlight back on. We have one of these

and not only is it cool and funky (we have the one on the left) but it changes colour so we can teach her the names of those, too!

I am now off to take my cup of tea and mint ice cream (I know, so decadent) to bed as it is gone 11pm and I really should. Will try not to wake up my sleeping beauty!

Well, Leala has been at nursery all day (showing off her "bruise, elbow") and was even talking about her "bruise" this evening. She is fond of the word and gets to use it often as she is always falling over as her joints surprise her and go off in the wrong direction when least expected. Builder boss man came round this morning (man responsible for her falling in to a drain) and offered a fairly feeble apology. Don't think he enjoyed apologising in front of his 18 year old labourer (I have a boy half my age building my extension - aaah!) and I had to push the point, as he said "oh, they all bounce at that age" and tell him he was lucky and had it been worse I would have gone round to his place to sort him out. Thanks to those who expressed their outrage - I must confess that I did cry yesterday afternoon because I felt so sick at what might have happened.

Well, anyway, Leala is now asleep and in a BED! Big girls bed in Mummy and Daddy's room. We have decided to get her used to a bed whilst her room is being sorted so that when she moves back in to her room, the cot will be long gone. And this way we can pick her up when she falls out! She is on a really low bed ( barely higher than a mattress on the floor) and surrounded by pillows. It took her an hour longer to settle than usual, with a few cries of "No sleep Leala!!) before she finally went off. I think the next few days will be interesting

 

The builders turned up fairly promptly this morning and have been polite and respectful during the time they have been here so far. Before they even started the job, we got them to build a fence in the garden to separate them from the children so that we knew the children could still play in the garden without worry.

We, the boss showed up mid-morning to check on things and talk turned to the drains and what pipe fed what drain. Well, there were much discussion and checking of things and as we were off to a park today, I was making lunch for us. The boss man left and I sat down to have breakfast. Well, a few moments later, Leala started screaming. It wasn't her full scale "I'm really hurt" scream, but then built in intensity as I rushed out to go and get her - only to find her standing chest-deep in the sewer. The builder had lifted the manhole cover to check, apparently, and not put it back. Leala had either fallen in or climbed down, but I suspect she fell as she was walking to the back door with a plastic plate and plastic food to give me (as she does). I felt sick, angry (no, make that livid) and close to tears as I held her still screaming. I shouted at one of the builders to come and put the cover back NOW! (I can be scary) and took her inside. After a dusting down and a calming down, she was lucky to only have some scratches to the inside of one elbow. The amount of luck involved is huge - I can't imagine falling down such a relatively deep hole and coming out so relatively unharmed. It may be that her low muscle tone made her floppy and so she didn't break anything, but I don't want to think any more about what could have been.

We haven't yet spoken to boss man (we haven't been home long and he has tried to call) but I am looking forward to some major apologising. I won't shout - he has a young daughter so I think the experience will teach him to not rush about so much - but I do want to hear him say how bad he feels. Safety is so important to us, and to think she was harmed through someone else's carelessness makes my blood boil. Still, only three more months to go...

Well, Nick is off work for the next week, so we have been making the most of it. Went out to a local aquarium and Leala had a lovely time. She is very fond of fish and particularly turtles, so we were on a turtle hunt. She was not disappointed. We also say a HUGE spider crab - it was about a metre + wide from leg tip to leg tip. Not something you would like to meet on a stroll in the waves.

Nyle has really, literally, found his feet. He takes any opportunity to climb up furniture and is starting to "cruise". It won't be long before he is walking. It is fascinating to see the difference in developmental stages between him and his sister. Leala craweld at 14 months, Nyle at 7. Leala walked at 20 months and I think Nyle will be there by nine. Let's just wait and see. Not so much fun when neither decided they wanted to sleep this afternoon and I found both standing up in their respective cots, shouting.

Nick saw my Minti account yesterday as I had left the computer on and the conversation went like this:

"I just saw your photo and it says how long you have been on the site. It's something like 2,000 hours"

"I don't think so" (she replies nervously, wondering when THAT feature came in)

"Yeah, click back and show me that page"
I then realise that he has spotted my username HRS 2004. 2004 hours! Even Izzy can't have been on that much!!

Clay, please don't take that as a feature idea. It wouldn't be a hit...

For those of you who are curious, I have today started a new group for my friend in "real life" and I to arrange to meet up and discuss our kids. I wanted to call it "Sussex Based" named after the county we live in, but the auto-censor said there was a rude word. It took me a while to realise what it was! Hope that this is an acceptable way of using groups, and that I can now get all my local friends online at Minti to organise our lives...

So, Nyle has officially made it. We are not talking about "aaaaah, he shuffled forward then dived flat on his nose - he's crawling!" but "Oh my goodnes, look at him chasing the cat down the kitchen!". Poor cat doesn't know what has hit him (or should I saw grabbed him, pulled his tail and crawled off with a handful of fur). The cat was pretty good with Leala, but Nyle has already reached the stage where he got close to being bitten. Cat and baby are now both on probation and banned from seeing each other. Poor cat.

So, we now have baby proofing to revisit. Leala didn't crawl until she was 14 months, so she had a fair degree of brains to go with it. I would say you should be pleased if you child doesn't decide to crawl too early. Sure makes life easier. Nyle doesn't have the commonsense he was born with. Ok, maybe he does, and it just wasn't much... He is quite keen on throwing himself over toys and, if he could, down stairs. Never manages it as there is always someone with him at that point. Stair gates are up and operational.It is so much harder this time round, what with his older sister throwing colouring pencils on the floor. If I can't find them to pick them up, you can guarantee Nyle will.