Morning all. 

Horrid weather here, really rainy and windy, so we're going to have an indoors day. I'm planning a trip to the parents for a roast dinner along with my sister and niece, so that should be nice. Not a lot to report baby wise, still only feeling smallis wriggles and kicks due to the placenta being at the front, but I do feel her plenty each day now which is good. I booked my maternity leave at work this week, so I'm leaving at 38 weeks, but taking a couple of weeks holiday before that. It's quite early but H's contract finishes in April, and they tend to be in 3 month stints, so he can't really get another until after Attila is born. If I have May off we'll have a few weeks together before Attila comes, and should be able to get some DIY tasks out of the way as well as spend some adult time together. (Not adult in that way, just J is staying in nursery 3days a week even when Attila comes to keep his place and give him some consistency and me some time with just the new baby, so I just mean toddler-free time!)

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

Morning Spikey! Shame about the bad weather - from the brightness of the sky (haven't actually got out of bed!) it looks quite nice here! I'm sure it's freezing still tho! How does it feel to have put in for your ML? Can't wait to do mine! Ha! I don't think you're leaving too early at all. It's nice to have some time beforehand I think. I intend to start at 38 weeks too but also take two weeks annual leave prior to that.

AFM - Love weekends!! Going to finish clearing cupboards (gradually sorting house out for our new arrival). Will probably do some family visits and might go to Kiddicare to play with prams too. Have a good one everyone!

Morning!

SG- how early did you finish last time? The weather here is sunny, it's supposed to rain in a few hours though.

Pep- enjoy baby shopping. We went to john lewis last weekend so we're having a weekend off this week.

AFM- I slept! Whoop! I love weekends as I always seem to sleep fine. I'm off on Monday too and no plans so I'm hoping I'll catch up a little bit. No plans this weekend really. Meeting some friends with their 11 month old for lunch, nothing much else though. Nice and relaxing. I bought some Mat clothes from a md'er and they've just arrived so I'm going to try them all on!

Baby wise- I'm sure I felt a kick last night, I'm doubting myself now as it was a while ago but at the time I was fairly certain! It's so lovely after happy feet making me uncomfy all day yesterday.

Imp - I still feel like its a bit early to be properly trying out prams etc but just want to do something that will bring a smile to my miserable face this weekend! Ha! Glad you managed to sleep, a long weekend sounds amazing! A kick... Wow! What does it feel like?

It felt like a little prod from the inside. I could feel baby wriggling away and then I just got a little prod! It was lovely!

Pep we played with prams too, even hubs started to understand what I/we wanted.

Enjoy!

Ooh how lovely! Can't wait to feel baby! I'm just listening to heartbeat, he's finally moved! He's not so lazy after all! Ha!

Morning!

Spikey, am getting fed up with the rubbish weather we've had lately, enjoy your indoors day, you've made me want a roast today now!

Pep, ooh enjoy playing with prams, I can't even begin to get my head around prams yet, such a minefield!

Imp, ah how nice to feel movements, hope you feel some more to confirm it! And yay to sleeping!

Afm, just finished a night shift so am off to snooze most of the day away, feel like I'm getting a cold too, boo. So good night from me, will try and get back on later x

*tentatively knocks and steps in*

Hey ladies.  Some of you may know me from first tri threads but would like to graduate to 2nd tri today!  I'm CJ.  30, live and work in Surrey/London and expecting our first on 1 Aug, so 14.1 today!

SG - roast dinner sounds lovely, especially in horrid weather.  Must be so amazing to feel the little wriggles from baby.    Attila is a beautiful name.  Where is it from?

Pep - hi again!  cleaning cupboards sounds very *nesting-like* let me know what you think of the prams - I've been having a look and am overwhelmed by choice!

Imp - hello again!  wow to feeling the first kick - don't doubt yourself!  Glad you had some good sleep!

CO - rubbish about a cold.  Night shifts at weekend doesn't sound great.  What do you do?

AFM - I'm having my grandparents and parents over for lunch, and announcing pregnancy to my grandparents,  Pretty excited as think will give them a real boost.  Then sunday I think it will just be chill out day!

CO- I hope the cold doesn't materialise. Maybe a good sleep today might help.

CJ- good to see you here! Yay for 2nd tri! I hope you have a great time telling your grandparents. We're seeing some friends today that we've not told yet so I'm looking forward to telling someone, we've kept it really low key so far.

Pep, have fun playing with the prams. It's a bit confusing trying to decide I think, but lotsof fun trying them out and imagining pushing your little squish round. Feels good to have booked ML, only feb, march and April to work now!

Imp, woop to a good night's sleep, kicks, and out for lunch, sounds like a good day all round. Enjoy telling your friends about the pregnancy. I went off at 37 weeks last time I think, but I have a toddler his time round so it won't feel quite as relaxing overall and the extra week may be nice. Pus I think second babies are slightly less knelt to be late.

Co, hope you're enjoying a nice sleep now!

CJ, hiya, welcome to 2nd tri! Enjoy telling the grandparents, it's lovely sharing pregnancy news. Attila is just my joke bump name- J was called Genghis as a bump as we were trying to freak my parents out (they didn't buy it) so we thought we'd continue the warlord theme with Attila for this bump. I'm trying not to think of her as Attila quite as much as I did J as Genghis though, it took me 3 months to think of him as Jacob after he was born! We do have a proper name sorted for Attila, but are keeping it between us for now, I'm very excited though as I got my top pick of name that H vetoed for a girl when I was pregnant with J, and I didn't think for one second I'd be able to use it this time round either.

Imp - ah so lovely to share your news.  When I told people at work loads said they knew already.  I asked whether it was because I didn't drink at the Christmas party, and was told no, it was because  had put on weight :o)

SG - so embarrassed  now I might scuttle back to first tri threads!  I wasn't thinking!! ha.  I suppose it's far too early for me to even claim *babybrain*.  Our bump name is embrie.  I remember one of the first things I read on NHS baby centre was how t wasn't a baby, but a embryo!

Hi to all who follow!

Bonjour!

SG, having that time off together should be nice. I wish Ant could take more than his allotted 2 weeks, but I'll take what we can get.

Pep, sounds like you're starting to nest :). Which prams are you playing with today?

Glad you got some sleep, imp. And exciting news about the kick, too :)

CO, enjoy your sleep and I hope you don't get a cold.

Welcome CJ, I hope lunch went well and your grandparents are thrilled for you.

AFM, nothing much going on. It has stopped raining for the first time in a week or more, but I think it's going to return this evening. Boo. Last night I couldnt resist buying MORE in the polarn o pyret last chance sale, so I picked up these lovely bits for less than £10 together:

I really really need to stop now, though.

CJ how rude of people! I'm sure you hadn't put weight on, people just say stupid things!

Wispa your baby will be spoilt!

SG am I crazy to finish up at 36 weeks? I've got 5 weeks annual leave to take pre mat leave, so I'm taking 4 weeks before my due date and then working 4 shorter weeks before that.  

Morning again ladies!

CJ, don't be embarrassed, it could have been real, and isn't actually hideous connotations aside. Better to assume someone is being serious than ridicule their name then realise they were being! How rude of your colleagues! Mine all knew too, but that's just because I was sporting a tummy that stuck out more than my (not inconsiderable) boobs by 9 weeks so it wasn't really hideable!

Wispa, aw, those bits are very cute.

Imp, I don't think you're crazy to be finishing at 36 weeks. If you go 2 weeks overdue you may wind up a bit bored, but personally I'd rather be a bit bored at home than leave it till 39 weeks and have my baby the day after! It's hard because you don't know how yore going to feel by then, but I was definitely ready not to be commuting and sitting at a desk by 37 weeks last time!

Afm, I'm on the sofa watching team umizoomi. If you've not had the pleasure I don't recommend you start now! J was up at 5.45am and my abilities to parent are not awake yet so he's watching cartoons and I'm trying to pretend I'd not rather be in bed still! We've got a fairly busy day planned today with swimming in the morning then a trip to the deep aquarium this afternoon. Should be a good day. Then I think I might go to bed at 9pm! Hope everyone as a lovely Sunday.

Morning SG. I've been up since 6am, sad times! I woke needing the loo and the couldn't get back to sleep. Busy day ahead for you, I hope you make it through until 9! Thanks for the advice about mat leave, it's do hard to know what to do!

I'm off for coffee with friends this morning, apart from that I'm not doing anything else. A nice relaxing day!

Morning all, happy Sunday.  Wind is howling here.  Hope its  better where you are?!?

Spikey - Hope you had a nice dinner last night.  Exciting that you have your mat leave sorted now!!!

Pep - hope you had fun with the prams yesterday if you went to look at them.

Imp - so exciting to feel a kick from little Happy Feet!!!!!  Hope the mat stuff fitted ok and yay to some sleep!!!!

CO - hope you're ok and the cold hasn't got the better of you!!!!!

CJ - Welcome.  I bet everyone was delighted with your news yesterday.  Hope you enjoyed telling them.

Wispa - those clothes are adorable.  No wonder you couldn't resist and what a bargain price too!!!!!

AFM - while we are on the subject, I thought briefly about my mat leave and when I'd stop work.  I was thinking at 39 weeks with at least 2-3 weeks annual leave on the front of that. This is my first baby so not sure if thats too ambitious or not but I'd like to have as much time as possible at the other side.  Baby wise, I've still been having the same wriggling going on.  It hasn't really changed much ie not got stronger in the last 2 weeks but over the last 2 days there has been 3 times where I've had this kinda short, strong feeling and I've wondered was it a kick?!?  Really not sure because its so fast and I can't describe the feeling.  Hopefully over the next few weeks it will become a bit more obvious.  I swore I wouldn't do anything baby related until after my 20 week scan but it so, so hard.  I've been looking a changing bags.  I've seen one I like and I'm thinking because its such a minefield I should just stop looking but I'm scared I miss out on something lol.

Yesterday was the start of 'Operation Clear Out Spare Room'.  Its obvious that this is going to be a long, slow and boring task but I just plan to pick away at it.  I took a bag to Cash For Clothes and sold some books online so I've made a start at the very least.  Today I plan to list some stuff on ebay.  

Think our plan is to go to the pictures this afternoon to see The Railyway Man.  That might change right enough.

Hi to all that follow.

Morning everyone!  The bad weather has eased temporarily down here, though there's more warnings for heavy rain coming in tomorrow.   I'm working from 3 today so having a lazy morning mainly on Pinterest getting together ideas for decorating the nursery.  

CA - I've also been thinking about mat leave and annual leave.  I'm aiming to finish at 38 weeks but may take 2 weeks annual leave before that.

I hope everyone has a lovely Sunday :)

hey ladies!

Wispa - those clothes are so cute.  Must be so hard to resist!

Imp - that's interesting about annual leave.  What is everyone else doing with theirs?  I will have a full new year's annual leave come April.

SG  - sounds like busy but lovely day!  Ha that is a good point about names, always better to assume it's real!

CA - that's my vague plan as well - work until as late as I can.  Although all the other girls at my work who have intended to do that have all just got too uncomfortable and left earlier.

Ixia - hope your lazy morning is nice and relaxing

I'm having  a chilled out day and think will sort out some house things and have my annual clothes charity clear out and make a bit of space!  I'm very good at making lists of things to do, just awful about actually doing anything on my list!

Hi ladies!

Woohoo it's the weekend!

SG, how exciting that you've booked your maternity leave! Enjoy swimming and the aquarium.

Pep, good look with the cupboards! Did you make it to kiddicare?

Imp, I love, love, love that you felt a kick! Go Happy Feet!! :) How are your new maternity clothes? Enjoy your coffee!

CO, hope the sleep did you good and that the cold threatening to start has disappeared.

CJ, hi! Welcome to 2nd tri! Congratulations :)  I bet your grandparents were over the moon! It's so much fun telling people.

Wispa, those clothes are very cute! I love the little outfit.

CA, good luck with eBay today! Well done for making a good start on your spare room. I say to go for it with the change bag! (Bad shopaholic example over here!) Enjoy the pictures later :)

AFM, some maternity stuff arrived yesterday that I had great fun trying on last night. There's one day left of the sale and I'm very tempted to buy one or two last minute things...

We're still deliberating over that house. A part of me thinks we just need to buy anywhere before the prices go up and we can't afford what we're looking for anymore. The plus points are that it's 4 bedrooms and in the area that we wanted. It needs doing up but it is liveable for now. It's not as condemned as some of the houses we've been looking at. And there's no chain, so we could be in quickly, hopefully before I get much bigger and with plenty of time to sort stuff out for the baby. The bad points are that I suspect the road might be used as a cut through in the mornings and the garden is on quite a steep hill, which we were trying to avoid. I don't know why I feel so meh about it to be honest. I do think I'm comparing it to the house that fell through before Xmas. I suspect I'd like this one a lot more if I wasn't still thinking about the last one.

It's quite nice here weather wise, we might go out for a walk later.

Happy Sunday :) xx

Fig - what area of the country are you?  House prices are definitely on the up where I am, the rise is shocking.  4 bedrooms sounds fab, but it's difficult if your overall feeling is *meh* as you want to be more excited than that.

It was lovely telling my grandparents yesterday.  They were so thrilled.  

I'm also excited by the fact I now have a ticker!  Although maybe I shouldn't have gone for the fruity one as I find it a bit weird if I then eat one of those fruits!