snowboarder

My two both got the hang of scooters much more quickly than balance bikes - they were both off on scooters before they were two, balance biking still not there for my now three year old. Scooters much easier to carry/pull them along on too. I would only go out with the balance bike when my husband was around when my eldest was younger - I have a horrific memory of baby in sling, pram, balance bike and a toddler all screaming and trying to get home from the park!

We had a term time week off authorised for our 4 year old who is in reception and not 5 until April.... As always nothing is clear!

Have a look at these - we now live 40 mins out to the south east of ED in Kent and frequent garden centres for entertainment now - who knew?!? Coolings has a nature trail, shop, cafe and tractors/diggers all on a fairly small scale, Polhill is huge and has organic veg and meat, toys, a playground, fish and good pizza! http://www.coolings.co.uk/green-and-pleasant http://www.polhill.co.uk/ ETA - You could easily do both in a day - they are v close to each other

I've been searching for joy rides or kwells for weeks to no avail (cue spectacularly bad coach transfer from the alps a couple of weeks ago....)

Sounds awesome....now if only they took 5 year olds - it's just round the corner from us!

Similar to above we have rented apartments a couple of years running through a search on this website - http://www.puertopollensa.com/ - in puerto pollensa in Mallorca. I've always found it hard to find nice/affordable/spacious accommoation through any of the thomas cook types... Also some nice places on here - http://totstotravel.co.uk/

My four year old son stole a silver spoon from my friends house (he just liked it)...obviously we took it back, apologised etc. I'm sad to say it wasn't an entirely isolated event, but still I'm not sure I'd label him a kleptomaniac!

My three year old doesn't know this yet but he's going as Wally - from where's Wally. Easy peasy stripy red t shirt and jeans and a red bobble hat. Might try and find him some glasses! Mercifully the four yr olds school has gone all alternative and they get to wear pyjamas on Friday for the big bedtime story....! The older ones are having a sleep over, he's staying till 7.30. Totally awesome school!

We got our eldest one of these for his first birthday - http://www.kiddisave.co.uk/wishbone-3-in-1-balance-bike-plain-wood.html?gclid=CNnnstjD87wCFZShtAodemAADA He loved it in the park and in the garden and actually still plays on it now aged nearly 5! Also we got our youngest one of these - http://www.tesco.com/direct/chillafish-bunzi-2-in-1-balance-bike-green/747-0476.prd - again fun n garden park and in the house! I don't really like those smart trikes - it seems to take quite a while before they can actually use pedals....

We looked at neilson/mark warner and yes, super expensive for school summer holidays...and also quite booked up we found too. We did find some nice places on this website - www.totstotravel.co.uk - some of the Portugal ones are near beaches and some of the French gite clusters with a shared pool look nice, but again limited availability for this summer! Someone I spoke to said you need to book in November for the following summer....eeek! We're heading to lefkada with our 2 boys to a group of villas with shared pool and some childcare on offer too - hoping it's not too hot though! We've also had some really lovely holidays in Puerto pollensa in Majorca - lovely child friendly beaches and nice town. Edited to add - none of these are all inclusive though sorry - it actually doesn't appeal at all to us due to fussy eating children and wanting an apartment/villa rather than a hotel room...but we did find a couple of companies seemed a bit cheaper - seafarer, sunsail and ocean escapes - both v sailing oriented though....

Too scary - my eldest son (4) in particular just loves to roam and sees absolutely no danger in wandering off despite constant warnings, so this sort of thing terrifies me...

You have my sympathy - I have a son who will be 5 in April and I am SO glad he is at school! Could you maybe see if you could get him into one of the local pre schools for the 2 mornings he is not at nursery? Somewhere where they might be more geared up to dealing with 4 yr olds rather than day care? As you say once they are at school you go to the other extreme - I feel like I barely see my son during the week what with after school games/multisports/swimming/my work! Make the most of the ability to go on day trips and visit people - it gets impossible once they are at school. Good luck

I think do it now, if you think it's right. I went to three schools in reception (moved twice!) and whilst I possibly found it a bit disruptive at the time I have absolutely no memory of it being so now - and I was quite a quiet shy child. A beach school sounds fab - my son is at a forest school and absolutely loves the sessions they have in the woods.

We have karndean - I think it's cheaper than amtico (but still not cheap!). I really like it - we used it to replace a wood block floor. It doesn't scratch nearly as easily and can be replaced quite easily if you damage a small part. The only thing I don't really like is that we have it across our entire ground floor, laid over a combination of old wooden floorboards and a concrete floor in the extension area - and you can feel the difference underfoot despite the screed that they lay to ensure the whol area is completely flat. I don't think the difference was this marked with the wood floor. Also it's much slimmer in profile than wood (obv!) so we also had to replace all our skirting boards too...not an issue if you are starting from scratch I suppose but a pain (and extra expense!) for us. It looks really great though...

Have you seen the micralite twofold? Has inbuilt second seat/buggy board options and looks good! I had a regular one briefly quite a while ago - they do take some getting used to as the front wheels are so much wider than the back, but I did like it! However anything with seperate handles (rather than bugaboo style flat bar) is hard to push one handed I find...

I quite like Wrap - http://www.wraplondon.co.uk - but it is a bit linen/floaty sometimes - some nice stuff still left in the sale.. I get catalogues for Toast through the post - nice but again a bit floaty and expensive! I like Reiss (but ??) and French Connection. Also quite a few quirky bargains in Joy - all quite cheap and cheerful. Otherwise I'm clad head to toe in gap basics for work and mummy time... White Company for jersey tops? I also have to admit to some M&S basics - my excuse is they catch my eye when shopping for the children! Some indigo and autograph and limited collection stuff, but you have to be v careful! I loathe per una. Anyone else remember this thread from many years ago? I often think about it and my my (non existent) 'fashion mojo'! http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,640203,640203#msg-640203 Also who else saw this annoying article about mum frumps? I read it whilst wearing the exact outfit they sneer at.... http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2013/dec/05/why-i-wont-dress-like-a-mum

We also ended up with 2 tripp trapps - still in every day use at nearly 3 and nearly 5....

We have wood effect Karndean and it doesn't scratch at all - it looks great! I think our units are crown units, with matt finished cabinet doors. I went to a small kitchen shop (not in Se22 sadly) as I couldn't really face trawling round magnet/howdens/ikea etc and they did the design, advised on brands and recommended a kitchen fitter. We have quite a big kitchen and it took just over 2 weeks for the kitchen works with another week for the floors and finishes - we are lucky enough to have a utility room so managed just using the sink, kettle and microwave in there (and obv washing machine!) - we blew the budget on the worktop but I think the units came in at about 5k? I don't really get pinterest....shall we post photos on here or is that a bit too personal?!?

I now have a pretty awesome kitchen too after re-doing it last autumn! Things I love - Quartz worktop (spent ages deliberating on worktops!), corner cupboards (without any pull out gizmos in our case - just like the nice deep cupboards!), lots of big pan and cutlery drawers, our range cooker, a breakfast bar/seating area... Luxury things - a wine fridge and a boiling water tap! No kettle! Things that not so great - pull out larder/storage - I keep over filling it - and pull out under counter bin - it's not big enough and we don't use it - we use the big stand alone bin/recycling bin we had before. We have karndean limed oak look-a-like on the floor - replaced the solid wood we had when we moved in - it's great, doesn't scratch and if you have any disasters you can replace individual strips.

Oh - the other thing I was going to mention was that this was with my first baby and when I had my younger son I was determined that I was not going to ever let things get that bad - and much of what I did second time round stemmed from the night nanny experience - so with my youngest from about 12 weeks I tried to gently encourage him to go to sleep lying in his crib, with me there....and actually by 8m he was great at sleeping. So we never had any crying really with him. So all good and when I hear about some toddlers and even school aged children having sleep issues I think def worth the cash!

Australia! Sydney is just amazing, a city by the sea, with mountains in easy reach - my absolute ideal.... My sister and her husband moved there 5 years ago, live in a lovely area and seem to have a great selection of things to do with their 3 year old, and easy commutes into the city. The only problem is trying to get them to come home now....:-) It is q expensive though in terms of cost of living I think...and it is such a long way... As an ex ed resident she looks on here sometimes so she may pop up and tell you how good it is!

Jenc - she involved me throughout. After an initial chat on the phone and at our house, she basically introduced herself to my little boy when she arrived at 6pm, sat and chatted while he had his bath and milk, and just told me what she thought we should do. He cried a bit when I put him to bed (previously bf him to sleep) but not too much, and she just reassured me that it was ok, he was fine, just a bit cross and confused. He then went to sleep, and woke at about 11pm, cried - again she just told me what she thought would work - go in, reassure, leave and wait.....and again at 5am. It was hard because leaving a baby to cry was something I swore I would never do, but actually he never got too upset, and there was about a max of 1 hr crying in total. We then flew solo the following night and he only woke once, and then she stayed the third night and he didn't wake at all. Naps took a bit longer and she actually came back a couple of days later in the middle of the day to help, and I cracked it with her advice (via text/pcall) over the following month. I was absolutely determined to follow through with the advice or it would have felt like a real waste of money, so I became totally fixated on nap times for a while!! I kind of felt afterwards a bit pathetic for needing someone to help me with this but I don't think I could have let him cry on my own.... So anyway - a success story. And this was now 3 years ago so things might have changed....

We used night nannies when my oldest son was 11m old, and I was going totally out of my mind with tiredness. Yes, expensive, but he has slept all night ever since (now nearly 5!). We had a great nanny who stayed over for two nights, all sorted within a week, and naps gradually over the next month. Basically it totally changed my life!

After around 2 they tend to grow in the legs rather than the body it seems - my boys have both been sturdy but now at nearly 3 and 5(!) they both happily jump into the maclaren (no bigger than the baby jogger) if they get the chance! For note my eldest at 3.5 was fine in the bee, a mountain buggy and a phil and teds (at various times!).

How old are your children motorbird? We did our kitchen extension pre having children pretty much exactly as you describe and put a dining table in there and had the back of the living room as just extra living space. It turned into a playroom over the years but I often wanted to turn it round.....but then we had carpet in the back living area so not good for baby weaning times! So hard to decide as you say - having moved out of ED we now have a fab open plan kitchen/family/dining/play area which is awesome!