Tea Room the 23rd - The Canadian Rockies

[Jacksmania]

Welcome to the 23rd incarnation of the One-Child Tea Room. Not to be misleading - although its inmates inhabitants mostly have just one child, we also have mums of many (but no dads yet... hmmm...). Everyone is welcome.

The usual rules apply - no bunfighting. If you like that sort of thing, go elsewhere.
Other rules: bring . Or [tea]. :o

We find ourselves in a lovely spacious log cabin in the Canadian Rockies. Enormous west-facing windows show a gorgeous view of the sunset over the mountains, and there are log and/or gas fireplaces in every room, even the priest hole (which is a Hiding Spot of Requirement for Those In Need) and the bathrooms. In the open-concept living room, we find the Aga gently simmering against the wall, the bar fully stocked, and the cappuccino bar prepared to dispense any hot beverage of your choice.

Fluffy duvets and colourful pillows abound on the deep, squashy couches and armchairs. Outside, we see a vista of deep snow, dotted here and there with deer and bunny tracks. The walking trails and access roads have been ploughed clear of snow by our able (and hunky) handyman, Mellors, who is also available for massages and facial treatments in the Log Cabin Spa.
There is a hot tub outside on the west-facing deck, with a mini-bar conveniently nearby.

There are no aspidistras in this log cabin, as the cold of the Rockies causes them to shrivel and die. However, the Naked Mohawk Babies have come along and are swarming along the rafters, and in the adjacent stable, the Tea Room horses, Earl and Lady Grey are available for snowy rides. The bison are frolicking in their snowy paddock, and I have no idea if the bishops followed the trail of breadcrumbs or not.

(For newcomers, the last paragraphs obv. makes no sense - just go with, all will be explained.)

I found you!

Anyway, as I suspected it is really hard to keep up with this thread :) thank you again for the kind welcome. I will try but probably won't be able to keep up very well.

Weaselet is verging on 2 and the questions about having another are pretty frequent. I imagine they will fall away though.

::tries a bowl of cereal with condensed milk::

Yuk! Definitely better with jelly.

IQ? Psychologists could have a field-day with mine. It is both above 150 and below 70, depending what you're measuring. One developed a bit of a nervous twitch after testing me for a while.

Anyone for ?

Shall pass on the cuppa thanks Amber, not a tea or coffee drinker! I used to be the strange one but I know more and more people that don't. I don't drink anything in the morning, not a proper drink, I have cereal

Have a good day everyone, back later! :)

Howdy all.

LCT sat straight up at 530, looked at me, and lay back down on my pillow. We shared until 7.

Thanks for the amber. Coffee for me.

MrTee is taking LCT to day care so I get 8 whole hours by myself today! Have tons to do, but not little people getting in the way of my doing it!

LOL @ nervous twitch, Amber. Being of a mathematical mind, I've always found IQ tests enjoyable...

gladly accepted. Am cooking DH a romantic dinner tonight, involving making my own beef wellington. I just hope he doesn't wear it and start jumping in puddles of gravy :o

Only one Wellington? He'll be ^hopping& in the gravy, surely

grr - code mess. Must concentrate

Ahh PKM - I'm another one, don't really get on with tea or coffee now. I will have an occasional very very weak coffee for social purposes but never have one by choice at home. Hot chocolate is my hot beverage of choice.

Perhaps could mean 'non-alcoholic beverage of choice - could be anything at all'?

Speaking of which, a jug of foaming hot chocolate in now on the aga, with a plate of warm pastries. And as it's Valentine's Day, Mellors is splitting logs in the spring sunshine. Gosh, he's getting warm out there. He just had to take off his shirt.

::aligns self with fainting couch::

::thud::

I wasn't away for that long this time and you lot STILL manage to fill 186 posts in the new location! What are you trying to do - fill it up so that we have to move locations again before JM finds the secret location of the closely guarded aspidistras?

Just want to check who is actually new and who's latest name change I haven't spotted - although I think that we have quite a number of new regulars. So any old timer (is it REALLY 23 tearooms!!) who've changed significantly, please drop me some hints!

Have been toying with the idea of getting mistlechick's IQ done - if its good (we know he's clever, but how clever???) we can present it to school and tell them that they really should be doing a bit more to engage him... and question whether they really want us to have to go elsewhere rather than keep him in the school for the later years.... Keep telling myself 'only 18mos to go' for the move to the junior school - but seems an age.

the seems to have changed picture since I used it first this morning on previous thread - its turned into a mug instead of a cup. Not that I'm complaining - you get more that way.

Boffinmum - my mind amuses itself by acting as a personal ipod all the time. Quite often its quiet enough for me not to actually notice anymore - but its playing if I listen ifyswim. Sometimes it gets a bit loud though. And the play list gets affected by what I read, what people say, what I hear.
Normally its fine, but if it gets into a loop playing somethign I really don't want to listen to at top volume its very annoying.
Oh - and my colleages think I'm batty as sometimes the viola part escapes me - and they can't hear the rest of the orchestra that is playing around me that make the line make musical sense.

today feels like a hot buttered crumpet day - with beverage of your choice - how many do I need to get the NMBs to toast for us?

Is that an Aspidistra on the ?

Oh hurrah!! They've changed it to - I still slightly object to the name, since you still don't brew hot chocolate, but still - it's a lot less discriminatory now! Yay!

(I don't think it's an aspidistra, I think it's the MN logo, isn't it? Either that or a marijuana hemp leaf...)

I think it definitely looks like hemp to me.

Weldone MN - two benefits in one mug

Morning Mistle! I have namechanged since first tea room I was another flower but not much else about me has changed

I'll say it again. Doesn't matter if you keep up just jump in

I'm enjoying crumpets and coffee and Mellors thanks guys.

I never know about IQ and brain offness. What's it meant to represent? We are all different and our way is normal to us all. I have songs running in my head a lot but thought everyone did. Never had an iq test. What is brain onall the timeness like for you Boffon and Maud?

Oxeye - yes, I recognised you - and many others too! Just checking really

Mistlechick says that he has music playing in his head too.

He was very sad yesterday morning, wouldn't have breakfast, everything was wrong - he went and played the piano and it was music to match his melancholic frame of mind. Which was both and - must start him playing properly after that. Turns out his blood sugar was just a bit low as he'd not had breakfast (refused it) - so after a banana muffin (to get started) two slices of buttered toast, an apple (almost entirely eaten) a large banana and lots of grapes he was back to his normal self

MT - I used to get that when I was down a lot as well. In fact, sometimes it was like an itch - I'd have the piece of music on constant replay in my head until I either a) went and played it on the piano or b) went and listened to it on record/tape/whatever.

I don't get it so much now - but it did tend to coincide with low mood for me (I used to get quite depressed but wouldn't say I ever really suffered from full Depression).

I have a reasonably high IQ but find my brain can be lulled into quietness fairly well, mostly by sitting and staring at something for a long time. Something nice to stare at, obviously - but if I focused on it to the exclusion of all else, my brain would stop overthinking stuff.

Reading chicklit works quite well too .

Isn't everybody's brain on all the time? The difference, I think, is in what it chooses to do. Mistle's image of the brain as personal iPod seems very apposite.

I've never had my IQ measured - or, more accurately, we had to do a battery of IQ tests for university admission but were never told our scores, just that we had the place - and haven't had GardenGirl's done. I'm not sure how much it would help, although if I get to the point where I don't think the school is meeting her needs (which, fingers crossed, I won't) I suppose it's an option.

Le soupe du jour avec les petits pains tres oooh la la est servi.

Soup du jour very welcome. Am contemplating reapplying the fleece as its a bit parky in the office - electric heater is an alternative but don't really like using it.

School is clearly not satisfying mistlechick's needs. Which is all the more annoying as we're paying for it on the basis that we can't see how any of the otherwise available local ones would or could. which is why we're at least contemplating the possibility of getting him tested.

Oh, that's tricky, Mistle. Is there really nothing else within striking distance?

There are two other private schools.

One of the others was the top of our list - and we were the first one on their waiting list. However, despite having been told that by the school, we were not invited to the 'trial' sessions in the November - I rang up to find out why - and it appeared that they'd had a large number of siblings so instead of being top of the waiting list we were pushed down to 7th or 8th - and this was a 24 child intake. Then I found out that the children did EITHER music OR computers for half a term then swapped (you can imagine that the music bit didn't go down well). So, really it was the lack of a letter saying 'sorry you've been pushed down the list by siblings' which I would have perfectly understood and the music issue that put me off a bit.

The other school is more similar to mc's - a bit more traditional - big stone buildings etc. However, when we went there for a trial session, the nursery (in two portacabins - not ideal) was absolute bedlam - children rushing from one classroom to another etc. You know that mistlechick is a bit active and easily distracted - this didn't seem to be the right atmostphere to help him to settle into learning ifyswim. Also a new head was coming in - and they have potential building plans - but these would be unlikely to actually come into fruition until mc was part way through the school Music room = portacabin in the playground.

So we went for the current one - new nursery building with its own playground; 3 other years on site, music room, dance studio, drama studio, it suite etc etc etc newish hall, playing field, netball court, playground....

All the words are there - 'he's clearly bright' 'wonderful vocabulary' 'keen to share' 'wide knowledge' 'very polite' etc etc - but then you get the 'fails to concentrate' 'lacks focus' and on bad days 'disruptive' and 'rude'.

Then you get a comment in his reading book asking if they can send more so that he can get through them so that he gets onto a more appropriate level - go in and query it and get told that he is on the right level and needs to read them all to improve his writing vocabulary (even though he reads a 24 page book in 5 mins and doesn't struggle with any of the words) adn that the written comment was very quick because they have so many children to hear to read etc. I really don't know how to handle it. I know he's not the easiest child to deal with - he exhausts me - constantly questioning, constantly bouncing full of energy (its all as it should be, but still exhausting) but surely experienced teachers should be able to enthuse one generally interested 5yo within a class of only 18????

In answer to your final question, yes they should. He's in year 1 now, isn't he? My many years before the mast as a school governor tell me that boys on average take longer to settle into the classroom groove - and it's not much to do with ability or aptitude - but that's little consolation to you.

The comments about the books are obviously contradictory. Does he need to read them all just as a tick-box thing to get onto the next level? Or does he (in their view) need to read them to extend his vocabulary? Even then, their strategy sounds a bit skewed, because if the problem is that when he is writing he doesn't use his extensive vocabulary then surely it's better to work on his writing skills and find ways of bringing in that vocabulary, rather than just amassing more words which he doesn't use. Reading and writing are obviously connected but they're not the same thing.

Dare I ask, how well-qualified are his teachers? Do they have teaching qualifications?

Yes, his teachers are both qualified and experienced. But it seems to be like a sausage factory - they want to churn out perfect little sausages for the next level to make into something. My poor little sausage isn't the right shape or has the wrong ingredients or something and really doesn't 'fit'. He does appear to be settling in a bit this term - but its taken a whole term of crapness to get there. And no doubt we'll have the same next year too.

And re vocabulary - no, his vocabulary is better than a lot of adults - he uses proper grown up works correctly in everyday conversation - to the extent that he sometimes causes a double-take.

He looks at least 7. Possibly 8. But he's only 6 in April - and sometimes he acts his age (which is totally understandable).

And we read much more challenging books together at home.

I wish that MN had the skype [headbang] smilie - very useful that one.

That's what I thought about the vocabulary. The problem isn't about extending his vocabulary so I don't quite grasp why they think reading more books is the answer. If the vocabulary he uses in his written work is far smaller than he uses in his speech, that needs a different strategy based on writing (not reading) skills.

To some degree, I think all schools are sausage factories. We need Serpent and BoffinMum for their professional views here.

Am I too late for Soup du Jour avec les rolls suggestifs?