Tea Room The 24th - San Francisco Painted Lady!

[Tee2072]

Welcome to the 24th incarnation of the One-Child Tea Room. Not that you only have to have one! Just so long as you enjoy chat, tea, coffee, cake!!

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

Our ongoing voyage take us to one of San Francisco's Painted Ladies!

We've brought the Aga over, it's in the back in the cosy kitchen overlooking the back garden. The chintz sofa is in the front room, under the bow window! All of the pillows and duvets have come along as well!

What's that? The Priest Hole? It's just over there --> behind the bookcase!

Mellors is upstairs, preparing the bedrooms for naps and such.

The aspidistras are thriving as they overlook Nob Hill! The horses have found themselves stabled in the Garden, which is much larger than these places usually are in this city!

So come in and have a seat!

::tea hurries off to Powell Street to catch the Cable Car to Ghirardelli Square::

Yes please, coffee. Started the day at 6 with LCT crying hysterically because he couldn't take the plug, that is attached to the fan, with him to get his bottom changed. Toddlers are weird little creatures!

Scout, I would take it. Good fun for TS!

Hoping to go to the park today but the weather is looking iffy. Maybe go to the park at get wet!?!

Where did Mellors go? I need a morning massage...

Go to the park in waterproofs and wellies, get wet,have fun. Slides are brilliant in wet weather gear, BUT parent needs to be at bottom to field flying children.

Thanks for amber, good to hear your taking it easy .

I'm catching up with bitty jobs this morning.Mothers day cards etc. Nice not to be mad busy this week. If it drys up later I might go out for a bike ride and hand deliver a couple of bits of post.

Tee - the more you look for goats milk products here, the more you see - there's a good range in normal supermarkets here - including icecream (so if my MiL continues to complain about her 'lactose intolerance' I have plenty of ammunition now)(its in brackets as its only an issue sometimes and she's quite prepared to go to Pizza express and order the pizza that doesn't have goats cheese on it even though she will rabidly avoid it at other times)(and of course there is lactose in goats milk anyway - which is why I can't drink the milk)

We're in the 'getting very tired towards the end of term' stage now... birthday party on Sat - have to make cake either tonight or tomorrow and then decorate it.... DH is in charge of cooking other cakes. mistlechick definitely wants the spider cake - but we're having yogabugs come to do a 'space theme' and the alien cake would go better with that. I think mc and I might be 'grown up' and go out for supper on his actual birthday - as we shall be on our own that week.

I think DH has been sensing bad vibes - he actually managed to get up before I left with mc this morning!

'Easy'...'taking it easy'....I remember that phrase from somewhere....must just look it up again...

Spiderlike alien with 8 legs? and bug eyes? and antenna?

Good luck with party and tired end of term child MT. Boy is also tired and end of termish. He had a snooze on Saturday afternoon and a lie in on Sunday. Hurrah.

will read back but have only a second
third the "tired end of term ooooh soooo tired" ness. Boy lay on sofa under rug on Saturday but two parties on Sunday virtually killed him (and me!) off!

Scout, was it you asking about the measuring for adults? I heard on the radio this morning - it's double height at 2 = adult height (R4 and I thought of the tea room!)

Also I found some white musk which made me think of you all too - I have put it on, I never wear perfume!

I won't ask how white musk relates to us

Scout, I think taking trolley to shops entirely reasonable, but check legs and walking distances. I once had to walk a VERY long way carrying OxBoy and his ruddy toy pushchair that I had mistakenly allowed him to bring....

Maud I am so very sorry about your parents. Confidence tricking baddies are my worst. My granny once gave away a load of beautiful leather first editions to a horrid preying mantis of a man... even worse with forced entry and burglary. I do think Met are very comforting and socially responsible in these sort of circs.

Amazon - I love. Sadly if it isn't Amazon, Ocado or John Lewis delivery it is unlikely to be in my house. I feel bad when friends present me with lovely well thought out presents chosen from teeny shops, but it's not me. Same as dinner parties - large dish of something and wine

Mistle - good luck with party how is your DH these days?

CMOT - good luck on Monday with arm - and how is your DH doing?

Serpent - I agree with Maud and Thumb. You do excuse your DH and while things written down often appear too stark it's no reason for him to belittle you and for you to take it - I think Wriggle's response is right.

I mean, he may have had a poor emotional upbringing but he can see that and endeavour not to follow, non? I am very sensitive about my tendency to shout because it is the pattern I do not want to follow - I don't always manage but I don't think it is anyone else but me who chooses....

Religion - we say "some people believe this" DH and I have different positions on this so we take the CofE or whatever line, explain and then say there are many ways to skin a cat (or some such analogy less likely to trigger 1000 questions....)

booh that was a long post - if you made it this far
(((HUGS)) to all


soup and lewd rolls to the survivors

and of course the right team won the boat race

Thumb - I'm wondering if we lived in Oxford at the same time? And I have a number of Laddeeees from our almer mater coming to supper this weekend

Just curious, what do you call these? Cups, bottles or something else?

Was going to drive to the shop (it's long-walkable for me but hard to carry stuff back) and just have TS walk to the milk chiller, to the check-out and out again. I know it's not unusual for a small person to have a trolley, wondered more if it would be weird because TS is so young/small. Though looked at him and his trolley today and he has to lean over to push it -- he's so tall (or the toy is too short). D'oh!

I'm pretty sure the 'double the height at aged 2' isn't going to be true for mistlechick - he was about average at that age - perhaps slightly ahead - but based on birth height and now height (and dh and me being above average height too) he's almost certain to be above average. Size 12.5 feet already (that really was a [wibble] not confused at all). He's gone throgh the toes of his school shoes this term - so new pair required for next term - so won't manage a full year in them this year. He's also wearing his school coat out at a frightening rate - goodness knows what he does with himself at playtimes.

DH is doing contracts still, thanks for asking - which is good - he enjoys the challenge - however, its a 4hr commute on a Monday morning and Friday evening which isn't good - and I'm a single parent during the week. However, he is managing to work from home some weeks which helps (at least to some degree!). Implications of holidays and bank holidays not good though!

::wanders in, stifling giggles that, through no fault of her own and because no one listened to her 3+ years ago the client's website was pointing toward porn:::

Ahem, I mean I acted in a most professional manner and fixed it ASAP.

::tee collapses laughing again::

Oh my! Was it?

Yup. One of those adult placeholder sites, no actual dirty pictures, though.

Tee- congratulations on your professional approach to this. AND waiting till the customer was not there before you broke out in giggles and " I told you soooes" .

Parents evening was fine. boy has settled in well and is doing just fine.

Hello lovely ladies.

May I ask your views on this? Girl does an after school dance class, for which they sort-of get changed but (obviously) don't strip off. It used to be the case that parents who got there early could watch the last few minutes of the class before taking their children home, but some other parents thought that was 'odd' and it's been stopped.

I feel quite upset about this. The class never gives a performance and so this used to be the only opportunity to see what the children actually did. No more explanation has been given for the change, but I'm guessing it's part of the paranoia concern that we might all be perverts looking at other people's children in their vest and pants. Should I be upset? Or is this just a sensible approach to child protection? Give it to me straight.

Be upset, Maud, if that's the reason. Absurd.

well maud, I'm not quite sure. tis bit of a nonsense child protection thing, but its pretty sensible in light of the disruption caused to class by parents sneaking in at different times and standing watching part of every week. Do you think teacher might be open to a request to designate one lesson a term ( or half term) as "open class" for parents to see what the kids do in class.
Boy's dance class we can watch the last class of term, but generally not others UNLESS, the child s very new / young / has other issues ( mobility, communication etc) in which case parent stays in class for as many weeks as it takes and in the under 5s class parent is expected to join in. I did watch a class mid term by special request, with boy, to see if the 5-7s class would be appropriate for him after Easter. He sat with me to start with then joined in.

on the changing front- where do the kids change? in the hall? Are they all capable of self dressing and not losing stuff? Our lot change in the side room, Boys and girls and a mass of parents and siblings who then hang about in the side room while kids in class.

OI YOU! YES YOU!

Get your munchers off my hay

I see what you're getting at, UniS. The old system was that parents waited outside the hall, then when the class ended they went into the hall to chivvy their child into getting dressed, retrieved lost plimsolls etc. Parents who got there early used to wait just inside the hall. Now the children dress themselves and are brought to the school's front door. What happens to the pile of lost property they invariably leave in their wake I don't know.

To the extent that the change has been explained at all, it's not about disruption, it's about there being something unpleasant/sinister in parents seeing the children get changed. I want Girl to grow up with a sensible and well-informed attitude to stranger danger, but I don't want her to be taught that every adult is a potential abuser, to be treated with utmost suspicion. That's what's really upset me - yes, we can suggest an open class once a term but I can't control the messages she's getting about all the adults around her (including about me being a potential risk to her friends).

Is it just possible that another family in the dance school really does have a child protection issue going on and one parent or another MUST not allowed into the hall? Bit of a broad brush to stop all parents but maybe there has been an incident with a camera.

Just guessing here. It'd bug me too. And probably will as boy gets older and is changing for ballet with various girls and their parents tutting. Can you put it to girl that it's an age thing, now shes older she is expected to be able to do this by herself. She gets changed for school PE by herself I assume.

In the meantime, any one got a disc to chuck on the jukebox for us tonight.