Tearoom 25 - Benvenute a Venezia!

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YOu find us this time in a glorious palazzo in Venice, near to St. Mark's square, and on the water. With gondolas and vaporetti in abundance to transport us around to the various sights etc.

The palazzo itself of course has marble floors and fabulous murano chandeliers but aside of that we have the usual distressed chintz comfy sofas, assorted animals, bishops in their corner, priesthole for emergencies and a single solitary aspidistra in a bomb-proof glass cage to protect it from the ravages of a certain Canadian.

All are welcome - drop by for a cuppa, a glass of something stronger and a chat and relax in the safe and kind surroundings here.

Cin cin!

For those with supposedly 'late' developers, couple of things - mistlechick didn't start walking until 14.5 months (although he was sitting unaided from 4.5mo) - he took his first proper steps at nursery ('when did he learn to do that?')() and the following day ran round the kitchen table doing circuits before breakfast .

My aunt didn't speak until she was 4 or so - when she started speaking in full, grammatically correct sentences. She went on to be a consultant in the US health service - right at the top of her subject - then retrained as a psychotherapist or something similar and became senior in that role - so I don't think that the lack of early speaking held her back too much.

Hello sAf - can I bring you a tea or coffee over to your corner armchair?

MT - I am intrigued by your aunt - I have heard of other children doing the same and have always wondered whether they were just too pedantic to speak until they had a full working grasp of the language? Is your aunt pedantic? Only wondering this because when I was learning foreign languages at school, my conversational skills never flourished because I wouldn't take the risk of saying something wrong, I had to make sure it was correct before I would speak (and I am somewhat pedantic )

Amber - good luck with the covert operations in the hostile church!

I think the different wig, dark sunglasses and wearing a skirt should do it. No-one will suspect it's me. If I fall over someone because of the dark sunglasses/trip over the edge of the skirt and end up losing the wig in the resulting chaos, that could be a problem though... I do like to have fun at the weekends...

Blood tests came back clear with "no action required." WTF?! Really?!

Waves hi to the new inhabitants. I'll be more social after a nap.

Scout - never mind the tea, lady, get some quality immune-support supplements. The zinc alone will really help you with everything (I may have already mentioned this in boring detail )

SAF - that's relieving to hear about your DS not being able to dress himself at 4; I worry that miniThumb is a touch backward on the dressing/undressing front, to say nothing of the constant "I caaaan't!" refrain, and the "Mummy, you help me, I too little" - but he's only 3 so there's still time for him to come good on it all.

Thumb, have added vitamins to the weekly shopping list. TS still having a good nap so I don't want to wake him up. He's much perkier today. Not nearly as yellow but still very free-flowing.

To be honest just can't believe everything is normal as I've felt rough for ages. I'm grateful it is, mind, but at least if something was wonky I could work on fixing it.

I'm sorry, thumb, that post wasn't meant snippy (the way it reads back to me). I'm tired and I'm fed up. I want a full, proper night's sleep, I want to be hungry and enjoy my food and right now I want my face to stop hurting.

But on a positive I have three lovely new paintings -- a full page A2 (?), an A5 sized painting on A2 (?) paper, and one nearly 3' toddler overalls fully covered as well as hands and lip. I think Toddler is my favorite picture.

Ah you're definitely too tired! Go and have your nap, it wasn't snippy at all, not to me, anyway! Definitely make sure that whatever multi you get has zinc in it - low zinc affects your appetite, your sense of taste and myriad other things as well as impairing your immune system's ability to function.

Love the paintings - take photos!

Scout - have a nap whilst he's napping - I still try to take advantage of the occasional Sunday afternoon nap.

SaF/ TW - I have been quite determined that mistlechick manages to dress himself - to the extent that, when it came to changing back into school uniform after PE (for which they were sent ready changed with uniform in bag) he was one of the few children to be able to dress himself when he was in reception - even though he was one of the younger ones. At that stage the only thing he needed help with was his top button. Now he can even do that, althgouh he gets a bit frustrated with it at times.

SaF - MC still lets us know when he's 'off' and then yells for us to 'come and check'. On the whole, I'm glad to say that he doesn't really need the extra check - most of the time at least.

Amber - I hope it goes well. Have you thought of dressing DH in your 'normal' wig and sending him in as a decoy to distract further from your arrival??? (I'm going to point out that I've said that in a very tongue in cheek way and not really suggesting it as a workable option ). Looking forward to seeing the bluebell photos. I always think the beech woods with the blue bells are particularly magical with the beechleaves so light and bright and the wonderful blue of the bluebells underneath... the trunks of the trees almost look violet at times.

Beechwoods and bluebells are my favourite thing in spring; that and the cherry blossom of course.
Favourite places to go to see them: Greys Court, up past Henley; and Westonbirt Arboretum, out past Cirencester towards Badminton.

TW - Greys court - that's the same neck of the beech woods that I'm thinking of and Amber's near - the beech woods were planted for the furniture making locally.

Grey's Court is lovely! It's our closest NT property.

I shall consider sending DH in first to the scary church in my spare wig and skirt, as a decoy, but since the member of clergy has a reputation for being rather eek about LGBT issues, that might cause problems of its own

::wonders if she should mention the 5 minute fight she's just had to work out how to get into a new summer top, given that she's supposed to have mastered getting dressed by this age::

Been asleep for three hours. Feel better for it.

amber, glad you had a good nap.

Thanks for the sweet tea, swallowedAfly! I asked MrScout for one a few weeks ago and he had no idea what I meant. To be fair, it's usually sugared iced tea but he still didn't know and didn't try to guess.

I took a nap in the end, like every day bar one for the last two weeks. I feel worse for it.

TS doesn't dress himself yet (think I'd fall over if he did!) but seems to respond to left arm/right arm/leg/foot, etc. He knows socks and shoes go on feet and likes to try and if he sees a jacket puts his arm out for it. Oh, and he knows powder goes on his bits before his diaper is done up... To the point he's tried to powder MrScout's bits (HAAHAHH!) but not mine.

Would it be weird to take a box of chocolates around to our wall-sharing neighbors (the one with the cat TS loves) to apologize for his week of wall-kicking while trying to get to bed? I can't move his bed as the opposite wall (which is shorter) would put his bed against the heater and under the window so we don't have much choice. They are really friendly neighbors and understand babies but I feel so guilty!

Not weird at all, Scout. Very neighbourly. They will, of course, say, 'No, no, you shouldn't have.'

When I lived briefly in Barcelona my favourite Spanish breakfast was bread with loive oil rubbed with tomato. I wonder if we could have a 'delicious' emoticon?

Amber, what kind of church doesn't let people in?

Dutch Oma, lovely to see you're back.

evening all.
Our SLOOOOW holiday from school is continuing. end of week one and we have done very little. Boy was still in PJs at mid day, but I did insist he dressed before lunch.

So far this week boy has slept a lot in the mornings , which is a very good thing.

Ah, the battle of self toileting.... It will come right in the end. I wondered if boy would be there before school, and had a number of chats with him insisting that he HAD to be able to do this before school. and Lo, he was ready by school starting, doesn't even want any one to check him these days, Hurrah. Does like to spend 20 mins sat on teh loo singing and day dreaming at times however ,which is is annoying in a different way. Just dawned on me, he got him self dressed after swimming today with no whinging ... hurrah for school and PE changing.

Any body for a game of Tic Tac Toast? or Oreo Draughts ?

Evening all.

Goddess help me from children who just.won't.fall.asleep. I thought I was going to have to drug him. I'm off to bed momentarily myself as I am just shattered today for some reason.

I think that's a great idea Scout. Very sweet.

Nice to hear you had some sleep Amber.

The feminists threads hold no interest me. I'm my own sort of feminist and it suits me. ::shrug::

::Challenges UniS to a game of Oreo draughts, being utterly clueless at chess::

I haven't looked at the feminist threads for a while because when I did they seemed to be ::hesitates to say this:: rather competitive and unsisterly, in a "you don't agree with me therefore you're not a proper feminist like I am" way. Besides, they may not approve of our exploitation employment of Mellors.

ohhhh, is it my turn to exploit mellors......

unis abandons oreo draughts and chases mellors along a marble floored corridor.

I was meaning exploitation in the sense of being on duty 24 hours a day with nary a day off. UniS seems to mean sexual harassment.

Catita, so impressed that you remember your Catalan! My favourite was also a stew of sausage and white beans, but I have totally forgotten its name. The very best place to eat it was the canteen (definitely not posh enough to be called a restaurant) in the main train station and, second best, Montserrat. And eeek re scary experience!

Maud, I just spotted you on a thread I tripped over by accident where I found that vinyl tablecloths are totally uncool and middle aged! (While, in fact, googling to find my new vinyl table cloth for the spring.)

Wriggle is totally transformed this evening and is extremely hard work. She is bouncing, chattering, singing ... does this have to happen after 9pm? I now realise that she has been ill for weeks.