30 up The tea room afloat

[UniS]

Welcome aboard.

The first rule of the tea room is - No fisticuffs.
The second rule is - Put the kettle on and lets have a or open a bottle of if its that time of day. Pull a sofa and relax. Parents of one, more (or less) children are welcome to hop on board and chat about anything and nothing. Introduce yourself if new and if you name change give us clue please.

Sugar trains! how lovely. :)

JM - try some reflexology - lovely for balancing out those raging hormones [hwink] (but only if you know a nice therapist).

Deer - busy week! :)

This morning was fun - went on a student bus for the first time in many years and did some "bonding" with other members of the choir. We went into Newcastle, to sing for the UN Remembrance Service. Busy morning - plus we're all suffering from shock because the choir director was summarily dismissed from his post last Wednesday and no one really knows why - but it's having some knock-on effects, not all good. Thankfully we had another conductor in our choir, who took over today - and we're borrowing another choirmaster from the local University to conduct our Messiah, but it's no longer being recorded or televised. So sad! Fame - denied.

You're right, Scout. Once they have learnt a few words they rapidly learn loads more - I reckon it's to do with learning how to learn, if you see what I mean. Once they have mastered the process for hearing new words, repeating them and adding them to memory, they can expand their vocabulary at an amazing rate!

TW - that sounds rather dramatic! I think I might have arranged a recording deal for my choir - not big - and a backing part - but its money in the bank and 'interesting' publicity if nothing else! I think I can sing most of the messiah without looking at the copy now, which is particularly good in low-light conditions.

JM - I was going to suggest accupuncture in a similar vein (sorry about the pun!) to TW's reflexology.... I know I could go in feeling really crap and come out on my own little cloud without a care in the world.

Scout - lovely! I used to get worried when I got the mn 'by this age an average child will be doing....' messages in terms of the numbers of words - it was only when I started to write them down that I realised how many he knew. My aunt apparently didn't speak at all until she was 4 and then spoke in complete, proper sentences.

MC is with MiL near the east coast this week. DH did most of the packing - and left out his wetsuit because they were unlikely to be spending much time on the beach. I would have put it in and suggested that topped with his waterproof might have made a pretty good beach attire for this time of year.

::Adds a tomato salad, made with the last of the home-grown tomatoes::

I know TS's words will suddenly explode. What I'm a bit about is his lack of basic/simple/functional words (cup, ball, apple, dog, please, etc) and he's going straight for the "challenging" multi-syllable ones in sentences. Cereal isn't the easiest word around. I just hope the HV doesn't ask what words can he say because I'm sure she won't be happy with chips and jelly. (But, to counter that he does say his version of "brush teeth" when I tell him it's time to go brush his teeth.)

TW, that sounds dramatic indeed. Shame about the Messiah, though.

MT, do you have any plans while MC is away?

TS still isn't interested in his pile of birthday presents from his party. I think we'll be opening presents until Christmas at this rate....

If he's combining words, I doubt that the HV will be very bothered - my memory (rather faded by now) is that the HV was more interested in whether The Girl was speaking in sentences than in what those sentences were. He also made a big thing because she mispronounced two words (implied she might need speech therapy) even though I assured him that she often mispronounced words when they were very new to her but soon got them right. Needless to say, within a week she could say them perfectly. And she hasn't shut up since.

Does "oh dear" count as a sentence?

I don't know - my guess is not really, because they're two words that come as a ready-made combination and they're looking to see whether the child is making their own combinations. But I have no idea, really.

That would be a shame given that he uses it in context -- drop something "oh dear", fall over "oh dear", something pops up on the tv "oh dear." Sometimes it's "oh dear dear" or "oh dear oh dear."

Scout - JB was a man of a few words until the dam suddenly broke and from one day to the next you couldn't shut him up. He went from pointing and squealing to "dere dey am" (there it is) to complete perfectly articulated ten-word sentences and has not stopped since. It happened around age 2.
:)

FineLad only had a few words until he was 3.5
He went on to be school Prefect, guru of the drama department with amazing self-written stage plays, and play national level rugby.
Not sure if that helps.
In hospital all day today today for first dose of wonderdrug and heavy monitoring to see what happens. Anyone for a ?

for you Amber - hope that its not too bad today and side effects don't hit you.

Scout - work up until THursday pm when I drive down to the cottage that MiL is in for the week with mc. Drive to my parents on the Sat - and I'm going to meet up with CMot on the Monday with boys in tow () (Cmot - its the thought of our meeting place with Mc, really! )

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(That's good morning from TS)

Morning all! Well OH and my daughter arrived home yesterday afternoon from their little visit to his parents. I am now sitting here waiting for them to get up! Bloody hate it! I am a lark, they are owls! OH also has lots of health issues that mean he doesn't sleep well, and he fell down his parents stairs and his ankle has swollen up.

Quick rant....why to some people my in-laws seem to think that when offered something, and the person says 'no. that they can just go ahead and get it?! They have form for it over the years, and apparently they were at a little cafe and asked if my daughter wanted a hot chocolate, she didn't, but they got it and it had loads of cream etc on it. She told me she felt a bit ill which is why she didn't want it. I have told her next time they do it to just not have it, but she is being put in an awkward position of looking a bit rude and ungrateful. Rant over! :o

Oh there is movement! My daughter has just staggered in! Yay!

PKM, I know exactly what you mean. My mum was the same - go round to parents' house, Mum would ask if I want a drink. No thanks.
Are you sure, would you like a cup of tea? No thanks.
What about coffee? No thanks, nothing.
A glass of water then? No!
Well will you have something to eat then - what about a biscuit? No thanks Mum, I don't eat wheat now
A sandwich then? No, mum, no wheat.
Oh yes, well what about cake then? ARGH!!

It's like Chinese water torture, and when you snap and are rude, then you are the one in the wrong!

PKM, my FiL does the same thing in a very passive-aggressive way. I feel your pain.

Went on a swimming "playdate" today. Big fun and the tots had a good (hour long) splash in the pool. We're off bowling tomorrow with some friends who have "big kids." It will be TS's first trip to the bowling alley. They've reserved a lane and requested the bumpers up and one of those ramp things so Toddler can "bowl" too.

Mom's IM-ing with me, planning all of our outtings, meals, Thanksgiving, etc -- she's SOOOO excited.

Thank you, Maud, for today's goodies.

It's weird isn't it?! In the past they have got her a thing that was like a wii after being told not to as we had bought her a proper wii, dream catchers which neither me or my daughter said we liked (probably just a polite nod and hmmm in the shop when she was getting some for herself) a 4 slice toaster that was crap, a massive silver photo frame the same as they got themselves (managed to go back and change it!) I do believe something is going to have to be said on their next visit!

goodies! Checks further up.... ooo pizza! Yum!! :o

Now I want pizza. After having just eaten three oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies :o
JB wanted to decorate cookies so we made some and gooped them up with Halloween-coloured icing and sprinkles. Black icing and orange sparkly icing and orange, black and white sprinkles. They're truly frightening delightful [hgrin].

Actually I feel a bit ill after eating three cookies [henvy][hgrin].

Mmm....cookies! We're making some Thursday (DS and two other 4 year olds) and I'm sure they will end up looking quite similar to yours. :o

I made some shortbread cookies yesterday, cut into pumpkin shapes. It didn't go well - I was tight for time, the butter was too squishy, I used the wrong flipping sugar (gran instead of caster) and the orange liquid colouring wouldn't "take" - so the mixture was too runny, I had to put it in the fridge for longer than I had, then it was too soft to come out of the cutter - had to press the cutter only half down and then cut round the shape with a knife. Eventually got them all out on trays, put them in the oven, started off looking like they were never going to cook and then suddenly they burnt. FFS!! Had to throw out about 6 of them, still have 12 that are edible, of which 6 are a little toasty and the other 6 are nice. BUt they're not bloody orange!! They do look good though - the pumpkin cutter is one that presses a pattern onto the cookies as well - and the non-toasty ones taste fine, despite the extra crunchiness of the gran sugar.

We had a good Hallowe'eny party at playgroup yesterday though - lots of dressing up, a few children made my spiders, face painting abounded - it was great (and I took sausages instead of the shortbread pumpkins!). MiniThumb had a complete strop when I painted him up as a zombie though - he wanted to be a tiger [hhmm]

TW - didn't you know that Tigers were traditional scary halloween creatures then? [hgrin]

Hello FearfulYank - please could you pass the cookies? Are you someone that I should recognise but can't because you've got your halloween costume on or are you popping in to try out the tea and biscuits?

I had a halloween birthday party one year - black cat cake, spider biscuits (iced spider). Probably though the carousell cake was the most memorable as the candles actually made it go round. Until the top caught fire. [hgrin] It was all dealt with very unscarily so I'm not sure that my friends and I realised quite how big a problem it was!

Hello all. Am in Germany again this week. Ds is loving holiday club, and dh went back to work yesterday after 9 months off, and seemed to cope really well with it. Hurray !

Am looking forward to doing some halloween things when I get back

Hurrah, no side effects from yesterday's herceptin! Another 17 of those to go, every 3 weeks, with regular heart testing as it makes the heart less and less efficient over time. But as long as it works, I don't mind.

available. Is Mellors about for a shoulder massage, I wonder?