Welcome to the Seventh Heaven Tea Room (BYOB. Biscuits, crisps and cake provided)

[Catitainahatita]

Hello and welcome to the seventh incarnation of the tearoom.

If you have found us by chance and/or curiousity you must know that the tearoom is a virtual safe haven for all those seeking a friendly word, a good cuppa and plenty to snack on. By virtue of its magic nature, no food can cause any physical damage, so chocolate, alcohol, transfat and all such can be consumed guilt- (and magically calorie-) free.

We have a wide range of soft-furnishing to relax on; a lovely garden with a swing and a ha ha; a variety of animals; a spa and (for some unknown reason) an apidistra.

Everyone is welcome, if you have one child, ten or none at all. We are a tolerant and fisticuffs-free zone. Instead we employ our energies swooning at Mellors the Gardner cum handiman thinking a silly things to get up to.

Please come in and say hello. You never know, you may end up joining us ...

good story mistle

we have "winter shoes with cars" and now "space ship shoes" and before that "cat shoes" - description important here too, but DaisyBoy taste rather eclectic

Today he chose some beautiful white satin ballet shoes....

How lovely to see the NMBs in crocs. Obviously they don't go to school.

Wriggle and Milk would have a lot in common. Went to the beach yesterday with a two-year-friend. Conversation went as follows:

Wriggle: Mine bucket.
Friend: No, my bucket. (Friend is monolingual and therefore has better grammar)
Wriggle shoves friend, who pulls her hair. Sceams from wimpy Wriggle.

Wriggle: Mine spade.
Friend: No, my spade. Wriggle shoves friend, who pinches her. Sceams from wimpy Wriggle.

Wriggle: Mine sea.
Friend: No, my sea.
Wriggle shoves friend, who rugby tackles her. Sceams from wimpy Wriggle.

Wriggle: Mine sun.
Friend: No, my sun.
Wriggle shoves friend, who gets her in a head lock. Sceams from wimpy Wriggle.

And so on, until both mothers are faint and deseperate. And this was a fun day out.

And yes, she does sleep with me. It started when she spent a night in hospital at 6 months old and couldn't sleep in large draughty hospital cot and I had to sit up holding her all night. She never went back to her own cot.

And, while I hate to disagree in anyway with MadBad, I can't see why wearing crocs should be a barrier to learning.

Ok, now the next question: what is suet pudding?

[ignorant foreigner emoticon]

Make that {tipsy ignorant foreigner emoticon]

Oh, MadBad, if you've never read Harry Potter you've really missed something!

Suet pudding is a pudding made with ... suet. Which is, I think, beef fat.

Racing come on now. Daisy leads Racing carefully away from the aspidestra, ensures there is a sock from mellors inside the bag of twiglets and settles Racing on the sofa

I ask about Wriggle from interest. DaisyBoy sleeps with us. He is nearly 3. I am sure we have had this conversation before. But he does now go to sleep in his own cot (in our room) and joins us in bed later. Sounds like Wriggle is moving that way too. Rock on!

JM Suet is fat from animals - sort of reduced bits that veggers don't like but give solidly satisfying spongy elements to pudding. THe spooty dick pudding not just suet. It is flour and eggs and stuff too

JM - suet is a form of fat which, being vegetarian, I steer away from (although you can get vegetarian suet now ) I believe it is the fat from round the liver or other similar organs.... [eughhhhh emoticon]

I have a friend who cosleeps with 2... I think I would remove myself to the cot...

RS - get 2 buckets (or 3), 2 (or 3) spades - I think that the sea and the sun should be big enough to share!

I'm pretty sure you get suet in things like mince meat too - when you make mince pies there are white bits in the stuff - which is suet....

And you make a pudding with it??????????

Sounds revolting.

You British are weird. Haggis, tripe, kidney pie... blood pudding... black pudding... now suet pudding...

At least here the only culinary oddities are Beaver Tails and Maple Syrup.
[Canadian pride emoticon]

DaisyBoys current way of ensuring he doesn't have to share is to hand everything to me

"there you are mummy. Hold this for DaisyBoy"

He would drag the swings and slides over and put them in my lap if he could....

I co-sleep with two. But one of them is DH. DaisyBoy and I got told off for talking last night it was very like being a kid again. DaisyBoy and I got the giggles and DH got grumpy

Jacksmama - You are making me spit tea everywhere - These are the puddings that the rest of the World frowns at, sniffs at and pushes away!!!

If I were you I would stick with the German cakes....

Racingsnake - OH GOODNESS - didn't you know????

Here in the tea household we are big big co-sleepers!!!! If I remember correctly JM is a co-sleeping fan too...

Here it all started when I shrunk the lambs fleece I used to line Milk's breadseller's basket that she slept in at the time in the wash. She had no-where to sleep as without the lambs fleece the basket was too rough... so she hopped in with us while we waited for her big cot to be delivered... it was delivered and it looked so cage like we couldn't bring ourselves to put her in it... besides which... it was so nice sleeping three in the bed...

We do occasionally try - for perhaps 20mins - when MJ has woken up too early - he is getting slightly better about the wriggling, and now sings and whispers quite quietly - but as I have to share my 1/3 of the bed with him - leaving dh with his 2/3 - it is really not conducive to sleep, and he is a bit like a wound spring in the morning and gets to the stage where he just can't stay still any longer....

Yup, we co-sleep. And in the evenings, Jackbaby falls asleep on my lap. Sometimes he stays there, in which case I am stuck on the couch with my book or the TV (darn... how horrible ), and sometimes I put him in our bed and then we go to sleep later. He has always hated his crib. It's the cage thing, I think. We're soon going to take the side rails off which will turn his crib into a toddler bed because he can now lower himself off the big bed and the couch without thumping down.

loving the idea of mistle sleeping with a singing coiled spring....and thinking it is better than getting up! I think that sums up motherhood!

(that should be mistle, perched periously close to the edge of the bed with rather over-warm, singing, whispering, occasionally wriggly (in fact often little stroking movements with whatever bit can touch me most easily - which are almost as annoying as the proper wriggling) coiled spring - which occasionally flings an arm out sideways, often making contact... (ouch)...

Racingsnake

Ooooooh laaaaa!!!!

C'est un choix super!!!!

Peut-etre ce lien sera interessant aussi???

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDgiQ4A2e8M&feature=PlayList&p=BC1A4EC689DA0D16&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL& index=12

Heh, Racing psst.... don't you remember, I'm the queen....

hello ladies - have finally caught up with everything but am still distinctly underbrained so can't remember who said what - having one wisdom tooth out made a hell of a difference! And I felt really down last night - spoke to my Dad on the phone and he said it before I told him, I didn't realise it was a common reaction (presumably to the anaesthetic rather than losing a tooth) - perhaps he just meant in our family, dunno.

Anyway, have been totally underwhelmed by MN for the last couple of days as well, hence only just getting here

s'nice, innit?

Suet btw is fat from around organs; but also shredded suet is tiny bits of it ROLLED IN FLOUR. This is important for anyone who has a wheat ishoo. As I recall, vegetarian suet is rolled in rice flour rather than wheat flour, but I could be misremembering that (25% less wise than before )

MT - with the carsickness, have you tried giving him bitter lemon to drink? I had one of those weird instinctive things on a long journey once when I was feeling dreadfully carsick and I asked for a bitter lemon at the services - only after drinking it did I check the ingredients and it contained quinine, a well-known anti-motion sickness compound. It's also in tonic water but bitter lemon is nicer to drink, imo

Am feeling very concerned that I am come across as such a scary old harridan that Racing feels she is not allowed to disagree with me and must lobotomise herself with an aspidistra as a penance. Although I am (naturally, as we all are in the tea room) a supremely cool babe at the cutting edge of fashion, I do have very trad views on school uniform. School girls - especially daughters of tea room habituees - should wear Mary Janes, surely? But these are my views and I don't expect them to be universally shared! Indeed, I send my child to a school where some of the pupils do wear crocs.

I've got the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain on my ipod. And a great deal of Francoise Hardy.

But I only eat vegetarian suet.

More champagne or rose, anyone?

Rose thanks MadBad!

Don't you worry, we know you are so old you can't help being a harridan a bit firm in your views

ah daisy - thanks for deciphering the 2ww code - yes, I am nearing the end of it now so in about 4 days I should know one way or t'other.

Today I was having a "I'm a crap mum I can't do this how could I possibly cope with 2 what was I thinking" day as well - possibly still tooth-induced, possibly not.

Pass the rose - I could do with some alcohol to neutralise the germs in my mouth, to avoid infection - no prophylactic antibiotics here, cos of bf'ing.

Ta, lovely.

don't worry thumb. You are highly unlikely to be a crap mum if you are, at least your attention will be divided with two leaving them a fair to middling chance of not being eternally damaged by too much of your time