Tea Room the Fourteenth

[amberlight]

Welcome to the 14th instalment of the Tea Room. It's now officially spring, and we've moved the tea room to a Gipsy caravan pulled by the tea room horses, which is making its way up the countryside in an effort to follow spring. There are of course hedgerows filled with spring flowers, Mellors the handsome gardener/driver/handyperson, the usual virtual Bishops, and the assorted animals and characters from previous tea rooms. All are very welcome to join in with us parents of one (or indeed more!) for general chat and the occasional very odd conversation. Climb aboard, grab a cuppa, enjoy the view, relax!...

Determinedly not listening? I have no advice to give as that is hardwired into TrowelGirl too. Racing is right< I am sure, that tiredness plays a part - it always does in the TrowelShed.

But Wriggle will go far, I am sure. She has such an indomitable spirit, and such an elliptical way of looking at the world, that she will either become Poet Laureate or found a new political movement. (And aren't poets the unacknowwledhed legislators of the world? in which case she could be/do both). I remain of the view that she is adorable.

I would love to retire, but preferably with an immense stash of cash so that I could travel and do endless Improving Courses. Until then, I'm lucky to (mostly) enjoy my work.

Cmot - I'd be delighted to go to Brussels but wouldn't I soon be unmasked as an imposter? I couldn't get away with saying 'This is a very big machine which mostly goes whirr and sometimes goes clunk'. Or could I?

Hmm. That unacknowledged bypassed the spellchecker.

I'm sure thats what some of our sales team say though

Better go and find something smart to wear I suppose. Today I have mostly been wearing a fleece and jodhpurs. I love working from home

Yesterday
After boy had tried skating down the stairs skirtingboard , resulting in bruises and howls as he skidded 4 steps and banged head...
I caught him manoeuvring a thermarest toward the stairs... he had a melt down when I told him he was not to slide down stairs on it, or to slide it down stairs in any way.

Now I'm pretty sure the meltdown was coz I'd rumbled his plan. He really does have a flat line learning curve some days.

Today, boy rather coldy and not full of beans, spent a lot of time listening to story CDs or playing with marbles.

Hope hes better by Thursday, if he's not up to preschool he will get to spend the day in a van doing pick up and drop offs of kit with me.

UNis snaffles a hot cross bun and notices it has a long thin triangle rather than a cross on it?? NMBs maybe, I think it might be a hot carrot bun.

Anyone still up?

I have two more hours of work (yawn) and could really use a double or triple espresso... was up until stupid o'clock to finish my taxes. DH sent them off this morning and I have just found something that needed to be included. [crap!! emoticon]

Yes, but just crawling off to bed. I've had an exhausting day. We lost an hour's sleep on Saturday/Sunday. Did you?

I'll take both, thanks.

Our time change was the weekend of March 14th, so I'm almost used to it.

night all. off to recue teh bits being blown all over teh garden, then to bed.

OH ho!! I have just arrived when you lot have all tottered off to bed!

Bergitte -welcome! I tried to lure you here a few days ago, obviously less well than our all round leaderene and head girl Trowle

RS - I agree with Trowel. The Elliptical Wriggle is the one to be taken and cherished. G&T swot friend is showing an early neediness to conform that will ensure she does well in SATs, becomes head girl, preens and leads the ballet presentations, has the part of Mary in every nativity and then disappears in adult life in a haze of middle management convention - she'll be fine being told what to do and do it well...
Wriggle on the other hand will be out there Charting Her Course and it will be great.

Catita - good luck on the Long Drive. I am contemplating a 9 hour car trip next week and every time I feel slightly faint I think of all the Hatita's spending 3 days on the road....

CMOT good luck on trip and AandO - I had to spend a week away from DaisyBoy recently and was gutted. HE was fine. CMOT is well able to show you with CMOTTiddler that it is not the childee who suffers!

Trowel, I am intrigued as to where you think I live. It is near one of the major rail stations!

Thumb and Tea you are so brave to do meet ups, I don't think I have the courage - I am still too chicken to tell Thumb who I am even though we were at school in the same class

CMOT - yor DH wouldn't believe our insurance tale - the insurer has moved us between 3 offices and has changed their works company - both referral company and actual drying and work teams - at least 3 times..... heh ho. We are getting there

Hugs to all - a day or two away from the tea room and I can't shut up!

Ah, it's good to be back!

I'm a bit cross that, every day this week so far, and seemingly most of last week, it was OK during the day then started raining just as I got home with mistlechick and needed to take the dog out. Last night decided that mistlechick was just too tired and it was too close to supper time so got dh to take her instead

mistlechick is also a great non-conformer... Sometimes this is fine - like when your child comes up with a different 'take' on what they've been asked to do - painting completely different, diferent colour palette used etc. Other times its not so great - for instance sitting in assembly, blowing your cheeks up and squashing them (loudly) in front of the headmistress . Oh - and EVERYONE at school knows his name, so if he and his friends are doing somethign they shouldn't, its ALWAYS him that gets picked out....

School Easter service today. Got a phone call at 10pm last night from vicar asking me to help out, as he'd double booked himself and would be leaving halfway through. Eek!

Mary - have a cuppa - and I hope your service goes well - it would have been nice to have a bit more notice!

Can I come into the tearoom? I have a 7 mo ds, and although I would love a second, dh is adamant he only wants one, so I have to respect that. I am trying to come to terms with it.

SO thought I would come here and here all the wonderful things about having an only.

M&S chocolate brownies - roslily you may stay here for as long as you like!!!

YUM YUM!!!

Is your 7 month old of the male or female kind?

Hello Roslily - would you like a tea or a coffee to go with that?

Ds was lovely at 7mo. He was very competant at sitting up, and loved sitting on knees, but didn't yet crawl around and get into trouble too much! He was in 9 - 12mo clothes though - grew out of them length-wise... funnily enough, despite washable nappies, he's never grown out of something width wise before the length was too short...

One of the good things about just one is that you can do things that are right for your child at the present time, not something that is also OK for a sibling - we can now do quite long walks with ds which, if we had a second, I'm sure that we'd not be doing as much. And I bet the boot wouldn't be big enough for the bike he's getting for his birthday plus a buggy - so he'd miss out on cycling....

Thanks- teafortwo he is of the male persuasion!

I would love a cup of tea please!

We use resuable nappies, but some stuff I just can't get on- but the next size up is too long for him!

Ooo, hello roslily! Welcome and thank you for the choccy brownies - wonderful!

Can I have a large cup of tea, please MT?

Been reading the conversation about Brussels and machines that go clonk and various children behaving in cunning and subversive ways and the Vicar deciding to slope off half way through the service etc etc. (Bagsy we don't tell the Bishops - they've been a bit unsettled today in their tea room Bishop's Cart after it developed a nasty leak in last night's rainstorm )

So far my day off has included taking Ye Olde Bad Mannered Jag to be fixed, and doing some shopping during which I found a necklace and nifty frilly bra, much to the amusement of the man behind me in the queue, I noted

Definitely time for some relaxation now...

Hi Amber!

roslily - I used reusables too - quite a shock for my French dr!!!!

She asked me to do a demonstration of how they worked and pulled this face - WOW!!! I used to get my Mum to post me the liners asz I couldn't find them ANYWHERE in Paris.

[old hippy emotion]

... I am toying with working ft next academic yr... what do people think??? I'd like to hear a few ideas on the concept from you Worldly knowledgeable lot!!!

Ds did have trouser legs turned up quite often I must admit...

I found the real time was when he potty trained (which he effectively did himself at 26mo too) and then having problems with all of his trousers falling down as there was nothing available to hold them up anymore!

Morning all! Coffee?

Welcome Roslily .

I also used reusable nappies for LittleO unitl he was 1 years old. Then they started leaking and so we stopped .

Being able to focus totally on one child is great. LittleO and I have lovely day trips together (he is 3.5). The weekend before last we went to an aquarium, then to the funfair and then out to dinner together - it was lovely. Then last weekend we went to the cinema together and then for tea and cake afterwards. If you had more than one these things would be more difficult I imagine. Like MT said you can focus activities on just that specific age group and not have to try to find things to suit all different ages. Plus our house is probably alot more calm than houses with a few kids!

Tea - I do a full time job but squish it uncomfortably into 4 or even 3.5 days a week. The problem I find with working full time is that obviously enough you get little time for anything else. It's hard to find time to clean the house, wash clothes, do food shopping, cook proper food. You can feel like a headless chicken alot of the time. I am torn between work and ds, feeling like I don't give my all to either one.

I'm looking forward to finishing and hope to spend a year or two as a sahm, and then go back and do my phd, as I reckon, or assume that I'll be eager to do something else after two years - I get bored easily and could never imagine being one of those people who are in the same job for 20 years.

But with regard to working full time the main thing you need to have is a great childminder etc. I am 100% confident that LittleO is having a blast with his childminder, in fact she is amazing and such a great influence in his life.

welcome roslily! You'll like it here, we're a friendly bunch.

Am flying through cos still hard at indexing, brain just needed a rest for a minute or 4.

Hello Roslily! As you arrived with virtual cake, you have obviously got the measure of us very quickly!

Daisy - Head girl? Leaderene? Shurely shome mishtake brought on by exshesh conshumption of Bolly?

I am hanging my head in shame as The Only Mother Bad Enough To Use Disposable Nappies. But I did have my pathetic reasons.

Tea - The debate of the day. To work or not to work full-time? I am assuming this would be as a teacher. Or have other opportunities reared their tete? I think so much depends on the quality and reliability of your childcare. The other bunch of considerations are how flexible your employer would be about little bits of ad hoc time off (not very, I guess, if the job is classroom based) and whether it is important to you that you should be able to attend Milk's performance in the school concert which, if it is anything like TrowelGirl's school concert, will last 30 minutes, commencing at 10.30 in the morning. And obviously, there all the other issues about reviving or restarting one's career, having an income of one's own and so on.

For me, I've always placed a lot of weight (too much weight?) on the being able to go to the school concert thing. [Disclaimer] I'm not saying that this is the only solution to the conundrum, let alone the right one. I'm fortunate to have a degree of choice, as although we live in a paper bag in the middle of the road we do at least have a (paper) roof over our heads and it isn't an absolute necessity for me to work FT. I think if I could find a marvellous nanny like DaisyPoppins I would quite like to work FT and kick-start my career again but I do have the consolation that, being a Very Old Mummy, I did have 20 years of kick-ass career beforehand. On the other hand, working FT would leave me less time for gardening and MN. Oh, I dunno.

Tea and cake, anyone?

Harrumph. Have only just put two and two together and realised quite what an insult it is to be called a head girl by Daisy

".... becomes head girl, preens and leads the ballet presentations, has the part of Mary in every nativity and then disappears in adult life in a haze of middle management convention ..""