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!...

dunno really - they're together 2 years, and partner was fine with it at first (C en route more or less as they got together), but I suspect thinks that it's just a pain in the arse - instead of going out and clubbing (or whatever the young people do these days...) his boyfriend runs off to Dublin 4 times a year to hang out with a 1 year old . But my argument is that she is a fact of life now, and so is her dad's commitment to her, and I'm not really sure how much difference another would make to that - another visit per year, probably.

But as I say, we could drive ourselves mad with it, annoy him and make things difficult between us (although he did promise us 2 at the beginning and says he wants to give her a sibling) - so we've decided to accept it as best we can. If he comes back to us (and that door's still ajar) we'll be delighted, but in the meantime, we will flog the tiny baby stuff (poor DP was very upset about a tiny pair of Gap socks...)

Nectarines, eh? fancy pants. Too cold and wet here - struggle to ripen tomatoes let alone nectarines (brilliantly named, don't you think?) Well into wine o'clock for sure - just tucking into braised Szechuan (sp?) fish. Sounds fancy, cooks (and eats) easy

well I've kinda read back, but whilst earwigging a convosation between dh and his familiy... most intriguing, either his sis is back in teh UK or they had some ind of conference internatonal call... not sure what the story is, I shall demand explanaitions once hes off teh phone.

Hio DrivingMiss. I can't type for toffee. Unis lives in devon , has a boy, likes walking on high dartmoor hills and happily lives just below one. Mad keen cyclist.

Unis waves to all, and wonders just how Dh was chatting to sister...

Phew, I suppose I have to give a biog now!

Well I am a teacher, live in Leeds with dh and 7mo ds. Ds was an accident, and was difficult pregnancy and birth. He has reflux and had colic, so was a very demanding first few months.

I'm originally from down south though. Dh only wants one, I would like one more. We have time though, but I am pretty sure that he won't change his mind. Since I stopped nagging and accepted it I have really started to see the advantages. I am only nearly 29 though, so I have time if he does change his mind.

I have spent the day giving gizmo fluids, cleaning up sick, lying in bed with him. And cleaning up carpets. Big pint of wine please

Evening all! Did someone mention wine?

Welcome DMC! I am also in the Dublin area! If you were lurking on tea room 13th you might have seen my rant against Dublin a few weeks back ! I used to work in Trinity, do you work there? Actually there was a discussion on Newstalk on the Orla Barry show this morning about being gay in Ireland, did you hear it? Not sure of the conclusion as I was frantically running around the house trying to locate clothes for ds (he just keeps growing!).

So, me, I am AandO, I moved to Dublin in 2005, not keen on it (you're now going to tell me you're a Dub right? ), have 3.5 yr old ds, LittleO, and work as a self employed environmental consultant.

CMOT - you are not old, your profile says you are 35 (please do not tell me 35 is old or I'll have to readjust my entire perspective on my progress through life)!

I also used to be in a LGB group Amber!

Busy day here - LittleO had his first horse riding lesson! Then we drove down to Wicklow to a petting farm. They had an easter egg hunt, face painting and a clown show as well as all the animals. LittleO loved snuggling the rabbits but appeared terrified of the guinea pigs! Godfather part 2 is on tv tonight, might watch that.

Evening all. Good to hear your biopics and days

DMC I really understand where you are coming from. Very tricky indeed. Sounds like you are working hard to emotionally resolve a difficult situation. Was the plan that you would carry the second DC? Please don't answer if you don't want to, but I wondered if that was part of the grief/ adjustment as well. Tell DP to hang on to teh Teeny Gap Socks. What's the harm? They won't take up much room and symbols can be important

Roslily poor you, seems Gizmo is on the turn? Tough day

JM I didn't mean to leave you out of the dog chatter, but since you are a lumberjack and plaid shirt wearer I can't imagine you with anything smaller than a bear. Or a Moose.

Thumb good luck. Sounds like you only have about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 hours to go

Have spent lovely day with DaisyBoy. Watching him busily fetching things in the bathroom for me this morning, pulling a hot towel off the rail to pass me after my shower, I had one of those Hearthclenchingly Full of love and awe and wonder moments (a true Wonder Wriggle Moment) he was so breathtakingly lovely his little active wriggling body like a boy but still with a hint of babyness - already taking his ability to move, reach, think for granted yet loving and taking huge pride in his capacity to do all these things - ah I just watched him quietly and wept

Sorry to hear Gizmo is ill roslily

Mouse Update
Nothing in the humane trap yet
However with all the G&B on show in your places I am confident he won't stick long for our lower qualidy stuff

And, T&E, while I would hesitate to correct you, great lederene, I think it is only illegal to release vermin into the streets. It is ok to release them into woods/ parks etc

Oh Daisy, I had a moment like that today with LittleO horse riding. It seemed such an achievement, I felt so full of pride. And also he seemed so young...asking the instructor if horses like easter eggs .

Oh I gave LittleO a brief birds and bees talk yesterday. He said to me 'how did they put our heads on when they made us?' I said 'how did who put our heads on?' He said 'the people that made us', so I figured I'd give him a small overview of how we are made!

Unis tops up various peoples pints of various grape and grain products.

We went to ride the steam trains yesterday. jibed up to north devon for a day at a narrow gauge railway. A chap I work with is a volunteer there and met us to do teh techy explaining bit about how it all works. was fab.

Well.... Unis sits down , takes a LARGE slug of beer from her pint mug, and starts getting her head around DHs family.... The sis who moved abroad is back, suddenly. , they are squashing into DHs parents house. Guess we will offer to have DHs parents ( or sis and family ) to stay here sometime soon so they can have a few days peace.

On a positive note, boy can see his beloved eldest cousin again I hope. He was rather sad they were moving too far away to visit.

Boy has lots of cousins. mostly they are one family ( now back from foreign) plus one baby one, all on DHs side. I have a bro, he is childfree and very london music scene. Both DH and I have lots of cousins of similar ages to us, who are now having children, so boy ( who is 4) has lots of "sort of " cousins aged 10 -0 .

SO far from DH and my generation 6 cousins have 1 child, 2 have 2 , 1 have 6 and 3 are childfree.

AandO no, English. Londoner. UCD, not Trinners (and enmity between same sums up all that is most dreadful about Irish life) Often wonder why I continue to live here - especially at the moment. Will trawl for your rant! Didn't hear that show, but will see if I can find it online - answer: better than it was, still not that great, especially in terms of financial stuff, the fact that I have no relationship in law with my daughter...don't even get me started on this, it wouldn't be fair to everyone else!

and daisy99 - no, it would be DP - I tried for a while, and concluded that it wasn't going to work for me (I'm too old now), but yes, letting go of that got lost in the maelstrom and stress of getting (and keeping) C, so I am sure that I am grieving somewhat about that. How old is your little boy - he sounds gorgeous.

hope Gizmo feels better, and that his mum is adequately recompensed in the alcoholic beverage dept. SO far, touch wood, we have been very lucky on the D&V front

I'm sure the G&B will bring forth a small army of mice and then you can dispatch them all at once!

sex ed has started in the unis household. Very handy having model farm animals that are clearly mummy pigs, daddy cows etc. and a boy who asks why a lot.

Explaining easter has been interesting. We have settled on Good friday, we remember when Jesus died, and on easter Sunday we remember that god did something very unusual and made Jesus come back to life because he was a very special person.
boy already has a little understanding of remembering people who have died, thanks to Nov 11th and war memorials in village halls.

He does keep asking if he will come back to life again when he dies... He thinks he will, I keep telling him we don't know what happens after we die. This phase pre dates easter explanations by some weeks, so the two are not really related.

Wriggle has been horrid today; grizzly, whiney, unreasonable, asking for things then refusing to eat them and working through the whole range of food until she reaches something I don't have and then screaming (leading to dh asking me 'why I have to argue with her?' ). She is now sleeping byt thrashing about and crying out every few minutes. Fully expect full-blown sickness tomorrow.

UniS ROFL at easter explanations. I am being interrogated by DP as to the whereabouts of the Other Creme Egg and I am explaining to her the concept of 'yours' and 'the baby's' as she says that the creme eggs in the Easter Egg are in a separate compartment at the bottom and anyway, we are not giving creme eggs to our 14 month old. I insist that this isn't the point (at least until tomorrow)

AandO have read back over some of your posts - there isn't really a lot to do in Dublin, I agree - the Chester Beatty is nice, the Science Gallery in Trinity, Phoenix Park (only 10 mins from me). It's also hard to get to know people, I think - most Irish people have very tight social networks - family, school, town - and I still often feel an outsider, and am made to, I think...but DP's family are lovely to me. Jesus, I really must stop gabbing on so much.

Cosmopolitan bunch, aren't we?

Sounds rough RS, I hate days like that, you can say or do nothing right, everything causes a tantrum.

UniS, good to hear others are doing sex ed. I just figured that by not telling LittleO I would be acting like it is something that needs to be covered up and be embarrassed about you know. Just started with seeds in mens bits, eggs in ladies, put together to make a baby, grows in womb, comes out through lady bits - he laughed alot at the last part and said it was silly!

Godfather requires too much concentration - can't be bothered! Am also reading the paper, Saturday is my favourite day, mainly because of the Saturday papers .

DMC - I am also English. Prior to living in Dublin I lived in London and I think because of that I find Dublin limiting. But I am due to move soon! Just have to redecorate and then try to rent out the house. How do you find Dublin?

Oh, slow at typing so x posted with you dmc and saw your comments on Dublin. I have recently found out that the Hugh Lane gallery does kids painting etc classes once they reach 3 years, also there is the Ark, but that is pretty much it!

there's a toddler thing last Thursday every month at Collins Barracks, too. Haven't been though

Have just read back - wasn't ignoring you all!

Daisy - write down your wonder Wriggle moment. I now vaguely remember coming over all emotional about Wriggle, but can'r remember what it was! [Bad Mummy emoticon]

UniS - have been watching various things giving birth, so Wriggle fairly clear about how we are made. At present we are more concerned with death, the father of a friend of mine having just died. Wriggle says friend will be with him when she dies, and maman and papa are going to die, and are we all dying tomorrow? I have been reading another thread about explaining death to a 3-year old.

Roslily - from my lofty viewpoint from the pinnacle of Very Great Age, I cannot begin to list the things in my life that have changed since I was 29. Wait until you are 49 to worry about not having more children Or anything else, for that matter.

I think I had just moved to Germany then ... and was terribly homesick.

T&E - I actually think you are right about releasing vermin, and that humane traps are a great way of giving mice exercise. I have never bothered doing anything about mice, apart maybe from putting my chocolate in a tin, but may have to try poisoning rats again, as there is a population explosion here and they will eat any baby pigeons.

DMC - I was mainly upset the other week as I was unable to go to Swan Lake and I feel that so few things come to Ireland so it made it all the worse to miss it. I think the culture here is all based around drinking. Nothing wrong with drinking, but I think a capital city should have more than just pubs! Ok, rant over !!

RS - where were you watching things give birth?!

Daisy - I hesitate to disagree with someone who is not only The Queen but also the Lord Chief Justice and probably also Obi Wan Kenobi, but those good people at DEFRA say, a propos the grey squirrel, that it is illegal to release grey squirrels or to allow them to escape into the wild. So, once trapped, squirrels have to be dispatched. I thought this applied to all vermin but I'm now guessing that it's different for mice as presumably there wouldn't be humane traps on the market if one then had to whack the little blighters on the head.

Oops. That post missed its slot by about 30 minutes.

re whacking them on the head. I'm assured by DH that the easy way its to grasp by tail and swing head against solid wall fast. he used to put out of their misery mice that had been "played with" by his land lords cat.

Little mousie brown has thus far remained in the garden hedge at this house. providing entertainment through our kitchen window as he/she/they clamber about the hedge to reach the fat balls I put out for birds.

The List of Things I Have Learnt From Mumsnet

273. Most efficient way to dispatch a mmouse.

always happy to provide a service...

May I return the favour?