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!...

Thanks UniS - I will definitely have "rizzing" issues cos I can't use bread flour - have to use spelt flour which doesn't have the same glutinous properties (hence why I use it )

There's a wonderful story in my family history that talks of hot cross buns. My grandmother (Mum's mum) was a very good cook... but for some reason the HCB just didn't rise (yeast gone off almost certainly) - after a long time they were cooked anyway - and still didn't rise. Someone had the good idea of cutting them in half and baking them a bit more to be rusk like.... On GFriday, having been out for the day, a 'good idea' was had - rusks and hot drink. My grandmother tucked into one - and broke her plate in half! Visitors over all day Saturday, no spare teeth!!! Dentist was visited at about 9pm or so and managed to botch the plate together to hold over the holiday period until a more permanent solution could be reached

Mistlechick was meant to be getting dressed as I was in the shower this morning - I spotted him doing pelvic thrusts, looking downwards...'stop playing with your willy mistlechick!' 'but I'm not using my hands mummy'

We went to the park after school yesterday as it was lovely here - took his pedal cycle (as opposed to his balance bike - he really is a bit too big now!) - I'd asked him to put his home shoes on, and expected him to have his home coat... oh no, he decided to keep his school shoes and coat on - mud all the way up the back as he's suddenly discovered that he can go fast on his pedal cycle as well as his balance bike! My parents are buying him the bike we tried in Halfords for his birthday - so soon everyone is going to be scattering as his current bike is not exactly state of the art - picked up at an NCT sale, and definitely well-used, but OK for learning to pedal on - his new one will be so much easier!

I had to work very late last night to finalise a report. I stayed up until 4.30am, problem was though that LittleO woke at about 10pm and wouldn't sleep without me there...so he also stayed awake until 4.30am !!!!

He woke this morning at 9.25am, so much earlier than expected. Hopefully I can keep him awake all day so that his normal routine can continue (sleep between 7 and 8pm, wake between 7 and 8am). He has a swimming lesson this afternoon so the main issue is keeping him awake on the 20 min drive back home. He is very chirpy considering the lack of sleep!

Is there any coffee on the aga?!

oh goodness AandO I hate that late night thing, I often work until the wee hours since it is the only time I can guarantee nobody else to be awake, and it's hell when they do! I have spent many an hour lying next to DaisyBoy trying to get him to sleep so I can creep out again.... but it is not unknown for me to work with him wrapped in a duvet on my lap! I somehow don't think many working Dads have this problem, or maybe I am just cynical

Here is the coffee - the elixir of life

I once made HCB. They performed a long and ueful life as rockery bricks. Mr Waitrose has baked them for me ever since

at HCBs as rockery bricks - that reminds me of my ex's grandma, long deceased - her rock buns were just that - nearly broke a tooth on one!

I should be working - I have a limited time to do it and am still playing on MN - why oh why oh why - I have never grown out of it since school, always did homework/revision at the last possible minute, probably why I never achieved as much as I should have. I was always very impressed with friends who had the discipline to do their homework as soon as they got in from school! I used to do mine at 10pm or later...

At least miniThumb went off to sleep at a reasonable time tonight - and he now has a bedroom door! so he's less likely to be disturbed by my tapping or the light.

Hello ladies, sorry I've only just popped in - noticed we are in a horse drawn caravan and unfortunately I'm severely allergic to horses. It's taken some time to track down a full oxygen suit in order to join you but finally, I'm here (takes a ridiculously long time to sit down on cushions due to restricted movement and ends up plummeting to the floor and rolling round like an upturned tortoise!)

With Daisy99divine on the HCB issue - I've got my hands full baking cakes for dd's preschool easter fair tomorrow, could not live with myself if all the little ones lost their milk teeth on my granite like dough!

I know this is an issue that pops up quite frequently but mulling over letting dd do ballet, she's 3 and a wee bit and already at nursery 2 full days a week, preschool 2 mornings and gymtastic once a week (would really like to start swimming lessons too as I think it's a really important skill). Is adding ballet in just a relatively normal schedule for most and am I being a big baby or could we be heading for activity overload?

hi mindy! one of the good things about the tearoom in its many guises is that all allergies etc. are non-existent within its portals, so you may remove your AllinOne body suit.

I can't answer your query in terms of overload but I started ballet at 3 and it was good for me in terms of posture etc. Swimming is a more important safety skill, generally - iirc, ballet was recommended for me because I had a lazy leg (ditto for my bro but he stopped aged 4 or 5, I went on til 15 ).

Mindy - Earl and Lady Grey are anti-allergic, as TW has indicated, so you won't have any problems...

FWIW I think you are heading towards overload... Probably Gymtastic more important at this stage - from what I've seen of ballet, Nursery and Reception aged children really don't manage to do that much! I would say that if she started at 5 or 6 it really wouldn't be much of a catch-up... Although ds has just started Yogabugs as an afterschool activity and I can notice the difference - he can almost stand on one leg now!!!!! Before school the only ones we did were music and swimming.

Oh I do love horses, so this opportunity to don some jodphurs and 'drive them ponies' would be fantastic! (vaults onto the saddles, grabs the reins and several tea room patrons spill their Darjeeling as we hurtle off across the fields)

Gymtastic stops at 5 anyway so perhaps that would be the better handover point anyway. She's just about to start the class where she goes in on her own and she loves the ladies that run it so it's probably a good opportunity for her to get used to doing that type of class on her own before the 'formality' of ballet. Thanks mistlethrush as you've led me to a train of thought that I hadn't explored before.

Mr Waitrose is always more reliable imo.

Back now - and DH has departed to do 'networking' . We are like ships in the night atm.

Off to do washing now - back later

Mindy, DD started ballet at ... counts 3.8. She's now just turned 6, still doing it, is not noticeably better as far as I can tell than her little mate who started six weeks ago. She's always enjoyed it though, which is the main thing.

She was at nursery three days a week when she started, and had been doing a trampolining lesson since just after turning 3. The school advised no after school activities during Reception as they would be tired, but I wasn't going to stop her in her tracks just because they said so, so we proceeded with caution ... absolutely no problem.

For a few weeks this term she's had Rainbows, a before-school dance club, trampolining, after-school art club, ballet, and a swimming lesson, and she is only EVER tired when she WANTS to be (I am tired all the time!)

DCMB! Think it's as much a case of my stamina as hers! But good tip on the ballet front as I'm not sure she's bothered either way at the moment so no problems putting it off for a while.

She's not got a hope with the no after school activities front though, dh is super sporty and already out in the garden practising her golf swing and tennis skills! Apparently there's much less competition for girls on the golf and tennis tours so he has high hopes

BTW there will be no competitive dad antics in this house, did anyone catch Trophy Skids on channel 4 - sports obsessed parents and their poor little offspring? It was totally heartbreaking, was a little too close to home for dh and he was crying his heart out(he was a very promising junior tennis champ - now only plays for fun but still has the tennis bottom which is a bonus ) www.channel4.com/programmes/trophy-kids

that we now have sporting Gods as well as history media Gods as DHs in the Tearoom!

I feel a bit because DaisyBoy doesn't do anything really except bucket about and loll. No bike, no balance bike, no classes of any type. We play ball outside and go swimming as a family most weekends but no formal lessons. He only does 3 mornings of nursery at which he does ballet and music (but I think it's very much "ballet" wobble wobble rush around and fall - nothing that Carlos Acosta would recognise )

I think being in central london you can get a bit allergic to sort of Excelt Spread Sheet Mums who are used to putting in 60 hours weeks in mechant banks and set about their sprogs with attainment targets, 360 reviews, billable hours, the lot!

I think DaisyBoy would really like a ballet class but the local one to us is quite intimidating and I haven't plucked up the courage to phone yet!!!

Milk goes to school 5 times a week and spends the rest of the time in Milkland...

Next year after careful research of clubs and activities I think she will do a music and movement club but that is all... but, but, but... then I am also keen on art club and I have a friend who wants to teach her piano and a gardening club would be very wholesome and something that involves using her English would be good too, she loves animals so horse riding could be nice... and and and...

I am trying to be careful to make sure she has time to be rather than spending too much time being told to hurry up... hurry up... because we've got to get to X Y and Z!!!!! One club is my aim next year. ONE!

Daisy - I am glad you like CCC I was secretly in a panic you would all go.. as everyone's tastes are different and am delighted you went !

AandO - I would love to see a link to the breastfeeding thread you speak of. IMVHO what you said does ring true in ambience for Paris Mums although I don't know the specifics in terms of law and statistics.

DD and I both have a tendency to fall into bit of a trance if not made to Do Stuff - me on the laptop and her in front of the television. I did feel a bit like I'd turned into Pushy Mum last year, but it's more bearable since she moved up a class in ballet - she had a 3.35 class before, ten minutes down the road, after finishing school at 3.00 (in theory, but always being the last out of the door at about 3.10) ... it drove me crazy. Now her class is 4.10 and it's soooo much more chilled. Trampolining now drives me crazy instead - next town, ending at 5.30 so we hit the rush hour. Rainbows I like, five minutes' walk there and three back (I walk fast when DD-less), approx 54 minutes at home staring into space.

Tea - I can't remember where I saw the thread, but Catita read it too, perhaps she remembers? I was surprised by it, I tend to think of France as a progressive place, and the limited maternity leave doesn't seem to fit with that.

Jacksmamma - For years I sneezed loads when I drank, after a while it got to the point where I'd think oh I'd like wine but it's not worth the hours of sneezing and runny nose and general feeling of having a head cold. Then it escalated and I began to have a breathing difficulty when I had a drink. I would have to keep clearing my throat, and concentrate on breathing in order to feel that I was getting enough air in. Once it was so bad that I couldn't go to bed and had to stay sitting up very straight for hours to help me breathe. I went to the drs the next day! I was advices not to drink for a month and then do allergy testing. Stopped drinking but did not do allergy testing - due to cost. Now drink only less frequently and very cautiously. But it's no where near as bad as it was before I went off the alcohol for a month, at that point before I'd finished a glass of wine I'd have restricted breathing, now it only kicks in after three glasses, at which point I stop. I also always have antihistimine with me. It's a pain!!

LittleO has preschool four mornings a week, goes from there to his childminders three afternoons a week, and has swimming class one afternoon a week.

If he didn't go to a childminders and instead came home to me or dh I'd probably add on one more class. I'd like him to join sea scouts when he is old enough (6 I think). Part of me thinks that a music lesson would be good, but that would be one of those 'I wish I'd learned an instrument myself and so I'll get my kid to learn one' type things ! Any experience of music lessons and what age to start these things? I suppose the child has to be really into it though, or else it could be just cruel !

I think at his school they take recorder and then start violin at about age 8 or perhaps 7.

Oooooh oooooh ooooooh - I am currently doing some research for ideas for Princess Milk's birthday... In my research I came across this... LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN!!! (A story is so good by a flickering campfire!)

www.robertmunsch.com/playstory.cfm?bookid=40

AIBU to have got butterflies at the end, immediately played it again, e-mailed it tomy Mum and saved it???

T42 - here is the link you asked for to the thread that involves French attitudes to bf'ing etc. It would have been hard to find from the title!

Interesting - thanks!

at Daisy's Excel Spread Sheet Mums who are used to putting in 60 hours weeks in merchant banks and set about their sprogs with attainment targets, 360 reviews, billable hours, the lot!

Hasn't the Children's Commissioner just said something similar about putting children's happiness before their attainments?

TrowelGirl has a lot of activities. She was about 3 when she started ballet. If you have one child, it is easier (too easy? discuss) to enrol them in lots of activities as you don't have to juggle one child's rugby with another child's clarinet lesson. But TrowelGirl is rather like DCMGirl, in that she would happily spend every waking hour transfixed by the TV so I'm glad of almost anything which isn't screen-based.

Mindy - Dare I ask what a tennis bottom is? I guess it's not a symptom of tennis elbow?

Bolly, anyone?

Have always taken a fairly relaxed attitude to ds's life. Toddler group, NCT group, but those were very laid-back "just play" things (well, we were laid-back, some of the other mums were very but hey ho. Then judo for a while, then he decided for himself that he wanted to be sports-mad and play for two rugby teams, two football teams and two tennis teams (!). Well, there's only so much sport a woman can take, so some of those had to go...but it was him making his choices and me holding him back from the madder ones, really.

I read somewhere that children who can't entertain themselves and who can't cope with being bored for a bit actually fare worse than those who have been frog-marched through attainment targets and activities-whether-they-like-it-or-not their whole lives.

I'm also reminded of many of our clients at work, who probably dropped out of school altogether and several of whom cannot read and write. They're all millionaires. The direct link between "targets and grades = wealth and success in all things" isn't very direct at all. What mattered was their belief in themselves and their ability to find people who can do the things they can't, I think.

hello all!
Have had a nice day out to Sydney today, met two lovely MNers (expats) and had a very civilised lunch at the Sydney Opera house Bar, followed by a milkshake at the Guylian café.

Am likely to follow amber's style of laid-backness when it comes to miniThumb's activities - two a week is about my limit. Swimming and gymbabes/tumbletots in the UK; now 2 playgroups here (tuesday and thursday). When he gets a bit bigger (say 4) he'll be doing tennis and football, if MrThumb gets his way! At some point I will have to up the ante to 3 a week as some form of musical activity will probably be necessary as well but no rush.

MiniThumb has no choice about being bored - we have taken the "drastic" step of refusing to entertain him on long car journeys; he has a couple of toys and maybe a book or two, plus when he gets terribly fed up we sing songs with him, but he is encouraged to look out the windows at what is going by for his entertainment. (I am consequently somewhat peed off that MrThumb's company car, being a Mazda 6 estate, has high back windows that poor miniThumb can barely see out of - very annoying when we're trying to show him the "skippies" at the local mental institution.) I believe this to be good for him - he gets to use his own imagination and observation skills for entertainment. We'll see in a few years time, hey!

We are off for an experiment in being bored shortly - my parents have had DD overnight, we are meeting them for lunch and to collect her. Because she's not actually with us right now, DH is almost certain to forget to take some toys for her over lunch - something I wish he WOULDN'T do, as she's six years old and quite capable of having a conversation, looking around, playing I-Spy if necessary. I haven't taken anything other than some colouring or a book out with us since she was 2, but DH is a bit stuck in his ways. She's actually very good at entertaining herself, if need be - when my parents were last away she and I went up to check on their house, and I had to drag her away after an hour and a half cos she was just pootling around doing her own thing.

I had an actual real life glass of Bolly last night, at the start of my two Michelin-starred dinner. Ah. It was sooooo good. And ended up with me sitting for half an hour in front of the last two delciious looking petits fours and being physically unable to eat them. Now I want them back ...

Good morning all - just taking two minutes out from work to pop in and say hi.

Could you all come over to this thread and help me reassure DH re toddler behaviour? Thank you!