One lump or two?

There is always a first time for everything.

Today was the first time that I had a pretend tea party with Luca.

It's funny how, with having boys, I never figured Luca would be interested in pretend tea parties... I thought it was just a girlie thing and never thought he'd be in to making me a pretend cup of tea. But today this theory of mine was proved to be oh so very wrong!

Because the weather was so flippin cold today I took Luca to the Toy Library play group so we could at least get out of the house. As always he straight away scouted out all the trucks and cars and trains and planes and lined them all up for the first part of the morning.

Then, much to my astonishment, Luca stopped playing with the cars and headed into the area where there is a kiddie-sized kitchen. Intrigued, I followed him over and sat down at the mini-table while he started throwing plastic fruits and vegetables into the pots and pans on the stove, gave them all a good coating of pepper and then sat down and poured himself and me a cup of tea!

So we chatted for a while, drank numerous cups of tea and did many toasts with our teacups to life in general while we waited for the food to cook. Then he was up again, a bit more pepper on the food and then served up man-sized portions for us both. And so we sat down together and shared a meal of plastic food to which he exclaims "Tastes good Mamma!"

I had forgotten how much fun it is to pretend to eat food and drink cups of tea and use the very best of manners while sipping from a miniature teacup. I actually enjoyed it more today, having a tea party with my son, than I ever did when I was young and had tea parties with my friends. And we had great tea parties in the very cool playhouse in our back garden.

But there was something very special about today's tea party - Mamma and son bonded in a new way as he included me in his play. I dare say this will be the first of many tea parties with my sons - HOORAY!!