Trouble with entry as child of tree_item

[Nobody <gtk fleetingimage com>]

Hello, I'm new to this list and fairly new to gtk.
Please forgive me if my question is not new, though
I didn't find an answer in the FAQ.

I'm using a tree widget to browse a hierarchy of data
and I want to be able to edit data values. To do this,
I'm building value-editing widgets as the "leaf-nodes"
of the tree widget.

I'm having trouble putting a "spin" box inside a tree widget.
I create a frame with a couple of spin boxes and add this as
the child of a tree item.

It displays fine, and I can control the values in the
spin using the arrow buttons, but have the following artifacts:
  
  * Text in the entry fields is selectable, but not editable.

  * When the tree item is "selected" the font color is inverted
    (to white) and the fill color is set to dark blue on the tree.
    However, the fill on the spin entries stays white making the
    text illegible. (white on white)

  * "tab" behavior doesn't allow me to switch between fields of
    the frame I have embedded in the tree. It is focused on the tree.
 
The first problem is the biggest. These fields are editable when
I pack the widget somewhere other than as a tree item child.

The second problem I've gotten around by sending a "deselect"
signal whenever the item is selected. (Is there a way of making
children of trees receive events but NOT cause selection???)

Advice is appreciated.

(I'm using gtk+-1.2.4 driven by pygtk-0.6.2 on a Mandrake 6.1 box.)

TIA,

Scott