Papa Piccolo

This week we read Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley. It's a FIAR text which tells the moving story of a Venetian tomcat who adopts two stray kittens.



We hadn't discussed Venice before and this story was a great way to introduce it. The story and the illustrations centre around the canals and water transport. The Grand Canal, annual Regatta and Rialto Bridge feature in the illustrations and there is talk of many forms of water transport - laundry barges, garbage barges, police motor boats, gondolas and water taxis.



We talked about how we may feel living in a place like Venice. Hermione thought it would be a good thing that there would be less cars but a bad thing that you can't just walk out wherever you feel. She said she wouldn't like to live in a house where the water came right to the front of the house - she would miss having a garden.

Piccolo doubted whether he could look after kittens because he wasn't a 'mama cat'. We talked about gender differences in parenting. Hermione felt it was fine for a male cat or person to be a single parent although she did go on to say that Dads are best for going on roller coasters. I can live with that.

We looked at more pictures of canals, The Bridge of Sighs and gondolas. We placed our story disc on the map.

The kittens were initially without a home. We talked about people with no homes and wondered why this should be and how it can happen. Decided not to wade in too deep here but we did agree that poverty was probably one of the main factors and that this could come about through lots of reasons - not being able to find a job, not being able to get the right sort of help when needed, having certain illness and having been born into poverty and homelessness.

Hermione painted a picture of Papa Piccolo.



Hermione really enjoyed this book and so did I. It reminded me of my own trip to Venice and I'm afraid to say I probably did drone on about that quite a bit. I really hope it is a place we will visit as a family one day.

My photography really doesn't do it justice but here is Hermione's glass creation which she made last week. I'm impressed.



We made elderberry cordial today. Having raided the elderberry bushes we washed them, placed them in a big pan with just enough water to cover them and stewed them for ten minutes.



We then strained off the liquid and added 1 lb sugar and ten cloves to each pint. I can't believe how much sugar we used! We didn't even have enough in the house. Craig had to make a quick dash to the Co-op.



We then stirred and boiled for a further ten minutes before decanting it into sterilised bottles.

Hmm, I guess that's it for that wooden spoon....



Well, the recipe I followed is reported to keep winter coughs and sneezes at bay. Let's hope it does.

Birthday Boy

I think Miles has really enjoyed his birthday. I wasn't sure that he would understand that it was a special day relating only to him, but he appeared to. He even patted his chest when they sang the birthday song on children's tv.

It didn't take him long to get to grips with the wrapping paper.



He got a lights and sounds digger and tractor, some first stage mechano, toy animals, a book, clothes, jigsaw, a velcro pizza and a really basic remote controlled car. Hermione has spent almost all day playing with the mechano and Miles has busied himself with the jigsaw and the pizza which can be sliced up then put back together again.



The clothes were from my sister and brother in law in Canada. A really gorgeous Whinnie the Pooh outfit which he insisted on wearing today although we weren't going anywhere in particular.



Needless to say we all ate cake - a rather pathetic effort which I iced very late last night rather bleary eyed.



In many ways he seems so grown up now, choosing his own clothes, asking to go to particular places, laughing and playing with Hermione. On the other hand he's still my carried, co-sleeping, breastfeeding baby.

Happy Birthday to Miles!

This time two years ago I was feeling excited, anxious and a little odd. It was a strange night with not a lot of sleep. Tomorrow Miles will be two years old. He arrived not long after noon following a morning of roaming around the local streets, hanging onto gateposts and an hour or so hanging onto the sides of a birthing pool. Here he is, minutes old, still awaiting the arrival of his placenta.



Happy birthday baby! I love you!

The weather has been quite mild this week. A far cry from the blazing sun of summer but still warm enough to be outdoors for long periods.

We have visited Chester le Street Riverside Park twice with a picnic, supplemented with chips from the kiosk.



It's a wonderful space there. Excellent play area, paddling pool, green open space, riverside walk, ducks, swans, toilet facilities, shop and more. The play area is mainly on sand which keeps Miles very busy while Hermione can let off steam charging around the play equipment.



Today Hermione and Nana headed off to The National Glass Centre to meet with a couple of other home educating families in a workshop. They made sandcast moulds which were filled with molten glass. Their creations will be ready to collect later this week.

I was really saddened this morning to read a post on a local home ed list from the mother of Kassy Harris, the talented young artist who drew the picture on the front of this issue of the EO Children's Pages. Apparently an official from EO called her today to tell her that there have been numerous complaints about the picture, stating that it is 'erotic' and a 'paedophiles delight'.

In my pre child life working as a solicitor I encountered more paedophiles than most folks can reasonably wave a big stick at. I talked with them at length, I read reams of psychiatric reports, theories and treatment plans. This detailed insight into the world of paedophilia left me with more questions than answers. I found it impossible to draw any reasonable conclusions as to the whys and wherefores of paedophilia. The only thing I did deduce with any certainly is that it is an extremely complex process or condition, call it what you will. The causes, incidents and rehabilitation are far from simple.

To suggest that pictures such as Kassys will have any impact whatsoever on the world of paedophilia is to my mind absurd. This isn't about art or paedophilia, it's about us, parents. It's about what we perceive to be threats and what we perceive to be solutions. It's about trying to simplify something and place it in a neat little box with defined causes and effects. Life would be a lot less scary if we could do that but paedophilia is not that simple.

I may be sounding rather blase here. I'm not. I'm a fully paid up member of the paranoid parenting posse. The garden gate is always securely padlocked. The security cameras covering the whole external space surrounding our home record twenty four hours a day. I would never go and let my six year old open the door unless I had already looked out of the window to see who it was. I have sleepless nights thinking of when the time will come that I should let her go out alone.

Comments such as that which have been made about Kassys art work are very damaging -damaging to Kassy and her family. The likelihood of the picture causing harm by way of escalating paedophilia tendencies is so remote as to not be worth contemplating. I hope this won't deter Kassy from going on to develop the talent she obviously has.