Toys in space

Archaeologist Husband noticed something in the web that made me think how some parents are somewhat more ambitious than we are. In addition, while we are trying to make our late developer to repeat and use simple words and progress with fuller sentences, at the preschool Number One Mates are already practising alphabet. Needless to say that Number One Son’s photo or copied letters have not made the wall, yet.

I have written about Alex’s love of certain toys, especially, his continuous affection for Lightning McQueen, the toy car. He is not the only little boy – or girl – with a close attachment to a piece of plastic. Thomas the Tank Engines and Peppa Pigs fill the rooms of Number One Mates. However, not every father decides to send their son’s favourite toy into space.

Stanley goes into space

Ron Fugelseth, a video producer from California, attached Stanley, one of the friends of the above mentioned Thomas the Tank Engine, to a weather balloon and sent it into space. Well, at least into the stratosphere. The balloon had a video camera and a GPS-enabled cellphone attached to it throughout the journey. Thus, Ron had video evidence for the whole trip. The entire flight took the engine about 18 miles high. The attachment of the cellphone allowed Ron and his son to relocate Stanley in a cornfield 27 miles away from the point of departure. Ron videoed duly the encounter between his son and Stanley and could capture the love this little boy has towards his favourite toy.

Naturally, Ron put all the footage together and edited it into a funny short film he uploaded onto YouTube. Since Ron can also make animations, he also created lively facial expressions on toy Stanley’s face. It is pure joy to watch, hits the spot, but makes you feel just that little bit of inadequate... Maybe Archaeologist Husband wants to have a ‘Man Project’ with Number One Son!

Water beast

Number One Son has been ‘swimming’ since he was three. He is really in his element in the water and a visit to the seaside in Jersey proved it. We visited Number One greatgrandmother and stayed on St Brelade Beach. With our happy water beast we did not make any longer trips on the island but explored daily the waves and the shifting water line on the beach.

Number One could spent hours just running into the water, facing the waves against his legs and then running back to the firm sand smoothened by the tide away from the water. He could continue running excitedly back and forth until his legs turned all purple and he had to be dragged away from the waves. He only realised he was shivering when he felt the body warmth of his father.

The beach not only has marvellous soft white sand but also a few granite outcrops. Around one of these tide left a few shallow water pools where it was easy to play. Seaweed and the small stones they were attached to offered additional entertainment, since they could be hurdled into the water and fetched again. The outcrops also provided some suitable low climbs for our future Hillary.

The hotel we were put into had a swimming pool and a spa section, which meant and we could enjoy a couple swims there – to the mild annoyance of the older gentlemen trying to swim distance on the other side of the pool. Number One Son could also revisit his Finnish heritage and stay in a warm sauna with his parents. I tried to keep him away from the Jacuzzi but at one point an older lady enjoyed her relaxing time there and Archaeologist Husband could not hide the existence of the bubble bath any longer. The warm water and the bubbles gave Number One Son further joy on top of his splashes in the normal pool as a true waterboy.

Table manners

Toddlers can be very fussy eaters. Trying to make them eat a varied, healthy diet can lead to unintended consequences. Whereas Number One Aunt insisted from the start that Number One Cousin always eats at the table, I took a more liberal stand after it became clear that Number One Son deserted the dining room table and fidgeted with the offered food. Thus, I took the plates to the living room and created one more ‘couch potato’ eater. He also took into running between the table and his favourite cartoons. Even when the television was switched off!

The need to improve the table manners and eat more often at the same table as a family was made even clearer during the summer holidays and family visits. Since we were eating unusually often out, we had to face the difficulties resulting from our lax ways. Definitely our son was not behaving like those French children who are expected to behave like adults from a young age. No, it is more like a face red with tomato sauce and spaghetti shreds layered both on the table and beside it.

With a fuzzy eater the choice of grub at a restaurant is even more important than at home. Number One Son is known to refuse to eat same food on consecutive days. He wants to have variety. Thus, it could not be spag bol every time. However, for some reason the child-friendly foods they seem to want to eat are suspiciously like general comfort foods. One day Number One Son was scoffing French fries, the other he was making a true mess with :ragù.

Back home the sausages are a favourite when choosing from a children’s menu. Tube pasta is easier to eat than spaghetti but getting our using consistently his fork seems to be stretching it. He knows we insist but he keeps ignoring us. With a visit to his greatgrandmother’s just around the corner, we should probably up our game.

Love of objects

A mother is traditionally made feel guilty about leaving her child for a long day in the nursery. Number One’s normal day there is about 10 hours. I duly take him in exactly after 7.30 am and collect him about quarter to six. A few times I have had to run in order to be in the nursery before that magical boundary of 6 pm.

Nothing prepared us for the disappointment Number One Son had when he was not taken to the nursery on a Saturday. He threw a mini-tantrum but by Sunday he had luckily forgotten the matter. However, we immediately realised what had caused this sudden response. Number One Son recently moved upstairs to the pre-school premises and encountered new play environment. There are also new toys, among which it turned out a ten-year old McQueen from the original Pixar’s Cars movie.

Nevertheless, this McQueen is a blue Dynaco one (you know if you have seen the movie – if you have not you probably are not a parent...). Thus, he can separate his time with a red McQueen at home and a blue one in the nursery. He has a strong emotional attachment for both car toys and he keeps looking them. One day I left him looking for the car with a nursery assistant.

As an archaeologist one rarely gets a more direct reminder of all those theoretical treatise about the importance of material objects in human cultural encounters. Objects are given value and they may even act as living creatures in some relationships. Number One Son’s cars have discussions with each other, and even if we did not allow him to take the red McQueen in the nursery in the fear he may lose it he clearly would like to present the red and the blue car to each other. In his mind they are real and any misplacement is sorely felt.

Simple things

You buy your child complicated toys and what do they like best? Yes, stones and sticks. On our trip to Rome Number One Son found endless fun with dried out oranges in the garden. He piled all oranges up in a heap and ‘classified’ them by excluding all too rotten ones. Those with visible oozing brown holes had to go. We hope this interest can be directed towards biology or similar discipline in the future and does not suggest we have managed to bring up another archaeologist. That would have a severe effect to our ‘pension plan’.

Another simple joy (photo by Archaeologist Husband)

Number One Son also showed interest in santpietrini, reversedly-positioned pyramid-shaped stones that have been used to cobble Rome’s historic pavements. While Italian toddlers were sitting quietly in a stroller waiting for a bus, our pride and joy insisted in sitting in a small earthy square where a planetree was growing next to the bus stop where we were waiting for a bus every evening. He was playing with a santpietrini stone as if it was a handaxe and then kept covering it with smaller stones and dead leaves, that were plenty, and dust. Alternatively, he was turning and piling the dry leaves along the pavement while waiting.

His real passion is diverted towards stones and gravel. In Rome he sat on a park walk way as soon as we stepped out of the bus and started organising gravel stones in piles – to the entertainment of the Romans sitting on a park bench on a hot August day. More entertainment followed when one or both of us tried to lure Number One Son back to our place of stay.

More gravel was available back in Britain. Number One Son’s grandparents live relatively near Brighton and with his Number One Aunt we visited Hove beach. It was a sunny, if windy day and red flags were plenty. It was no time to let him swim in the sea but he could divert his passion towards the gravel of the beach. He was looking for nice stones, big enough to create a heap that stood apart from smaller gravel. He was clearly also trying the feeling of the gravel under his feet in a true explorer fashion.

End of kidadulthood?

There are moments that symbolise the fact that you have become an adult – and a responsible parent. For years every time I went to Rome me and my friends we headed down the hill to Trastevere and frequented Bar San Calisto, a bar with a certain reputation but visited by everybody from retired ladies having their afternoon tea, families buying ice cream to young couples having a beer with their student friends and local drug addicts. The nights were long and wet but now for the first time I did use their latteria service. They are one of the bars that provide milk outside the shop opening hours. After an early supper I and Archaeologist Husband bought a litre of whole milk and a bottle of white wine. Something for Number One Son and something for the parents who stayed in to look after him while he was sleeping. This one act demonstrated us that we are truly older now.

Bar San Calisto (photograph by Daria)

Travelling during the hottest time of the year with a toddler changed the rhythm and the extent of our travels. Since we were on a hill slightly outside the centre of Rome overlooking the city on the western side of the Tiber, we stuck to Trastevere and did not even try to reach any famous squares in the old city centre with Number One Son. Forum Romanum would have been murder; it is a true sun trap. I ventured farther away for some work-related tasks but as a family, we descended the hill and looked for an early evening meal.

We did have a supper around 5.30 pm, which meant that our selection of open restaurants was not great. We were stuck with the ones offering the all-afternoon opening hours that are directly targeted to the tourist market. The food was not necessarily great and service was sometimes lacking but these restaurants did not exist ten years ago so one has to be grateful one can eat somewhere else than McDonalds. They clearly have changed the eating landscape, since one of the traditional Trastevere pizzerias, Ivo, was open for business already at 6 pm instead of the more usual 7 pm on our last night.

Ashby Castle, knights and a three-year-old

We finally made it to a Festival of Archaeology event after the return of Archaeologist Husband. Ashby castle hosted the most child-friendly of the events, the Clash of the Knights. Number One Cousin loves knights and has a costume and Number One Son is not averse to Mike the Knight cartoon. However, neither his concentration nor communication is developed enough to truly appreciate the knights giving a show fight. Unlike Number One Cousin who was mesmerised with her eyes transfixed to the clash.

History alive

An active small boy did find interesting things in a castle. Number One Son really liked to climb up the narrow stairs up to the tower. However, he is unfortunate to have a mother with vertigo, which has developed in adult age. There was no way I would have showed him the view over the edge as Number One Sister-in-Law did. I was not always like this but enjoyed hair-rising climbs as a child. Irritating and embarrassing in an equal measure to feel the panic coming when trying to take a photo from the tower.

The second hit was the tunnel under the castle courtyard. Number One Son was unsure first since it was relatively dark in the room leading to the tunnel but when he realized its true meaning he was happily running back and forth. He also found any stairs upwards more interesting than the clash of the knights. The only times he was interested in the knights was when he wanted to run beyond the ropes lining the safe area for the audience and join the knight performers in their compound.

Preferred activity

The real hit with Number One Son was the huge green in the front of the castle were many visitors were enjoying their picnics. The sunken areas of the past garden gave him an opportunity to make most of the sunny weather. Up and down he ran, following other children every now and then. Up by the blue bells and back down on his backside as long as the adults allowed.