IKEA still life #1

When I was ten years old my father bought me a present of a small microscope which he brought around our house himself. He wanted to demonstrate how to use it and he pricked his finger with some clippers and put a tiny blood drop between two very thin sheets of glass. He secured them with the clips and placed them under the microscope. He focused it properly and then we looked and saw tiny little things, looking a bit like small creatures and a bit like pomegranate seeds, pushing each other around. Then he sliced a carrot very thinly and we looked at its fine lines, like wood grain under the microscope too. He said that each carrot's designs were unique, just like the designs on each snowflake are unique.

I just finished reading a book a friend bought for me, called French Children Don't Throw Food by Pamela Druckerman. In this book the author, who is American with a British partner, discusses the way French parents bring up their children and the differences in parenting styles between the French and the anglophones. By anglophones the writer mainly refers to British and American parents. She is basing her observations on her own experience of bringing up her children in Paris and on extensive research. The book is very interesting and highly entertaining. In this book I came across, for the first time, the term "helicopter parenting". The term refers to parents who tend to hover a lot over their children most of the time, even when the children are playing happily in a safe environment. They tend to help the children out a lot while they play and do something like a "live commentary" of what is happening while it is happening. Apparently this is more common amongst older parents and anglophone parents. Younger parents and French parents in the book, tend to let the children get on with it and explore and learn by playing amongst themselves or by themselves, in a safe environment. 

I guess pretend play and toys that facilitate pretend play exist in order to allow younger children to play while learning about everyday tasks and situations in a safe way. For example a toy cooker, utensils and fake food will let a child "prepare", "cook" and "eat" the food and even set up a little restaurant without the hazards and dangers of a real kitchen and utensils and without the worry of hygiene issues regarding food. There are countless toys that facilitate and promote pretend play and while they are a great way for children to learn about real skills, they also trigger their imaginations the deeper they submerge into pretend play scenarios. Ikea has a series of soft fabric toys of baskets and trays, some including vegetables, some fruits and some fish. They are very reasonably priced and Aretousa has had hours of great play out of them, pretending to cook them, eat them, feed them to dolls and so on.  

I have realised by now that I have an issue with things and toys not being "real". It is not a very reasonable issue nor is it a very coherent one. I had this problem before I had Aretousa with other things. For example, in theatre, if I could get a real piece of wood I much preferred using that than making a wood effect on a piece of cardboard. Or if we needed a small piece of stone, I would go out of my way to find one rather than make one out of polystyrene with an added effect. Of course that is neither always popular with colleagues, nor possible, nor always safe, nor economical for that matter. And it goes against one of theatre's main traits, which is artificiality. So I conformed with it,  but it always bothered me. Of course I am not going to let a child play in the kitchen, but surely they could play with real vegetables as well as with fakes ones? Under supervision?

Ikea basket with fabric vegetables

basket with the same real vegetables  

I normally don't do that "helicopter parenting" thing, but yesterday the fake toy issue took over me and I put together a basket with the exact same vegetables as the Ikea one. One lettuce, two mushrooms, two tomatoes, a leek, half a cucumber, a garlic and three carrots. I firstly just let Aretousa play with both the real and fake ones.

toy leek and real leek

 real lettuce and toy lettuce

toy cucumber and real cucumber

Then I sliced some of the vegetables vertically and some horizontally to show Aretousa how they look inside. She was trying to eat everything though.

tomatoes

garlic

mushrooms

Then I did some "helicopter parenting" and was explaining a lot about what I was doing and what each vegetable was, how it grew and what we usually do with it, but I think the most fun Aretousa had was manipulating them, smelling them and feeling them. And tasting them.

leek hoops

more leek hoops

Our bathroom has no window, so when you close the door it's absolutely darkness. Aretousa loves to go in there in the dark and we use a torch to make shadows on the wall and ceiling from holes in a cardboard book. We also light a lantern with a small candle inside and watch the colours in the dark. Yesterday I put thin vegetable slices on a perspex and then lit it from underneath with the torch. 

carrot 1

carrot 2

carrot 3

cucumber

tomato

And then we ate

minestrone soup