All that comes with it

“Is that Pa’s boat?”

“No sweetheart, that’s a different boat. Pa’s boat hasn’t got sails.”

“Maybe Pa will go on it. Maybe Pa and Toni and Lucky”

“Lucky has died sweetheart, do you remember? Lucky isn’t here anymore”

“Where is he?”

“He went to sleep and he’s not going to wake up, he‘s resting now.”

“Is he at the kennels? Is he asleep at the kennels and doesn’t want to wake up?”

“…erm. Yeah sweetheart, something like that”

Ok, so I copped out, but it’s quite difficult explaining death to a two year old. Especially when you are trying to avoid falling back on any religious explanations. Maybe that’s how belief systems evolved, as a way of getting out of explaining death to young children. In my darker moments I find myself envisioning how Amy would cope if either Kerry or I died, but I’d rather not dwell on that now.

It must be very hard for Amy to grasp abstract notions like love, death and hope. We’re constantly telling her we love her, and she often says it back, but I’m not convinced she entirely understands. She’s just about got her head around the concept of time; we’re now able to talk about what we are going to do tomorrow without her assuming we will be doing it there and then.

Still, I think she misses Lucky. It’s been around six months since he died and she still talks about him. She also remembers her great grandma who passed away over a year ago; she regularly points her out on pictures and tells us that she’s her “special Nanny”. They say that grief is the price we pay for love, but its probably a good thing that Amy currently gets it for free.

The other night we broke with recent tradition and tried a new cartoon as part of the bedtime routine. Instead of Dora we watched something that Kerry had found on channel 5, Little Einsteins. As far as I could make out its main purpose was to teach preschoolers to distinguish between Schubert’s string quartet in A minor and Beethoven’s piano concerto No. 1 in C major.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for educational children’s programs, but surely there has to be some sort of prioritising process? Call me old fashioned but I’d rather my child learnt to count or recognise colours than be able to identify a harpsichord at twenty paces.

Little Einsteins didn’t just stop at classical music however, it made sure it got in a good dollop of expressionist art in too. At one point they had to go and find some sunshine in order to make a crop of plants fruit into flutes, violas and various other instruments. To do this they took their rocket ship (that was powered by clapping along in time to classical music no less) and visited a landscape that looked suspiciously like Vincent Van Gogh’s Olive Tree’s with Yellow sky and Sun. They then coaxed the sun to follow them back to their farm by playing yet more classical music to it.

The main characters are four pre school children with different nauseating specialities:
Leo, the leader, loves to conduct orchestras (lets face it what six year old doesn’t); June dances ballet; Quincy plays the violin; and Annie likes to sing. Of course all the minorities are included in this line up: African American, Asian American, and ginger people.

As you might be able to tell I didn’t like the show very much. I apologise if it’s top of your own personal recommended watching lists, but to me its just pretentious twaddle. Kids should be learning about whether a cow says moo or baa, not what allegro and pianissimo mean. Don’t people know that we’re supposed to be living in a postmodern era? There isn’t meant to be a class division between high and low art any more, my cultural studies lecturer told me so.

Ah well, perhaps I’m just bitter that there are some children out there who are conditioned into liking nice relaxing classical music, whereas I have to put up with Old MacDonald and the Hokey Cokey every time I take Amy anywhere in the car.