I think it’s a great example of how good baby led weaning is for promoting dexterity in babies. Just check out the determination to pick up that pea! And the satisfaction at the end! I love it!

But then I heard Minister Joan Burton being interviewed about the issue and she said approximately 4000 children a year are registered with no father’s name on the birth certificate. Reading the commentary online today, there were quite a few arguments defending this practice citing abusive partners and rape cases. Fine…but 4000 of them a year??? If those are really the main reasons for refusing to name the father on the birth certificate then we have a far bigger problem than this legislation on our hands, because clearly we have a national epidemic of abuse cases. I’d like the see the statistics to back that up, because I just don’t believe those are the true motivations for most women who choose not to register the father’s name.

It seems to me – and here I’m going on stories I’ve personally heard or cases I’ve encountered – that there are other more likely reasons for this refusal to register a father’s name. The most controversial reason of course is a fear of losing an entitlement to Lone Parents’ Allowance. That’s probably worth a blog post in its own right, but briefly, I refuse to accept this as a sufficient reason for denying your child the right to their father’s name on their birth certificate, and denying a man his right to be acknowledged as the father of his own child. You’re either entitled to Lone Parent’s Allowance or you’re not, and recognizing the name of the child’s father shouldn’t change that.

I would also imagine there are cases where the mother chooses not to name the father on the birth certificate because she doesn’t want him to be involved – perhaps they’re no longer together, or she didn’t know him very well, or it was a brief fling that she regrets and she doesn’t want to be tied to him for the next 18 years, or maybe she wanted a baby but not an interfering father. Who knows? Maybe she did want the father involved, but he denied the paternity of the baby when she told him and she doesn’t see why he should be named if he won’t even acknowledge the child. Or of course she may not know who he is at all.

In many cases, the concerns of the mother may be perfectly valid. But I would argue that these concerns are not sufficient to deny a child the right to know who his or her biological father is. This legislation is about the child after all. A birth certificate is a legal document and the only reason Unknown should ever be recorded in place of the father’s name is when the father is truly unknown and a serious effort has been made to determine his identity. I know every so often an ad shows up online or in a newspaper from a woman looking to get in touch with a man she met on such a night in such a club or at such a house party. At least she’s trying to find the father and inform him he has a child (or an STD – but that’s another story…).

I don’t think this legislation should be introduced without the inclusion of a provision for paternity tests, however. If a woman names a man as the father of a child, and he denies or doubts her word, he should be entitled to a paternity test to confirm. Likewise, if a man claims a child is his, but the mother denies it, he should be entitled to a test. And if it’s positive, he should be entitled to have his name added to the birth certificate retrospectively.

More than that, I strongly believe that this legislation should only be a starting point. I believe a child should have the right to know both of his or her parents. Right now, we have a bizarre system where a mother has automatic parental rights – but a father has no such rights unless he is married to the mother. Where is the equality in that? Where is the fairness – for the father or for the child?

If the father poses a threat, or if his presence in the child’s life would be detrimental to the child, then apply to have the father’s rights removed. But do not deny those rights by default, and force fathers to have to fight for the most basic of rights like access.

For far too long, it’s been a case of guilty until proven innocent for fathers in this country. If a mother decides to deny a father access to his child, unless he is married to the mother, or has specifically sought guardianship of the child, there is little the father can do. Why is this?

The only reason I can see why we tolerate this situation is that our society undervalues the role of the father in a child’s life. How often do discussions of parenting turn into discussions about motherhood, completely ignoring fatherhood? It’s time we started to recognise that although fathers may parent differently to mothers, their parenting is still valid, it’s still important, and it should still be respected. It’s time that the decision as to whether or not a father should be acknowledged and allowed access to his child was decided based on his relationship with the child, and the benefit to the child of growing that relationship, and not on his relationship with the mother.

And so I was glad to hear of this proposed legislation, and I hope it’s just the first step in recognising that children deserve to know who their father is, and they deserve the opportunity to build a relationship with that father.

Edited to add: A commenter on Facebook has pointed out that I have not accounted for cases where the father refuses to accompany the mother to sign the birth registration form and therefore his name cannot be registered. And because of that I have unfairly put all of the blame on the mother. She is right – I hadn’t considered this situation and I should have. But I hope very much that in this situation the legislation provides support for those women and children and includes a method to deal with registering the father’s name in these cases. Thanks for pointing this out Tanya.

I’ve come to accept that I’ll never be wordless and I’ll never manage a true Wordless Wednesday post, so I’ve introduced my Wednesday Window posts instead. Wednesday Window offers a little snapshot of life in our house this week. The post contains a photo or photos taken this week and a sentence or three about it! If you have a Wednesday Window of your own that you’d like to share, be sure to leave a link in the comments below.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, we’re busy working on a volcano at the moment. So far, it’s been a lot of sticky wallpaper paste-y fun. A little too much, because even today, the inside of the volcano was still tacky to the touch, so it looks like it will be Saturday before we get painting. I don’t know how Little Man feels about it, but I can’t wait!

But I must admit, I’m starting to wonder who we’re really entertaining here. Little Man’s attention lasts about 15 or 20 minutes and then he leaves Mammy and Daddy to it while he wanders off to play with something else! Yesterday as I finished off gluing the newspaper strips to a soon-to-be papier mâché volcano, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking. “Great, that’s the parents occupied for the next half hour or so, now I can play!”

Maybe not though, because the first thing he asked when we got home today was if the volcano was dry yet so we could paint it. Perhaps it’s not all just about keeping Mammy and Daddy entertained!

Incidentally, it wasn’t dry, so we have to wait another day before we can finish it off! I may have overdone it on the wallpaper paste.

You need:

• One empty kitchen roll tube
• Two sheets of coloured felt
• Fabric glue

To make the spyglass, decide which colour felt sheet will form the main colour of the spyglass, and simply apply some fabric glue to that sheet and wrap it around the tube. I trimmed off the excess, but if you wanted to allow it to overlap, I’m sure that would work just fine too!

Then cut two strips of your second colour felt – one thick and one thin. Apply fabric glue to both of them and wrap the thick strip around the very end of the tube, forming the end of the spyglass. Wrap the thin strip about an inch in from the opposite end of the spyglass. And that’s it! Wait for it to dry, and you’re ready to play!

Little Man ripped it open and was delighted to discover a set of Seaside Sidekicks Nesting Pails – brightly coloured buckets numbered 1 to 4. Of course, he immediately wanted to play with them, but it was pouring rain outside, so the beach was out of the question. “Let’s test them in the water,” I suggested, and he happily agreed. So I popped him into a bubble bath with his new buckets, where he had great fun figuring out that if you poured water from the yellow bucket into the red bucket, it overflowed, but water from the blue bucket wouldn’t fill the green bucket to the top.

The weather finally improved enough on Monday for us to take a trip to the beach. Granted, it was a trip in wellies and wet gear, but we still got to play on the beach. We made sandcastles of course! And we were all impressed to see how well the shapes on the top of each bucket came out on our castles. These buckets are an ideal size for a toddler – not too heavy when they’re full, so Little Man was able to turn them over and make castles himself. The only one he needed some help with was the largest yellow bucket.

And when we were finished, we could just stack them all together, ready for home. These brightly coloured buckets feel sturdy and durable, and because they stack, they don’t take up much space in the boot of the car. I’m a big fan of products that encourage learning through play, and these certainly do. They reinforce colours, help teach numbers one to four, and help toddlers learn about sizes. Oh and they make a great sandcastle!

They are available for €12.95 from the VintageKids.ie website: Seaside Sidekicks Nesting Pails And while you’re over on the site checking them out, be sure to check out a few of the other great summer toys that we spotted, like the Seaside Sidekicks Sand Baking Set and the Speck Seahorse Sand Ice Cream Set.

Disclosure
We received the Seaside Sidekicks Nesting Pails free for the purposes of this review. However, I received no other compensation, and my opinions are honest and my own.

I’ve come to accept that I’ll never be wordless and I’ll never manage a true Wordless Wednesday post, so I’ve introduced my Wednesday Window posts instead. Wednesday Window offers a little snapshot of life in our house this week. The post contains a photo or photos taken this week and a sentence or three about it! If you have a Wednesday Window of your own that you’d like to share, be sure to leave a link in the comments below.

Summertime in Ireland – you gotta love it right. Cloudless skies, sunny days, the feel of the warm sandy beach between your toes… Oh…if only…

But still, we can’t sit around waiting for the sun to come out to make the most of our local beach, so this week, it was out with the wellies (aren’t they nice?!) and off for an afternoon of fun in between the rain showers.

What have you been up to this first week of Irish summer?

But on this occasion I accepted because since Easter Little Man’s skin has been a mess. His stomach and back were covered in dry red patches – it looked like eczema to me. (I’ve been wondering if an excess of chocolate over Easter might have triggered it.) He’d never had any issues with his skin before, so I wasn’t really sure what to do with it.

First I tried switching his bubble bath. We had been using Johnson’s Bedtime Bath, so I switched to Johnson’s New Baby wash instead. It seemed to make it worse rather than better.

Little Man started crying in his sleep, scratching the sore skin. On the advice of the pharmacist, I switched to an E45 bath milk and bathed him less often. She also recommended an Aveeno cream oil which I rubbed on each evening. We saw a slow improvement, but one trip to the swimming pool set us right back. I should have known better than to take him into chlorinated water, but I just wasn’t thinking.

So along came the offer to try the Baby Bee Multipurpose Ointment, and I thought “Why not?”

It arrived in a lovely yellow box, nestled inside red and yellow paper. The tub of ointment looks as though it should be glass based on the design, but it’s plastic. I really liked the presentation – it would make a lovely gift.

The ointment feels very like Vaseline. It has a similar consistency, and creates a similar layer on the skin when applied. But whereas Vaseline is a petroleum jelly, this ointment is made from ingredients like beeswax and coconut oil, and jojoba and Shea butter, and is petroleum free. The ointment has a very mild, waxy scent, and a soft, yellow colour.

The day we received the ointment, I bathed Little Man and then applied a last of the ointment before he went to bed. In the morning, and again the following evening, I did the same again.

Within two days, the redness was gone and the nighttime itching had stopped. It’s been a week now, and the patches have all disappeared. Little Man’s skin still feels rougher than normal, but it’s getting better day by day. Yesterday we decided to take a chance and go swimming again. Before we got in the pool, I applied a layer of ointment under his wetsuit. I’m pleased to report that it worked and he had no reaction to the chlorine this time.

A little seems to go a long way with this ointment. We’ve used about a fifth of the tub applying it twice a day for the past week and a half.

We’ve all been pretty impressed with it. Well when I say “we” I mean Charlie and I. Little Man is not that keen on having it applied but it doesn’t bother him once it’s on!

Burt’s Bees Baby Bee Multipurpose Ointment retails for €10.95 and is available from Avoca, Arnotts, Nourish, The Health Store, and selected independent Health Stores and Pharmacies in Ireland.

I received a free sample for the purposes of this review but didn’t receive any other compensation. As always, this review reflects my honest opinion and experience.

Last August, we were very excited to welcome Freddie the goldfish into our little family. We bought him and a My First Aquarium from our local pet shop. Reassured by the pet store employee that the tank was perfect for a goldfish or two, we took Freddie home, and all was good for about a month until he clearly outgrew the tank.

A few weeks later, we upgraded Freddie’s accommodation and bought a proper aquarium with plenty of extra space for Freddie to swim around.

Or so I thought.

Fast forward a few months and Freddie just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Right now he is the biggest pet goldfish I have ever seen. It’s hard to judge properly because the front glass on the tank is curved but I would estimate that he’s about five inches long. And unfortunately he is too big for the aquarium that we bought last November, and we don’t have space or funds to upgrade to a bigger size. It’s quite funny watching visitors catch their first glimpse of him in the tank – they almost always do a double take at the size of him!

Last week, he lost a couple of scales trying to squeeze behind the pump at the side of the tank and I realised it’s cruel to keep him any longer in a tank that’s clearly too small for him. After a brief search, I found someone with a pond who has agreed to take him.

So tomorrow Freddie leaves us for a bigger pond. We hope he’ll swim happily there. Bye bye Freddie, our not-so-little fishie.

Following on from last week’s realization that I was never going to manage a true Wordless Wednesday post, I’m continuing with my new Wednesday Window posts instead. Wednesday Window offers a little snapshot of life in our house this week. The post contains a photo or photos taken this week and a sentence or three about it! If you have a Wednesday Window of your own that you’d like to share, be sure to leave a link in the comments below.

Thanks to a number of fantastic crafty blogs that I’ve been following lately, we’ve been feeling very inspired around here, leading to a lot of make-and-do fun. And fun crafts for a toddler don’t necessarily need to be difficult. A painted egg carton created the perfect spacecraft for some Angry Birds and friends.