Rosie Scribble

Stop the killing #Syria #TippingPoint

I sat this morning in my daughter's school assembly and watched a class of eight and nine year olds showcase their maths skills, play musical instruments and introduce the class goldfish.

Within minutes I was welling up. It wasn't their slightly unpolished performance, or the five year old who got bored and decided to wander around the hall. And it wasn’t the sense of overwhelming pride and achievement that was evident in the faces of all the children at the end of their little show.

The emotion came from sitting in a hall with 300 children all under the age of ten. They were singing and clapping and there was a positive, happy atmosphere. Yet they live in a world where only a week ago so many children, who perhaps would have been at school today, were massacred in Houla, Syria in a conflict I suspect they knew little about. 

49 children were killed, many just babies. As this Times article reported to the world, they were not killed by random shelling. They were murdered one by one in a manner too graphic to be detailed here. Children with their whole lives ahead of them. Gone. 

Sponsored video: VW Polo Dad - as it should be

I sobbed the first time I watched this advertisement. It's another of those ads that's puts you through the emotional ringer, and perhaps hits home with me more than most as Father’s Day approaches. 

It shows the evolving relationship between a protective father and his daughter from the moment he brings her home from hospital as a baby to the day she leaves home in her new Volkswagen Polo.

And in all the in-betweens - from learning to swim and learning to ride a bike, to meeting her first boyfriend and packing to leave home - he is there. 

It's as it should be.

So it hits a deeper nerve with me. Because as much as I try to be both a mother and a father to my daughter, she is still missing out.

We can only do our best. 

This is a sponsored post. 

You know you're addicted to blogging when ...

You know you’re addicted to blogging when … 

… your first reaction on seeing mention of the word sponsored in a school newsletter is to question whether the link will be no-follow and they’ll be opting for full disclosure. 

Seriously. Sometimes I worry about myself. 

Sunshine and shadows

Apparently it's not cool to stand taking photographs of the forest floor. Someone might see you and think you're a bit weird. That's what IJ was telling me when I took this photograph. But I quite like the contrast between the sunshine and the shadows. 

I adore the sunshine. After excelling in the parenting stakes this weekend when I dragged IJ off to the local country park not realising she was ill, she has since recovered and we were able to go back and enjoy the sunshine properly.

Review: Horrible Science Explosive Experiments from Galt Toys

Well this is awkward. I love writing positive reviews, when you’re so excited about a product the words flow naturally. So I'm struggling a little with this one as unfortunately I have very little positive to say.

The product we tried out was Explosive Experiments from the Horrible Science range and we really didn't like it at all. In defense of the product, perhaps we set our expectations a little too high after receiving a wonderful science kit from the Bradford Science Festival last year. This one was never going to be anywhere as near as good.