Aurora Wells

A couple of weeks ago I took my first time away from Aurora, left her with Brian for five days, and flew south to Long Beach for my 20-year high school reunion. It was a blast, not just seeing my old high school friends, which was great, but also that delicious feeling of being untethered, light and free for a while. I breezed through security and customs at the airport, read for a solid 2 1/2 hours on the plane, and didn’t have to worry about what anybody but myself wanted to eat. The night I arrived, my friend Jen, whom I’d only seen once in the past 16 years, slept over at my folks’ house, and we had a great time catching up. Since it’s Aurora’s blog, I’ll only post two reunion pictures, from the PACE family picnic the day after the fancy Queen Mary shindig.

Group photo at Wardlow Park, which inexplicably had 4 or 5 other large group parties that afternoon.

Kristiana and Gina, who each had daughters about 9 months after mine. Sorry Aurora missed Chiara and Andrea this time!

After five days I was happy to be together again with Aurora and Brian. We had some really hot weather for about five days, and I didn’t feel like baking myself at the park, so we found some cool indoor activities. Having a kid somewhat lets you relive your own childhood…

Where’s Aurora?

There she is!

And while I was in Long Beach, Grandma Gail found the old Rescuers story album that my brothers and I listened to over and over when we were kids. It’s hard to believe, but Brian’s record player actually still works (okay, it’s Brian’s, so maybe it’s not so hard to believe) and I was able to play it for her.

This read-along version is out of print, and not available on CD, so I’m going to have to find a way to import the audio file into my computer and burn a CD for the car (scanning and making a book is a lot more in line with my particular skill set).

Question of the day: What thing lately has sent you for a trip down memory lane, or what’s your favourite thing or activity from childhood?

We’re finally in the groove of summer, that 8- or 9-week period when the rain mostly goes away, and Vancouver’s weather, at least 90% of the time, achieves that perfect equilibrium; hot enough for swimsuits but not so hot you melt in a puddle of your own sweat.

Well, after passing the water park at Stanley Park a hundred or more times over the years, our friends Laura and Kate finally got us to the place, swimsuits on, towels in hand, to enjoy the water spouts, stream, cannons and waterfalls, not to mention the fabulous view beyond. The water was icy cold, but as long as you’re not immersed in it, it feels good on a hot summer day.

My girl looks happy to finally be free of the omnipresent summer hat for a few minutes.

Kate’s still wearing her hat, but it didn’t get in the way of her having some splishy-splashy fun.

Our favourite part was a faux-rock waterfall area, with small pools at various levels to climb around and through. Sometimes the best plans are the spur-of-the-moment ones.

Less spur-of-the-moment, but still very enjoyable, was today’s visit with the Mid-Main Mommies’ kids, at Kim & Max’s house. Do you remember these kids?

They’re looking rather grown-up these days, and most of them have younger brothers or sisters, too.

Ayden, Aurora and Kaiya playing with little Marlow at the pirate ship water table.

Avery wasn’t part of the original group photo, but she and her mommy Petra joined shorty afterward.

Olin was pretty wiped out, after staying up late to watch the fireworks last night!

Ayden’s pretty busy these days with brand-new baby sister Emily at home.

Kaiya’s baby sis, Annika, snuggles with mommy Laura.

Friendly little Sjoerd (but everyone calls him “Shooey”) gets to know Max’s baby bro, William.

Marlow (happy 1st birthday, dude!) is fascinated with the noise-making buttons Aurora is demonstrating. “Can I get in on this action?” I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of Max this time. Better luck next time!

Exciting news: we’re taking Aurora on her first camping trip next weekend. We’re going to Ruckle Park, on Salt Spring Island, which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve camped. We’re going with friends who have a toddler the same age, so it should be lots of fun.

So, what I want to know is, what are your top kid camping tips? What little things have made your life easier when on the road with a small child, what did you do about diapers, what kind of kid food travels well, and so on? If you don’t have kids, you’re still welcome to contribute, but please, if your best advice is, “Stay at a hotel” you can keep that to yourself!

Last month we did a trial run of sleeping in a tent overnight in our backyard, and Aurora slept okay (even if Mommy and Daddy didn’t). She fits snugly between us in her own little sleepsack and favourite blanket. She’s still in cloth diapers (ugh!) although maybe a long weekend with Barrett will encourage her to try going diaper free again. So, wish us luck! Here’s a photo of our campsite at Ruckle from our trip with Blair and Judith in 2006:

Riding home from the airport last night, Aurora was bereft; G&G Nestor are gone, not to be seen again for another four months. I encouraged her to reminisce about the happy times, rather than dwell on the somewhat rushed final parting in the no-parking, unloading-only curb zone at the airport. Here are some of the highlights of the visit, or at least the ones I have pictures for:

Trip to the lovely Van Dusen Botanical Gardens. Grandpa loves the labels. Aurora loves the huge open car-free spaces to run. Daddy loves the vegetable garden, and we ALL loved the maze! We puttered around at various classes and things during the week, and then on Friday afternoon we took a trip on the ferry to the Sunshine Coast.

Aurora loved the ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale. Even though the forecast called for rain all weekend, we had absolutely great weather the entire trip.

On Friday night we had a delicious dinner at the Sweet Water Bistro, on Gower Street in Gibsons. Thanks for the sterling recommendation, Gaylin!

The bustling metropolis of Gibsons at 8:30 on a Friday night. I could totally live here. That night we drove to Sechelt and stayed at the Driftwood Inn.

Saturday started with a seaside walk to breakfast at Wheatberries, followed by a visit to the Sechelt Farmers’ & Artisans’ Market.

Although Grandma opted out, Brian, Larry, Aurora and I had a fantastic time kayaking around Smuggler Cove that afternoon. We rented a kayak with a small seat in the centre hatch for Aurora. She didn’t seem to mind the lifejacket or sprayskirt at all, and spent two-and-a-half hours happily trailing her fingers in the salt water, pointing out boats to us, and enjoying the sunshine. Grandpa did marvelously for his first time out in a kayak, too.

Daddy paddled alongside us in a single, which turned out to be very useful, as he could manouver around to distribute snacks and find cool things for us to view in the water…

like jellyfish and starfish! We saw a few bald eagles up close, too, at the entrance to Smuggler Cove Provincial Park.

After kayaking, we took Aurora back to Cliff Gilker park for a go on the giant toddler swings again. Too much fun!

You can’t go this high on a regular toddler swing!

It was hard to leave, we were having so much fun, but there was a ferry to catch…

Unfortunately, Aurora and Daddy happened to be out on deck near the ferry’s horn when it sounded. So, for the past two days she’s been repeatedly reliving that awful moment when the boat made a noise so loud that it scared the bejeezus out of her. It’s pretty easy to sidetrack her when she gets into one of her mental grooves, though. You just mention these guys:

Cute as buttons and so much fun to play with. Thanks for the Duplo Toy Story guys, Grandma! They’re a HUGE hit!

Tuesday was Aurora’s first glimpse of what preschool is going to be like, with a visit to St. Giles with about half of the rest of the class.

She’s been sleeping in ’til around 8:30 lately (due to after 9 bedtimes), so I got a rare chance to wake up my girl because I had to wake her at 7:00 a.m.

St. Giles is play-based, so there are tons of things to do, like dress up, examine bug “x-rays” with a magnifying glass, play at the water table, stack blocks, paint or draw, and a myriad of other activities.

It’s a little dark for non-flash photography in the basement location, but it’s nice to have an indoor active play area in Vancouver’s soggy climate. Kaiya wants to get in the rocker boat with Aurora and Kate. Aurora is lucky to have two other girls and a boy that we already know in her class.

These strange new ride-on plasma cars were a pretty big hit. The preschool is hoping to have a bake sale and raise some money for a couple more, because they are so popular with the kids.

At the end of the 1-hour session, teacher Tracy sang a song with the kids and doled out the ubiquitous hand stamp. Brian thinks hand stamps are the gateway to a later interest in tattooing, but I honestly never made that connection.

Well, so far, so good for preschool. Aurora is super keen to go back. She wanted to go back the next day, in fact. I wonder how she’ll adjust to the fact that most of the time I won’t be there with her? I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s a few pictures of some stuff we’ve been up to lately:

Daddy, Aurora and I went to the Children’s Festival to see the Taiwanese Acrobats perform. It was a pretty good performance, but it was hard to keep Aurora happy during the excessively long pre-show squeeze-in (”Any more seats? Raise your hands. Your shoulders should be touching the people on either side of you!”). The most amazing act in the show was this guy who kept setting one chair after another on top of each other, and climbing up to the top as he stacked. He must have been 30 or 40 feet up, doing a handstand on top of a diagonally placed chair, by the time he finished. It was pretty hair-raising. Before the show, we spent some time in the Preschool Play Pavilion:

None of the three of us are particularly fond of crowds (and even less so on muddy, soggy days), so we took off pretty quickly after the show.

We had a long weekend not long ago, but that, alas, was pretty cold & soggy too, so instead of camping we mostly stayed indoors. Our big outing that weekend was a one-hour canoe trip around Deer Lake in Burnaby. It was a test drive, if you will, to see how Aurora would fare in the middle of a canoe on a longer trip. I think it was a roaring success. She liked trailing her fingers in the water, she liked having Mommy & Daddy close by, and she liked seeing the ducklings, goslings, turtles and other wildlife at the park from the new perspective. She didn’t fidget much, and made no attempt to leave the open boat. It was especially pleasant for me to be paddling on water that was completely devoid of motorcraft for a change.

And, for our little Buzz Lightyear, Mommy and Daddy made a couple of “inaction” figures out of playdough, Sheriff Woody and Rex the Dinosaur. I must be the most annoying mom when it comes to playdough because I won’t let her mix the colours, but since Daddy and I are both a little A-R about these sorts of things, she just accepts it without too much fuss. Aurora likes things to be pretty orderly, too.

I took advantage of a brief bout of sunshine to photograph our lovely new front porch décor for posterity. Isn’t it inviting-looking? Aurora and I love eating our meals out here, even when it’s pouring down rain, because the deep eaves keep the porch pretty dry. I’m looking forward to some warmer, drier weather, but in the meantime, I’ll bundle up in layers of fleece if I have to.