“Two plus two,” she said, showing me two in each hand. “Mommy, how many is two plus two?”

“Why don’t you count them for me?” I asked.

“One, two, fee, four. Two plus two is four!” A look of absolute glee takes over her face.

“Yep, Aurora, that’s right. Math can be really fun.”

How could you resist a face like this?

• Turkey slice face
• Crouton hair
• Olive, cucumber, cherry tomato and red onion features
• Hard boiled egg body

The rest of us just had plain ‘ol salad.

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?

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!

And by request for Grandma Shaun, a picture of her wonderful munchkins:

Has anyone else out there got a picky eater? I don’t mean your run-of-the-mill, I-don’t-like-brussels-sprouts eater. I mean a kid whose entire food repertoire includes only about a dozen healthy choices, another dozen less healthy ones, and those choices seem to get narrowed by the month. The situation is bad, real bad, and I admit that it is largely of my own making. When faced with a one-year-old who was not eating enough to make it above the 5th percentile in weight (and who later dropped down below the 1st percentile), I began to offer, let us say, more palatable choices. Like deli lunchmeats instead of unprocessed chicken & beef. Like crackers instead of whole grain bread. Like cheddar bunnies (the organic version of goldfish) and juice for an on-the-go snack instead of apple slices and water. Each little slip into less healthy territory added up, though, and now Aurora won’t eat anything but those more processed choices.

I think the worst part is that she simply won’t try anything new, or new in the past few months. Even though she ate fresh blueberries by the bucket last summer when they were in season, as well as cantaloupe, cherries, peaches, and a bunch of other delicious fruits, they are all met with lips clamped shut this summer. Brian and I shared the most awesome cantaloupe a few nights ago, and Aurora wouldn’t even put one tiny bite in her mouth. She used to pick and eat cherry tomatoes off our neighbour’s bushes last summer, too (of course I split them in half for choking prevention). I understood that maybe the fruit was less desirable once it was out of season, but now that everything’s delicious again, I can’t get her to give it another shot. And that’s just the fruit. Vegetables are even worse.

We’ve tried bribery and rewards to get her to try things, but according to all the experts that’s a good way to develop an eating disorder later in life. We’ve tried eating healthy foods in front of her and demonstrably enjoying them. My newest (and most painful) tactic is to serve only fresh fruit and yogurt for dessert. So far, this option has been met with hysterical cries of, “Where’s the REAL dessert?!?” Trying to limit her juice intake to only 1/2 cup per day, diluted with water, has resulted in constipation and dehydration when we rigidly stick to it.

So, until I hear any better ideas, I will try to be strong, and take the healthy path. According to the book my doctor recommended, I’m supposed to offer Aurora a variety of healthy choices at each meal and put absolutely no pressure on her to eat any of it. If she doesn’t eat it, just offer it again, and again, and again (they say it can take a lot of exposure to a new food before a child is willing to accept it). It certainly wouldn’t hurt me to cut junk food out for a while. I’ve heard that it takes three weeks to start a new habit or break an old one, so wish me luck for the next two and a half weeks!

On Friday we took the ferry to Salt Spring Island; we drove our car, and Alex and Selena rode their bikes, towing Barrett behind. It was a very long, hilly ride from the Long Harbour ferry terminal to Ruckle Park on the opposite side of the island, but the MossLams are incredibly fit, and they made really good time.

Here’s a picture of our site, all set up. We could have been right on the water, but decided to be closer to the trees, for the kids’ safety. Even though most of the tent sites at Ruckle are walk-in, they have a few wheelbarrows at the parking lot to make lugging your stuff easier. There was always plenty of toilet paper and hand-sanz in the outhouses (these little things are important to some people), and many of the tent sites have raised, level, wooden tent platforms.

Aurora and Barrett enjoy the novelty of really tall, uncut grass. They loved playing hide and seek by simply sitting down in the grass, which made them invisible to each other, since the grass was roughly at eye-level for them. Daddy and I weren’t so keen on the tall grass, due to pretty bad allergies. Barrett (shown here with Aurora and Ham the Space Monkey) loved the idea of calling Aurora “Buzz”, but he wanted to be “Buzz” too. Eventually we settled on “Aurora-Buzz” and “Barrett-Buzz”.

On Saturday morning we walked down to the tidepools to see what we could see. Bruce’s friend Becca was there, working on her Ph.D. project, so she showed us around a little bit. (You can just glimpse some of her square tiles in the upper right corner of the photo, above)

You never know what’s going to thrill a little kid, and although Aurora was antipathetic toward sea anemonies, she found great pleasure in climbing up and down on the base of the lighthouse.

After the tidepools, we headed back up to the northern half of the island for a trip to Ganges and the Saturday market. It was about three times the size of the Sechelt market, although I saw less that I was actually keen to buy. The crowds in Ganges on a Saturday were huge (where do all these people come from?), and the park was filled with families, enjoying the sun, playing at the playground, and enjoying the incredibly perfect summer weather. After a short wait, we managed to get seats at the Tree House Café, which has completely open air seating areas (what do they do in Winter?) and is actually built around a tree. I had an amazing lamb burger, with mango chutney and a delicious little side salad, as well as one of my favourite drinks, the Wired Monkey, a banana-chocolate smoothie with a shot of espresso. It’s probably a good thing that I live four hours away from this place.

We rounded out the afternoon’s fun with ice cream cones (click to get a closer look at Aurora’s messy face) before we headed back to camp.

On the way back to our campsite, we saw two deer, both bucks. That brought Brian’s deer sightings up to eight. His wildlife tallies on this trip also include two snakes, a bunch of jellyfish, innumerable starfish and birds. Aurora’s keenest joy, however, was catching sight of the numerous ferry boats that traversed the local waters. Every time she saw one, she lit up like a firecracker and shouted, “Ferry! Ferry! I see a ferry!” just in case anyone in the park had missed it.

“No, you are not SuperMommy,” she replied.

“Oh no? Well, if I’m not SuperMommy, who is?” I asked.

“Kate’s Mom,” she said, with an absolute straight face.

So, Kate’s Mom, you truly rock!

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:

Most of the kids, that is, except Aurora. Some parts she really enjoys, like the insect number countdown (you jump up and grab a plastic bug from the line when Barbara calls your name), the caterpillar puppet who turns into a butterfly, and “Monkey See, Monkey Do.” Other parts of class annoy the heck out of her, like when Barbara pulls out the guitar and all the kids are able to cut lose with their drums, triangles, bells, and maracas. She really doesn’t like “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom,” either. I had various excuses and rationalizations for Aurora’s negative, fussy behaviour during some parts of the class, like shyness, unwillingness to perform in front of others, and so on. I still thought she was getting something out of it, though.

Then three weeks ago, after another temper tantrum halfway through class, she finally let me have it in language I could understand. “I don’t like it, Mommy. It’s TOO LOUD!” Well, okay then. I didn’t want to just skip the last two weeks of class, particularly because Aurora seems to mostly enjoy the first half of it, so I talked to Barbara about it. She kindly offered to extend the puppet and finger play part of the class and soften the music (and hold back the drums) for the last two classes of the session. Aurora managed to hold on until the end.

Music is such an important part of my life, and so integral to my daily happiness, that it’s going to be a real challenge to find a way to compromise with someone who covers my mouth when I sing (and has since she was a baby), and complains when I turn on the radio that she “doesn’t like that song,” whether it’s Classical, Rock, Folk, or Showtunes. I really had no idea that this sort of thing was genetic. I thought that if I introduced music, and plenty of it, from a very young age, that she would take to it like a fish to water. I’m not complaining, I’m just surprised. I guess it makes me appreciate even more the good luck I have in having a child who loves to read, playact, tell jokes and stories, make art, and build things. She’s a wonder, and I love her, but she is definitely her own person.