Aurora Wells

I wasn’t always a camper. I semi-remember the one camping trip from my young childhood. Dad and his best friend Henry took three of their kids (Steve was too young) out camping for the weekend in the mountains. From what I’ve heard, I was desperately unhappy, and made everyone else suffer. A summer camp overnight trip when I was a preteen was a glimpse into Hell. Let’s just say, I was not born to go camping. Luckily, Aurora took to camping wonderfully, and with the help of Daddy, Selena, Alex and Barrett, I enjoyed myself too.

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.

Today as I was sitting untangling a Slinky for my daughter for the gazillionth time, I said to her, “If I get this Slinky untangled this time, I will be SuperMommy.”

“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!

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:

In the ongoing nature-nurture discussion, Aurora has once again made it clear that she is her own person, not impressed by my careful and steadfast encouragement of musical interests. For almost two years now, we’ve been attending a weekly music class at various community centres near our house, taught by the inimitable Barbara Duncan. I love it, and look forward to it every week. Barbara gears the songs, rhymes, and fingerplays to the various age groups she teaches. Most of the kids seem to love it, and they jump up with glee to grab musical instruments (primarily percussion) for making a happy cacophany.

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.

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!

Do you remember, or have you heard about, the adventure serials that used to play before the feature film in movie theatres? The ones that inspired Steven Spielberg to write Indiana Jones? Well, Aurora’s writing (telling) her own serial these days, although the adventures are rather less harrowing than anything Indy had to face.

The storytelling usually starts with, “It was Friday day…” and then the cast of characters is introduced. This can take up to an hour, since it usually involves the characters in every story she’s enjoyed in the past two weeks. Then we get started with the plot, wherein the characters sometimes bounce balls down the stairs, go to the park, hide from the rain, bake a birthday cake, or whatever characters do. Aurora can go on for hours in this manner, but she relies upon well-timed comments on her story, so you’d better pay attention! This is not always possible, and I often try to get her to wrap the story up, so we can have a meal, go out, or get to sleep.

Her reply? “This is a story that never ends, Mommy.”