The new playground at Grimston Park is now open, and it is AWESOME. The park’s designers have done an incredible job creating a welcoming and imaginative space to play for kids of all ages. While the temporary fence is still partially up, and there’s still some work to do (laying sod, painting the wading pool), the playground and pool are now open for play.

Wrapped up in nostalgia for wonderful garage sales past, this year we made some crucial errors in judgment at the annual Queen’s Park Garage Sale.

“I want to go to Columbia. Because it’s a really good place, and they have toothbrushes there.” So said The Girl, my four-old daughter to me on the SkyTrain just yesterday.

Strong Start, a provincially funded, free program for children under six and their parents, is expanding with a new afternoon program in New Westminster’s West End. The program is a gentle introduction to school for preschoolers through play-based learning.

The school district is currently gathering feedback on a series of “options” for where to locate New Westminster’s programs of choice (French Immersion and Montessori). The author of the report, Sandra Pace, has been very careful to say “I’m not making recommendations, I’m just presenting options.” Yet based on the information I saw at the Tweedsmuir presentation of Pace’s report, there are good reasons why this review is going on. It is dishonest for the district to ask parents to comment on all these “options” as though they are all equally viable.

A few times a week, I pack the kids across town from our home in the West End to Strong Start over at McBride Elementary in Sapperton. Wesley love, love, LOVES to go to “school” and I love, love, LOVE that it’s both free and fun for all of us.

When it comes to registration in “programs of choice” in the public school system, there must be a better way. In New West, we don’t have parents camping out on the sidewalk overnight to be the first in line to register their kids (thank goodness) but our method is still crazy. In New West, instead of having the insanity begin the year before a child enters school, it begins at birth. As soon as you have your child’s birth certificate, you can sign them up for the school and program you hope they will enjoy six years later. You can even sign them up for late French Immersion, 12 years in the future.

There is something comforting about rows and rows of books – the colors of the spines, the smell of them, the visual appeal of the irregular heights and widths. I love the look of new pages, white as snow and with lines of text that draw my eye along like a magnetic force. I love aging pages, too; yellowed, and sometimes with the mysterious thumbprints left by readings past (I am a notorious re-reader, friends). Books are treasures. They are artifacts of great worth.

Leaving the house with kids can be very hard work. Such hard work that it is often tempting to just not do it. I can’t get away with staying home anymore; my kids need to be run like dogs and if we don’t leave the house in the morning, that morning will end with me getting tied up and scribbled on with Sharpie or with a guitar being smashed over someone’s head, ’70s-rock-band-style.

Of the five friends I have who delivered their babies at Royal Columbian Hospital, four of us had 30+ hour labours ending in emergency Cesarean sections. I have wondered how it could be that four out of five young, healthy women could all have so much trouble delivering our babies naturally that we would need our babies cut out of our bodies.

The weather we’ve been having lately has prompted me to search my brain a bit to find indoor things we can do here at Chez Arbo. My Nana used to be a whiz with the crafty stuff and I have extremely fond memories of either receiving something she had made, participating in making something with her, or going and checking out what other people had made together with her. I was also a Brownie and a Girl Guide (and later a Pathfinder and a Ranger leader) and so some of …

There are as many ways to deal with your child’s excrement as there are stars in the sky. Talking to ‘pros’ about cloth diapers helps you narrow your choices! Here are some tips for newbies to help get you started with cloth diapers.

Demolition is underway at Grimston Park, as the work begins to replace the aging adventure playground with safer, more modern equipment. After a series of public consultations, the final design seems to be pretty much settled.

Here’s what will be included in the $230,000 upgrade.

On June 13th 2008, I worked my last 9 to 5er at my employer, and went on mat leave and began Baby Watch ‘08.  With a due date of June 26th, we were sure we would have only a few short weeks of me at home before the baby came, and so I filled my first two weeks with fun activities around the house – lunch with friends, scrapbooking, baking, and generally moaning about how hugely pregnant I was. I remember thinking about the oodles all the time I would have to continue …

When I was a kid, I loved the water – on TV mostly. In real life, it was something to akin to a lurking creature looking to choke the life out of me. I have no idea how I got this fear of water, which had me taking beginner lessons at the late age of thirteen. But, wherever it came from, it’s not a dominant gene passed along by me. My three (almost four!) year old daughter is in love with the water, particularly this summer …

Kale  has started recognizing the place as we open the door and go in, a soft whoosh as the air transfers and the sudden cacophany of child play noises replaces the traffic whizzing by on the street. He starts kicking his feet and arching his back, straining mightily to get out of the stroller and get to the TOYS and the FUN as fast as possible.
We go to Family Place, located at 101 – 93 Sixth Street, probably twice a week these days. In the world of  one year old busy little bees, …