I like to support businesses in my neighbourhood of Downtown New Westminster. Many places make this easy for me to do: River Market, Zoom Hair Salon and Columbia Integrated Health Centre, for example, are active on social media and in the community and have curb appeal to spare. They are all fabulous and I can’t recommend any of them enough. But then there are businesses that I walk past every day and never enter. They aren’t out there promoting themselves and they just don’t look like they have a lot to offer. But then, one day, I go in and realize how badly I’ve misjudged them.

This Saturday, June 16, the new Westminster Pier Park will open with a celebration from 11 am to 3 pm. There will be lots of fun, family-friendly activities, food and live music. The upcoming event makes me marvel at how lucky we are in New Westminster when it comes to outdoor play areas. The new Pier Park will feature two playgrounds, a concession, washrooms and playing fields, all in a beautiful waterfront setting. But it’s just the latest addition to many fantastic playgrounds around the city.

Local author JJ Lee’s new book, “Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit” is so much more than its title suggests.

Trying to figure out how to keep your kids busy and out of your hair this summer? Here’s an option—Urban Academy is offering all sorts of summer camps this year, right here in New Westminster.
The arts-infused school is excited about this new offering and sees it as a natural extension of their arts-infused curriculum.

“We’re looking forward to opening our doors for camps this summer,” says Michael Bouchard, Urban Academy’s head of school, in a press release. “We’ve got something for everyone, and it’s a great way for kids to continue …

My friends at Family Place sent me this note I thought I’d share:
New Westminster Family Place is pleased to announce that we are opening a new program at 1170 – 8th Avenue (corner of 8th Avenue and 12th Street, on the main floor of the building that has Sprott Shaw upstairs).
This program will run every Friday morning from 9:30 – 11:30 starting April 1st.   Join us for fun and games, circle time and wonderful crafts.  Meet your neighbours and make some new friends.  For information call 604 520-3666.

Bloom Art Studio at River Market is a safe place for kids to get messy – without driving parents crazy. At home, I like to craft with the kids, but I’m always a little leery of anything truly messy. It’s fun, but I always worry about the cleanup. In a space like Bloom, the kids are free to play with colour and form in a space that’s designed to handle mess.

The Middle Childhood Development Committee is looking for input! If you’ve got 10 minutes to spare, feel free to take this survey. Middle Childhood is ages 6-12. Here’s the link if you are unable to see the survey below.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

The Early Childhood Development Committee (for children ages 0-6) and the Middle Childhood Development Committee (6-12) are looking for input for their upcoming Summer Activity Guide. Do you have an event or group you’d like to share?

Family Place has a great new location at FW Howay just east of McBride Boulevard off Cumberland. Check it out!

Last week the main swimming pool at Canada Games Pool was shut down for two days to repair a broken pipe. The pool was half emptied and swimming lessons and public swims were cancelled for two days. Does it need a major upgrade?

I got this letter from the folks at Family Place. This is a place very near and dear to me and I am thrilled to pass on this info. Kudos to those who were able to make this happen for Family Place and for all families in our community. Family Place continues to offer their main daily drop in location at 93 Sixth Street as well.

After almost 10 years of providing a family resource program at Royal City Centre Mall we lost access to the Community Room and have …

New Westminster toy store Pedagogy Toys has been saved from closing thanks to a show of support from the community and a well-timed offer of skookum new digs in River Market at the Quay. Like so many other New West parents, I’m a fan of Pedagogy Toys, and so I wanted to find out more from owner Karen Smecher about the move from Sapperton to the Quay. Karen kindly agreed to answer a few questions via email:

One of my favourite local shops is Pedagogy Toys.  As a graduate of the Small Business program at Douglas College, owner Karen Smecher loves what she does and is committed to providing high quality toys and other kid items. She recently went on the hunt for a harmonica just for me and we are still toot-tooting our way around the house with our awesome green harmonica.
I was really impressed with her new exclusive to Pedagogy line of reusable lunch and snack bags lined with Tyvek! Ingenious! She’s also designed play items …

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.