letter to my 10 year old daughter

Dearest Nallie,

Ten years ago, you changed my life forever. Coaxing you to come and meet us took 31 hours- and laughing gas, morphine, an epidural and eventually an obstetrician (aka “the professional baby flipper”) to get you out. You have always been a patient girl and you sure took your sweet time coming out so we could meet you.

If you are reading this now or maybe when you have your own baby, I am telling you that your Dad and I had no idea what we are doing - and we still are trying to figure it out.

Before you were born, I had no idea there were so many conflicting messages about parenting. 

Swaddle the baby - burrito her little arms in tightly. But don't do it too tight. Or maybe just don't swaddle at all. 

Nurse the baby on a schedule - even if it means waking baby up. But don't ever wake a sleeping baby. 

Baby needs to sleep in a crib - on their backs - no blankets. But co-sleeping is the best thing you can do to bond with you baby. 

Sleep train your baby - let her cry it out. But never let your baby's cries go unattended.

Mom should stay home because no caregiver can replace a mama. But moms should pursue careers and dreams so your baby knows that she can too.

Make sure your child is safe - inspect every situation. But don't be a helicopter parent - scrapes and bruises are part of life. 

Encourage your child and be their biggest fan. But don't indulge or praise too much - this leads to entitlement. 

Kids need boundaries and limits - your child needs to know you are in charge. But don't be authoritarian - let your child make choices and be independent. 

I really don't know how we made it through those first few years. But somehow by the grace of God, we celebrated each passing year and rejoicing in this adventure of parenting. 

You are and have always been easy to love. You were an 'easy' baby - you were so forgiving of how Daddy and I fumbled with figuring out how to hold you, nurse you, bathe you. By 6 months, I didn't need to track your sleep because you would graciously sleep the whole night most of the time. You have always been eager to learn - when you were a toddler, you learned baby sign quickly. Once we taught you, you were were signing 'milk please', 'more', 'all done' and 'book' all the time. 

You have also been an adventurer. When you first learned to walk, you got into everything. I would find you climbing inside the dishwasher or happily exploring the pantry and throwing things you found like macaroni and chocolate chips across the kitchen floor. One time you found a box of panty-liners and adhered them all over yourself and the bathroom wall. You were so pleased and told me you found so many 'big stickers'! It was hard to be mad at you when you were so cute. We rarely got upset with you. You have always been a good listener and so mindful of rules. 

And here you are now - I can't believe ten years have gone by. You are beautiful inside and out. You have a heart of gold - You are kind and gentle. I can see that you put other people first and always try to help others around you. You still want to hold my hand when we are out - I hope that you won't ever be too old for that. I also admire your patience and you love having quiet time to play and be creative. I hope you keep pursuing the things that you love.  I hope you keep learning to be being brave, using your voice to share your thoughts and I hope you keep being open to try new things. I hope you keep reading ferociously. I hope you keep writing poems and your heart in your diary. I hope you keep loving school and learning.  I hope we keep praying together every night and you learn to trust Jesus with everything. I am so grateful that God blessed me with a sweetheart of a daughter. I love you and have loved watching you grow up. Know that I am always going to be your biggest cheerleader in life.  Know that you are beautiful, cherished and so special. Know that I love you to the moon and back. 

Happy 10th Birthday my love! 

XOXO Mama 

Island Camping Adventure.

Second year camping at Rathtrevor Provincial Park and it did not disappoint. However, it did not get off to a good start. BC Ferries does not like us. Last year, we were almost not allowed to load because we booked overheight and we ended up deflating the SUPs so they didn't let us on because we weren't tall enough. This year we learned that two inches too tall does matter on the the ferry. We didn't realize that when we had bikes on our brand new bike racks that we are exactly 7 foot 2 inches and those 2 inches set off the alarms at the ferry terminal. They stopped loading the ferry because of us. So terrible and face-palm cringy moment.

Simon figured out how to tilt the bike rack back just enough so that we could squeak onto the ferry and we were able to leave our woes and be distracted by the sunshine and blowing wind outside on the ferry deck. 

I was one of the lucky ones to actually get a provincial campsite this year. We camped for 5 nights and our site was steps from the beach that we could hear the ocean at night. When Noah woke up early, we would go to the beach in our PJs while everyone else slept in. Side note: Christmas onsies in July is the best. 

We were also so blessed that two of our good friends were able to join us on the camping trip. Love doing life with these guys.

We got a new bike rack so we could haul all our bikes and explore the island on wheels. We went on biking adventures around the beach, to Top bridge trail in Parksville, Lighthouse County Regional Park in Qualicum Bay, and Moorecroft Regional Park in Nanoose Bay.

Biking across the suspension bridge at Top Bridge Regional Park

Moorecroft Regional Park

Vesper Point in Nanoose Bay

However, sometimes biking adventures mean you end up at the wrong side of the river and you have to portage your bikes across. Grateful for SuperDad that carried us and all 4 bikes across so we didn't have to get our shoes wet. Kids thought this unexpected excursion was THE BEST THING EVER.

Now that the bikes are on the rack we had room in the truck to haul both SUPs and enjoyed them at Spider Lake Provincial Park and at Rathtrevor Beach. 

And of course Noah just needed us to bring his kayak so we managed to haul that along too. The tide gets so low that we could walk beside him as he kayaked around the beach. 

Oh we couldn't forget the skimboards. When the tide goes out, Rathtrevor Beach has perfect skimboarding conditions. Simon and I spent many summers of our early 20's skimboarding at Spanish Banks and SuperDad was happy to show the boys how it's done (and maybe to prove that he is still a spring chicken). 

So we basically packed everything because you probably need a separate table for the kids to eat at, all the beach chairs, a skateboard to get around the campsite, the canopy and a hammock too right?

And since we packed everything we also had shovels to dig for clams, sand dollars, crabs and unexpectedly also discovered these weird things that looked like tiny shrimpy lobsters. Our research said they are called “ghost nippers”. The kids found dozens of them!

The first day was a bit cool so we went mini-golfing at Riptide Lagoon right  by the campsite and it was so much fun. The kids didn't want to keep score until they realized they were doing much better than me and then it was game-on. 

One evening we waited until dusk and walked around the campsite and there were so many fluffy cute bunnies! Nallie is obsessed with bunnies and she was squealing in delight and we had to make sure she didn't sneak one home with her.

We also watched the sun set every night. So interesting that every night the colors were always different and spectacular.

Parksville Community Park is also a bike-able distance from the campsite so we rounded up the biker gang and biked to the playground and this playground is MASSIVE with in-ground trampolines and zip lines, a boardwalk, tennis courts, volleyball courts in the sand and a curling rink. Wow - for a small town, they know how to do it right.

In the evening you can't go wrong with good friends, glow sticks, camps fires and s’mores -these things all go well together.

Bedtime rules also don't apply when we're camping. It was fun to let the kids stay up late telling shadow puppet stories.

Camping on the island was amazing. So great to unplug for a week, read a book on the beach, breathe in the beautiful outdoors and make memories with amazing people. 

When I asked Noah what he thought of this camping trip, this basically sums it up: 

So I would say island camping was a great success and we can't wait to come back here again.