Hippity-hoppity Halloween is On Its Way!

One bunny costume (McCall's Costumes) done and ready for Halloween 2009. Yes, we are shocked that the Big Camper decided not to continue the two-year Halloween Star Wars theme. The Little Camper refuses to be an Easter Egg and instead is waffling between a lion and Rodney Copperbottom from the movie Robots. How we are going to all find a theme to tie all of our costumes together is still a mystery.

The Little Things the Little Ones Do

"Blog Action Day is an annual event every October 15th that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance." This year we are blogging about Climate Change.



Last year, Mama Camp took a trip to the Texas gulf coast to celebrate the big camper's 5th birthday. His Grandma and Great-Grammy (in her early 80s) joined us, along with an aunt, uncle and cousins. It was the summer that Hurricane Ike made landfall on Galveston Island. A week later Mama Camp checked the Mustang Island web cams and it looked like the beaches were (relatively) clean and the trip was on. The first day was picturesque -- if you just move to the left or right to keep the silhouette of the offshore oil derricks out of the frame.


Two days later when the relatives had gone home and Mama Camp remained to enjoy the rest of our family vacation, we couldn't escape the destruction that Ike brought to the area. (Yes, that's a full-length couch that has washed up on shore.)

"Mama, where did that couch come from? How did it get here? Do you think they miss their couch? What are they going to sit on? What's a hurricane? What do you mean the Earth is changing?" asked the big camper.

The campers may be too young to understand the science of climate change, but they're not too young to participate in conservation and the little things that hopefully decrease our carbon footprint. Mama Camp hopes that the more we expose the campers to nature the more earth conscious they'll become.

Rainwater Collection
Mama Camp installed four rainwater collection barrels to water the flower gardens around the house instead of using city water. Even the little camper (almost three) loves to fill the watering can to fill up the bird bath and sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle the plants. Why pay for water when you can get it for free from the sky? Wasn't rain collecting more commonplace 50 years ago? What made us stop collecting free water? Do our four rain barrels make a difference in the consumption of water? It might be a drop in the bucket (ha ha), but our neighbors one by one have asked us about them and some have even installed them. Our 4+their 4+4more...

Energy Efficient Light Bulbs
Mama Camp is lit by compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) -- a lot of them -- but we're curious about where they will all end up after their seven year lifespan. What will happen to all of that mercury?

Reusable Shopping Bags
Taking reusable shopping bags to the grocery store is the norm for Mama Camp, but it's not a new idea. The Camp Director can remember her Colombian grandmother back in the 70s taking large, red, mesh shopping bags everywhere she went, because she didn't have the choice of "paper or plastic." Will the campers know a world without plastic bags flapping in the wind, forever caught on a tree branch too high to reach?

Pre-owned Baby Gear

Between the big and little camper, we loaned all of the baby gear to fellow mommies, and encouraged them to buy from the consignment stores. It's hard not to want all brand new nursery gear with your first, but with the second you understood how most of the gear was only used for 1-3 months. There is one activity center that has gone through five mommies and is still being reused.

Other Reusable Items

We use empty margarine tubs as left-over containers, and then eventually as paint holders. We don't use paper plates and try to use cloth napkins, but paper napkins just come in handier with little ones. We also wash and reuse plasticware after a party. We use the backside of used office paper for art projects. The local farmer who sells his produce at the corner convenience store gladly accepts our used egg cartons to refill.

Recycling

Go to your local dump and you'll understand the need to recycle. It's huge and smelly and if we lived in a third world country you would see children climbing the mountains of trash looking for scraps to sell. The trash doesn't disappear when the trash man carts it away. Whether the mound of trash is outside of your door or outside of the city limits, it is still there.

Mama Camp is still a big consumer, but we are working on it, and the campers like to take the recycling to the bins. Mama Camp has small bins to separate the items that the city will take in the single stream recycling, and others for things that we take to the recycling center.

Local Foods
Mama Camp had a very successful earth box, and we were on our way to producing more of our own food. However, with the arrival of a new pet, we have postponed our outdoor planting projects. Our next project is to start composting more of our vegetable/fruit trash. Once this is up and running we'll revisit the backyard garden project. We are currently trying to eat more local foods by trying out Greenling, a distributor of local and organic food.

What will the campers' world look like?
At the coast, we found one intact sand dollar in the hours spent walking the beach with Grandma and Great-grammy. Great-grammy talked about when she was younger, and you didn't have to hunt for whole sand dollars; they would just wash up onto the shore where you were sitting. Really? I can't even imagine. What else will be missing by the time the campers are great-grammy's age?

Website Links:
Mustang Island, Texas
"Sand Dollars Where'd They Go?"
City of Austin Rain Barrel Program
CFL Recycling
City of Austin Single Stream Recycling
Greenling
Getting Kids Involved
A Climate of Hope: Helping Children Respond Productively to Global Warming

"E-i-e-i-O" or Mama Camp Goes to Sweet Berry Farm for the Goldwasser Toys for Tots Fundraiser

The yearly trip to Sweet Berry Farm signals the start of fall. This is the fourth time Mama Camp attended the Goldwasser Real Estate Toys for Tots fundraiser there and it's always fun but this year it was a blast! Maybe it was the crisp fall-like weather that made it extra special, normally it's hot and sweaty but this year the campers were bundled up in jackets, hats and gloves.

The campers enjoyed grilling hot dogs and s'mores by the bonfire, pony rides, talking to the goats, posing for photos, stuffing old clothes to make a scarecrow and going through the maze (in the dark).

Mama Camp arrived late and did not take advantage of the setting light to photograph the campers amidst the pumpkin patch...and as usual, the camera with the flash stayed home tucked away in the drawer so the iPhone camera was the only photo capturing option.

The best part of the night is the Big Camper offered up one of his unopened birthday gifts to Toys for Tots. At six he's trying to understand where his gift is going and who will receive it. Mama Camp has always encouraged the campers to set aside some of their allowance for donations and this year the Big Camper chose the animal shelter. The campers know that Mama Camp participates in various fundraisers but they have never seen the beneficiaries of these efforts. Stay tuned to see how Mama Camp corrects this...

Testimonials: Big Camper, "I love going there". Little Camper, (The grin from ear to ear said it all). Daddy Camp, "Going through the maze in the dark was hard but so much fun!" Camp Director, "A beautiful drive, a wonderful farm, the campers had so much fun...why don't we do this more often?"
Cost: one $10 toy per person
Actual cost: gas to Marble Falls
Website Links:
Goldwasser Real Estate
Sweet Berry Farm
Toys for Tots

How to Survive ACL Fest with Little Kids

Mama Camp & ACL Fest… Can you bring a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old to a three-day outdoor concert and come out sane?

Traditionally, the Austin City Limits Music Festival has fallen near the Camp Director’s birthday, which means we call in Grandma for extended duty with the campers while Camp Daddy and the Camp Director race from stage to stage enjoying favorite (and new) music.

This year, Grandma cannot travel, but could watch the campers at her house. But now the Big Camper is in kindergarten, so the first day of the festival is a school day. Plus, Camp Daddy is coaching the Big Camper’s Saturday morning flag football game, so we can’t miss that either. It all adds up to one thing: this is the year that Mama Camp is taking the campers to experience one more thing we love about Austin – the music!

First, Mama Camp asked FB friends for advice on taking kids to the festival. There were two suggestions:

1. Take them & hang out at the Austin Kiddie Limits Stage (http://www.aclfestival.com/inthepark/kiddie.html). But have someone pick them up at 4:00 so you can enjoy the rest of the festival
2. “Don’t ;)”

Without the necessary child-care available (see above re: Grandma), only half of the first suggestion is doable. And the second suggestion, while elegant in its simplicity, lacks a certain can-do attitude that Mama Camp takes pride in putting forward.

So, like all camps, we make a plan:

1. Pack the Little Camper in the car along with the big all-terrain stroller, a water-proof blanket, four one-liter bottles of water, three small umbrellas, four ponchos (there’s a hurricane in the forecast), extra clothes (in case there’s a potty accident), two camping chairs, kid’s snacks, and the diaper bag (diapers, wipes, hand sanitizer and changing pad).

2. Pick up the Big Camper from school early.

3. Drive-thru Chick-fil-a for an early dinner.

4. Beat the after-work rush hour traffic downtown to the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Lady Bird Lake. At the boat dock we’ll catch the 3.30pm Capital Cruises boat shuttle ($10/person) to Lou Neff Point.

5. Step into the Hyatt for the last clean bathroom break, and let the campers run around the lobby while the Camp Director and Camp Daddy gaze longingly at the bar.

6. Secure seats on the boat while Camp Daddy ensures the campers don’t:
a) Fall into the lake
b) Jump into the lake
c) Push each other into the lake
d) Find any other way to end up in the lake

7. Board the shuttle with two dry campers and all of the gear.

8. Enjoy the sights along Lady Bird Lake:
“Look Mama, a train…wooo-wooo!”
“Look Mama, a turtle!”
“Mama, how did someone write on the side of that bridge?”
“Look Mama, another turtle!”

9. Field tourists’ questions like “Where’s the best Mexican food in Austin?” Answer: “You’re a tourist…go to Guerro’s and experience SoCo at least once.” Explain the difference between 6th Street and 4th Street. Etc.

10. Debark at Lou Neff Point, and head up the hike & bike trail to the ACL Fest entrance on Barton Springs Road. Stop to say “Hello” to the swans along the way.

11. Arrive at the Austin City Limits Festival, get extra program booklets with iTunes sample cards for my nieces, and hope they don’t make us throw out the campers’ snacks from the diaper bag (thus avoiding a Little Camper hunger-fueled melt-down).

12. Go immediately to the souvenir tent to purchase 2009 t-shirts before the good ones sell out. And be grateful that the stroller still has room to stow the loot.

13. Find the “Tag-a-Kid” booth in case the campers decide to run for it.

14. Scope out the sponsor booths for freebies and group photo ops.

15. Head for the The Austin Kiddie Limits Stage. Note: they have a new schedule this year (Friday until 4.30 and Saturday & Sunday until 5:00). So we might see about 30 minutes of kid-friendly music here.

16. When the Kiddie Limits Stage closes, find a spot to camp where we can hear one or more of the big stages. Then hope and pray that the campers want to sit still. When they don’t, draw straws to see who chases after them. Note: don’t bring anything valuable in case it has to be left while chasing after the Little Camper.

17. When the campers are ready to go, let them know that the next boat shuttle is not until 10pm or later. Stay calm while campers whine about being exhausted, standing in line waiting to pee, and not being able to sleep because it’s too loud. Consider possibilities for leaving early:
a) Walk back to the Hyatt (about 1.5 miles)
b) Catch a cab back
c) Take a Pedi cab (make that two since the stroller will need its own seat)
Otherwise, just wait until the last show is almost over, and then head out ahead of the throng in order to maneuver the stroller out of the park


Hmm...sounds a little complicated.

OK, new plan:

1. Sell two Friday ACL Fest tickets.
2. Meet Grandma halfway on Saturday and deliver the most well-behaved campers for a fun-filled weekend of junk food, candy before noon, late-night TV watching, and llamas.
3. Use the money from the sale of the tickets for beer & food.
4. Enjoy two fun-filled days at ACL sans campers… if it doesn’t rain too much.