Monster High

My daughter turned six years old this week, and for her birthday, my mother in law bought her a Monster High doll. I would not have bought her one myself, and her grandmother asked a girl, my daughter's age, which toy she would buy if she had a choice, and the choice was Monster High. For those of you not familiar to Monster High, the dolls are very leggy, and very skinny (skinnier than Barbie) with larger heads, eyes and lips. The faces are not as bad as the Bratz dolls, but the bodies are much skinnier.

Right now, most of my daughter's friends are crazy about My Little Pony. The cartoons are pretty funny (which explains the whole Bronie phenomenon), but as with many cartoons, the humour is above the heads of six year olds. My Little Pony seems to be cashing in in the Monster High craze. They have designed their Equestria Girls dolls to look a lot like the Monster High ones. My Little Pony toys are now fashion dolls. Who would have thought? I liked the idea that they are ponies. Making them leggy girls has taken away some of their innocence.

Bratz dolls have come up with a line called Bratzilla to mimic the monster theme. I have not taken a good look at this product as I am particularly unimpressed by Bratz. When they came up with a line of baby dolls with makeup, and pouty lips, I wanted nothing to do with them.

The Monster High marketing scheme is pretty good. I kind of like all the different kinds of "Monsters" they have created, usually based on a popular culture beastie. My daughter's doll is called Operetta, and she is the daughter of The Phantom of the Opera. They have funny profiles, taking into consideration the history of the monster or its parentage. Aside from the appearance of the dolls, it is a clever concept. I find myself wanting to get Skelita Calaveras because of my year spent in Mexico and my fascination with the Day of the Dead.

The appearance, leggy, skinny dolls in skimpy clothes is a problem for me, especially with my daughter being only six years old. I want her to stay young and innocent for as long as possible. Maybe the look of the dolls is so extreme that kids realize it is make believe. Barbies are more "normal" looking in comparison, but equally unrealistic as far as body shape. They could be more dangerous because girls might try to be like them. I doubt anyone is going to try to be a steam punk robot. (Really, that is kind of a cool character).

So, I let my daughter have her Monster High doll, without judgement. I will just monitor what she consumes as far as related media is concerned. We tend to watch French language only programs, so unless I find a DVD with the French track, she will not get to watch shows like Monster High and My Little Pony. I know there are French versions of these shows available, but I will wait until she is a little older. For now, we will stick with the innocent shows of miniTFO (kind of like French Treehouse), without commercials. It is bad enough that their father is exposing my children to Avengers, in French no less!

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Our Camping Trip, 2013. Pinery Provincial Park.

Last year was the first time we went camping with the kids. We decided on Whispering Pines at Santa's Village near Bracebridge because it was close to the amusement park, the town of Bracebridge, and the campsite has a pool and playground. It was quite a successful trip. Being close to civilization meant I was able to pop into town for things like a smaller air mattress, and food for supper. We also spent one of the three days exploring the parks of Bracebridge.

We have been going to Santa's Village for a few years, and my children are still young enough to enjoy their time there. However, I have been feeling of late that this amusement park is small, outdated and quite overpriced for a day trip from Sudbury. Camping last year was perfect because the amusement park was not our ultimate goal.

We saved on entrance costs because Fridays are two for one. We were already at Santa's Village the day we decided to go inside the park, so we did not have to wake at the crack of dawn, and drive for three hours. The pool and the playground at the campsite were just as fun for our kids as Santa's Village, and it was included with the camping fees. We also had the opportunity to rent a canoe.

This year we had a different camping experience. I did not feel like another year at Whispering Pines, but I still wanted a short camping experience for our family. I decided on Pinery Provincial Park, on the shores of Lake Huron. We were already in southern Ontario visiting my parents, so the drive to Pinery was only 2 1/2 hours from Oakville.

For a biologist/ecologist, this is a pretty amazing park. The succession happening on the dunes, the different habitats, all of the rare plants, it was quite interesting. On top of that, their visitor centre is extremely well set up and interactive.

There are displays, aquariums, a movie theatre and an outdoor amphitheatre. They have daily activities, for free, as well as programs in the evenings, and children's activities. You can rent bikes and paddle boats. If the weather is nice, there is a long shallow beach with kilometres of soft sand. Even if you do not camp there, it is worth a visit to the day use beaches when the weather is cooperating.

Unfortunately for us, the weather could have been better. We only ended up at the beach the first day, and it was not a sunny or particularly warm day. However, my kids still had a lot of fun playing in the sand with their Manitoban cousins as my parents had driven out for the day.

The next couple of days were cloudy, cool, and the wind started to pick up. It was quite spectacular, seeing the waves on the lake. It felt like being at the ocean. For a day and a half there was an underlying sound of waves roaring in the distance. Without the option of going to the beach, we had to find other things to do.

We ended up walking a lot. I was surprised how well my kids, aged 4 and 6, did with all the walking. We misjudged the distance to one trail, and missed a mushroom hike. I ended up running back to our campsite to get the van. The kids wanted to watch "tv" often, and at one point I had to drag my daughter out of the movie theatre because it was playing a cartoon, and we had somewhere to be. Otherwise, they seemed as fascinated by the insects, plants, and animals as we were.

When you only do a three night camping trip, it is a gamble whether or not you will have good weather. The day we left, the sky had cleared, and they were predicting warm, summer temperatures for the weekend. It was still a great experience. The campsite was well equipped with washrooms, and warm showers. Most of our neighbours were quiet, and we stayed dry during the rainstorm our last night.

I know my husband was not impressed that there was no play structure for our kids, but we had other things to keep them occupied. I had brought along some pages to paint by adding water. We also had some "board" games found in the kids' Pomme d'Api magazines. I forgot to bring scissors, so we could not play the games that were not already cut out, but this leaves something for the next trip. Really, they needed to get a little bored as well. They often came up with imaginative games to play around the campsite. Unfortunatley, the prevalence of poison ivy prevented them from exploring too much in the bushes, but it was a step in the right direction with regards to camping.

Next year, maybe we will head out East. Three of our friends went out to PEI this summer, and I have heard nothing but good things about it. Maybe we will plan an epic road trip for next summer.

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Playgrounds

It is summertime, and we are spending a lot of time visiting various playgrounds and splash pads. My kids used to look forward to playing at the playground near their grandparents' home in Oakville, but the play structure was totally revamped last month. It seems as though all of the parks in Oakville were overhauled, regardless of whether or not they needed to be. My kids miss the spiral slide from the old park. The new park is supposed to be handicap accessible, but they replaced the tunnel slide with three shorter bumping slides.

They put in a couple balancing toys, a wake board, and a skate board. My daughter barely weighs anything, so it was quite easy for her to balance. She also liked the climbing wall leading to a fireman's pole. In fact, she said she did not like other play structures as much when they did not have a pole.

There are other parks nearby with shorter spiral slides, but they are not within walking distance from Grandma and Grandpa's. My son was particularly amused with the bouncy bridge at one of the further parks. This park was good for when we, the parents, wanted to play some tennis because the park was close to the courts.

In Mississauga, just off of the Lakeshore, there is a very interesting park called Lakeside. They have the closest spray pad to us. At first, the spray pad looked boring because it was just a series of fountains coming out of a cement pad. However, the kids loved it. I always said a bidet would be a hit at home. My kids love water that spurts up. Plus, the fountains will go on together, following a programmed pattern. There is even a misty vent. My biggest gripe is that the other misty vent, the one the kids can contriol, is at the top of a flight of stairs. Not well thought out. Makes me wonder if someone has gotten seriously injured yet.

The play structure part of the park is quite fun. Lots of spinning things, and a first nations, exploration, musical theme going on. At first, I was leery about the large climbing merry go round, but as my husband pointed out, it requires cooperation on the part of the children, and encourages communication. Often, the kids would try to recruit an adult to turn the merry go round, but with ten kids trying to get into place, it got quite tedious. I let the kids figure it out for themselves, and they usually did.

I think I was having more fun on the other spinning structures than my kids. It was one of those parks where it felt like it was giving the children the chance to explore and try out things. It was not too sanitized, but was safe because the smaller kids could not get on the bigger structures. Having just listened to a podcast asking if playgrounds are too safe, it was neat to see some innovative ideas for new parks. Listen here to the Q podcast.

Our playground explorations concluded with a rec centre in Burlington. For $3, kids had access to a splash pad, a wading pool, a big pool, and a playground. Plus, there was a bigger playground outside the fenced in Nelson Park, and a BMX jumping area. It looked as though there were sports fields in the back too.

I wish Sudbury had shallow pools for younger kids, either indoor or outdoor, but something other than just sprays coming out of the ground. I suppose we have all our beaches around town, but there is no truly family oriented swimming area for us. I was extremely jealous of my friend in Edmonton. Their rec centre had an indoor playground, plus two pools. One for laps and diving, and a family pool that was very warm, with a lazy river, and a waterslide. Also, there was an even warmer mom and babies area. Amazing. Of course, Edmonton is much bigger than Sudbury, but Burlington is about the same size. We have no outdoor pools in Sudbury nor indoor playgrounds, unless you count McDonald's or Burger King.

Have you found any fun parks in your neighbourhood? Where do you live?

 

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