What makes for a great holiday with small kids?

The view from our veranda

We just came back from a week in divine Shoal Bay. It was our third time there and it has become a January holiday tradition for our family. It is slow and easy and all about old fashioned things like fish and chips on the beach.

While we were away I was thinking about what makes a great holiday with small kids. After all you're basically just doing the same things in a different location!

So, to make sure I get a holiday too, here's my must have holiday list ...

- It must be no more than 2.5 hours from home.
- It must be on the water.
- It must be a small place. I don't want to go somewhere that is crazy busy and a small location naturally caps the number of people who can be there at any one time.
- I want to be able to walk to most things. Putting my kids in and out of the car is not my idea of a good time so I want most places to be close enough to walk to. Plus somehow having everything close makes your holiday feel longer!
- The place that we stay has to have a nice view - we are still in the day sleep stage and so we spend a reasonable amount of the middle of the day stuck inside. I want a view that screams 'you're on holiday'.
- I want to eat food that I haven't cooked so there needs to be a selection of takeaway options ... all within walking distance.
- It has to have a good pool.
- All linen needs to be provided. Doing 15 loads of washing when you get home tarnishes that holiday glow pretty quickly!
- It needs to have a kitchen in the apartment and a grocery shop within walking distance.
- Ideally there will be a park with a BBQ nearby (not even I want to eat takeaway every night). In the case of Shoal Bay there are BBQs on the grass next to the bay ... divine!

I sound like a complete fuss pot, I know. And we do go on lots and lots of mini holidays that don't have all that stuff. But for our 'summer holiday' I want to go somewhere that gives all of us a holiday, including me.

In case you look for the same things that we do, I'd highly recommend Shoal Bay Resort and Spa. And no this blog post wasn't sponsored ... I WISH!  

What do you look for in a family holiday?

Ode to the hose

The single thing that entertains Wild Man the best, without any input from me, is our garden hose so I've written a poem in its honour.  (And yes, I am hysterical with sleep deprivation - thanks Princess!).

Ode to our hose
I'm sorry to Sydney's water supply
But so grateful for your help in making the day go by.

Whenever I have something I need to do
I send Wild Man out to play with you.

Time for myself or a cup of tea,
"I'll turn on the hose" I say with glee.

In the sandpit, in the paddling pool,
If I turned it off, I'd be a fool!

A change of clothes is a small price to pay
For something that uses a big chunk of the day.

And its a healthy and outdoorsy kind of pursuit
And from the veranda it looks really cute.

I hate playing cars!

If I'm honest, I really hate playing cars with my son.

I feel a bit guilty about it, like I should be cherishing this time with him, but pushing tiny cars and diggers around the floor making brrrm brrrm sounds is boring and stupid and I can't believe that it is so fun for small boys.

But it is and so, perhaps not as graciously I might have done, I have spent hours sitting on the floor playing cars with Wild Man.

Spunky Rat is way better at it than me, and even seems to enjoy it (which I assume is his subconscious remembering when he was a small boy).

I can't believe that men have nerve to knock girls for playing Barbies when they like to play cars!

So imagine my excitement when Wild Man decided he would like to make 'dough-osaurs' like we saw on Play School.

For the sadly ignorant dough-osaurs are dinosaurs made of play dough.

Wild Man loves dinosaurs and we have an awesome dinosaur encyclopedia so we have made a fair variety of dough-osaurs ... highlights include a family of Stegosaurus, a Triceratops and a particularly fierce Ankylosaurus.

We also make trees for them to eat (or smaller dinosaurs if appropriate), caves for them to live in, snakes for them to step on (WM is good at making snakes!) and rivers for them to swim in.

And it is fun for both of us.

It's nice to be a bit creative (and to be reminded that however inept your Ankylosaurus-making, to your three year old you are a genius) and then we have lots of fun playing with our dough-osaurs.

Its also nice to have found a sitting down game that Wild Man and I both enjoy and which doesn't involved the phrase brrrm brrrm!

Better than the book?

Today, for the first time ever, I saw a movie that I though did justice to the book that it was based on. The movie was The Lorax and it is amazing - moving, thoughtful, hilarious and true to the book without feeling the need to follow it exactly.

This was Wild Man's first trip to the movies and The Lorax could well be the book that he has had read to him the most often in his life so, as you can imagine, our expectations were pretty high and I was frankly worried that the movie couldn't possibly meet them. But it really did!

I think the problem with movies based on books is that, if you have really loved a book and been engaged with its story, you have pictured every moment in your mind. No movie can live up to that, no actor or set will look exactly like your mental picture and books are generally longer then movies so some parts have to be cut out and you are inevitably disappointed.

Perhaps that was the strength of The Lorax. The book is quite short, only 36 pages, and it is written entirely in verse so the creators of the movie had to take the book as their basis and then imagine a story around it. And they did a great job. The story was much more complex than the book but the original tale was at the heart of every scene and I'm sure Dr Seuss would have been delighted with the end result.

The film is really true to the book's environmental message (Dr Seuss was surely before his time on that one) and the ending moved me to tears.


There were a couple of times in the middle where Wild Man did start to fidget (but he is only 3) but for the most part he was enthralled and his first words when the film finished were "can we watch that again".

Definitely go - the whole family will love this one!

Camping with Kids

I've spent my whole life camping. My parents met in a mountaineering society and it pretty much set the tone for most of our family holidays. It was great, us kids had so much freedom and my Mum subscribed to the idea that there should be one camp fire for each kid and one for cooking. It was brilliant.

When Wild Man was 4 months old Spunk Rat, Blackie and Strummer and I took him camping at Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains National Park . We only went for one night and it was great, although we did struggle a bit with getting food prepared because one of us was also holding the baby and I discovered that sleeping on the ground is less comfortable if you haven't been drinking wine around the camp fire because you are breastfeeding. I also lived in constant terror that the huge goanna who lived in the campsite viewed my beautiful baby as his next meal!

This Easter we decided to be really brave and take the two little kids to Wombeyan Caves. It was a big call because Wild Man is super adventurous and proan to roaming at will, and Princess can't walk yet and is an erratic sleeper at the best of times.

But you know what, it was great.

Wild Man thrived in the outdoors, it really played to his strengths. It took him about 20 minutes to hook up with the kids in the next tent over and he spent hours at 'their place', he tramped along on bushwalks, loved going through the caves and was suprisingly sensible about the camp fire (no, I didn't let him have one of his own).

Princess did disgrace herself by crying for an hour and a half one night and no doubt keeping all the other campers awake but was otherwise pretty happy to be carried around or watch everyone from the safe confines of her playpen. Amazingly, she really loved going through Figtree Cave and spent the whole time underground cooing in delight.

I think the best thing about camping with young kids is watching them experience the freedom of the great outdoors. Wild Man just blossomed and really didn't abuse his freedom at all. All the fresh air meant the kids glowed with health and sitting 'round the camp fire with your family, chatting and toasting marshmallows must surely be heaven.

So, a few tips for camping with kids (in no particular order):
- Think about where you are going - somewhere you can take bikes, that has flat grass, where other families camp, that has toilets, take allows fires and that has something appropriate to do each day will make for a better holiday.
- Get head torches, ideally one for each person. Its so much easier at night if you can see what you are doing but have your hands free.
- If you have a baby or small toddler consider taking a playpen and picnic rug. That way you'll know they aren't crawling into the camp fire! 
- Wrapping potatoes in wet kitchen paper and foil, then carefully popping them in the fire will occupy the kids while you get the rest of dinner ready.
- Cook and freeze spagetti bolognaise before you leave home. It will last for a couple of days in an  esky and if you only have to cook pasta and reheat the mince it is a really easy camp dinner.
- Take a hammock. I'd like to tell you that you'll be able to lie in it and read a book but actually it makes a fantastic play thing for kids. Part swing, part boat, part cubby, part wild fun park ride, it will provide hours of entertainment.
- Take a drink bottle for each child, keep them full and have a special spot where they 'live'. Getting a drink can be hard when you're a kid who is camping.
- Spitting the froth out of your mouth onto the nearest bush makes bruching your teeth fun.
- Long-life milk poppers are fantastic
- Trust them to be responsible, they'll probably suprise you
- Keep a clean change of clothes in a bag in the car and change the kids into them right before you leave. That way they won't smell of smoke for the car trip home.
 - Take marshmallows, lot of marshmallows.

I'm going to review some great camp grounds for families so watch this space...