We arrived at camp this morning a couple of minutes behind schedule but when you are toting three kids, sometimes you’re just happy to get there at all.

The eighteen year old camp counsellor who I’m guessing is eighteen though my two daughters have pegged her at anywhere from, “She’s pretty old Mom, like twenty-five?” to, “She’s about your age Mom, forty-nine…ish?”

The young girl commented as we waddled, sprinted, skipped down the hall, “Awe, your baby is adorable. I want one.”

Allow me to back up the Grand Caravan for a moment.

This morning began as any other morning with Hanna sneaking down the hall just before 6am to quietly turn on the t.v. before anyone could tell her she was not allowed to watch t.v. during the day. She groaned when she heard me emerge from the bedroom post shower-cap shower as she knew her time with icarly was numbered (and likely because she knew I hadn’t washed my hair again for the second day in a row).

She ate a couple of bites of toast for breakfast but once the t.v. was turned off she knew she could get away with slowing things right down, not eating, saying her tummy hurt, why not? She could now afford to be grumpy and pokey given the t.v. had already been taken away.

Ellie then crept down the hall and she was mentally, nowhere near ready to dress herself or choose from our selection of chalkboard breakfast specials. Exhausted from just two full days of camp, she could barely lift her arms above her waist to give me her morning shrug.

Enter baby Chloe. Her refusal to wear anything I attempt to put on is growing old but at this point, I’m watching the minutes tick by and I still need to pack two lunches, comb hair, ask Hanna if she’s brushed her teeth, have her respond yes, ask her if she’s telling the truth, have her respond no and battle with Ellie over why her socks hurt her baby toe so much she can only wear shoes that are two sizes too big and fall off easily after just one step. Only then will she agree to slide them out the door and line up for sunscreen application.

Chloe points at the bananas and says, “bena.” I begin to peel the bena and place it on her high chair tray.  She looks at me and clearly says, “two,” so I split the bena in two and lay two devil’s horns on her tray. She spikes both on the floor and cries.

While her older sisters search for their hats and pull the braids out that I spent time away from chopping red pepper sticks for their lunches in order to coif, it was time to get Chloe dressed.

She ran not into her room but to her older sister’s room and tore a size 6X dress off the hanger and handed it to me, bena smeared hands and all. No time to argue, if my kids missed the welcome to camp greeting song they would be ostracized from the other already angrily hot children and I couldn’t house that extra guilt today.

So, Chloe dragging a 6X droopy-chic dress down the hall grabbed her life jacket, winter hat and off we were to the driveway. This is progress, we’ve left the house but it would take all of my strength to negotiate Chloe into her car seat which was previously the yin to her yang but as of late is the thing that her thang will not sit in.

The life jacket would not fit under the seat belt and I prepared myself for the caravan cage match of a lifetime.

Chloe: Poops, poops, poops.

Me: Chloe, is this one of those times you’re showing off your impressive 19 month old vocabulary?

Hanna: Mom, Chloe stinks.

When we did finally make it to camp, Ellie scooching across the parking lot with my old hiking boots, Hanna asking if it would be okay if we watched t.v. the minute we returned home from camp and Chloe wiping away twenty minutes worth of “give me back my life jacket you ogre” tears, we passed one of my favourite little guys who for the better part of a year wore cowboy boots and gardening gloves regardless of season each and every day.

That’s when I heard it.

“Awe, your baby is adorable. I want one.”

Of course she does. The evil genius is hard at work walking in a straight line, swinging her one arm out to the side propelling her chubby little legs along the hallway, whispering, “do re do re mi” making it impossible not to love her. That’s exactly what she wants you to do. Make more of her so there’ll be less of us. I simply will not live in a world where cowboy boots, gardening gloves, lifejackets, winter hats in the summer and complaints about sock injuries and early morning television are the norm.