i went to iceland and took my rollerskates

I've decided to start fueling Lady M's interest in traveling at an early age. I've been lucky to travel a fair bit, and I hope that one day my kids will want to travel to fabulous, far off places too. In fact, the list of countries I still want to visit is enormous, and I look forward to the day when we can travel as a family and explore the world together.

Until then, we'll learn about new places right here at home. We're always pulling a new book off her bookshelf and over the last couple of weeks we've been enjoying looking at a children's atlas that was given to me at one of my baby showers. The book is awesome; great, colourful pictures and simple descriptions of people, places and things, just whetting her appetite for learning about the world.

The first time we looked at it, I pointed out a few key countries for her reference -

• Canada, where we live, of course; 
• Sweden, where I have lived; 
• England where my Dad was born; 
• India, where my grandparents were born;  
• Australia where Cal has traveled and 
• Costa Rica & Nicaragua where Cal and I honeymooned, just so we could really hop all across the map. 

She likes to tell me that she's been to each of these places with Cal and I which I think is great. I'd love to know what sort of travel memories her busy little imagination has conjured up!

Then, for a little spin around North America, we also look at Victoria and Daytona Beach, places Lady M has visited. Of course her concept of how vast the world is is quite limited, but we have fun talking about each place and I enjoy listening to her (often imagined) recollection of her adventures.

Right now she likes to point to each of the key places listed, and then finds new, colourful countries to point at. The other day when we were looking at the atlas, she put her finger on a country and said "I've been there!". I said, "that's Iceland", to which she replied, "yeah, Iceland - I took my rollerskates there and went all over".

Why shouldn't she want to rollerskate across Iceland, or think she already has? I love the imagination children have and hope many of these things really happen for her down the road.

In fact, I hope one day we can roller skate in Iceland together.