We have two cases of mangoes on our kitchen counter: the last case of Ataulfo mangoes W- could find at the Nations supermarket a short bike-ride away from the house (slightly underripe at purchase; it's been a few days, so now A+ says they're perfect), and a case of Tommy Atkins mangoes that are greener and tougher. He had meant to buy Hadens, but accidentally picked the Tommys up instead. That's okay, I said. I can turn them into mango shakes.

Wikipedia describes the Tommys as:

Although generally not considered to be the best in terms of sweetness and flavor, it is valued for its very long shelf life and tolerance of handling and transportation with little or no bruising or degradation.

Thomas Atkins submitted the fruit to the variety committee of the Florida Mango Forum multiple times during the 1950s, which rejected it due to its unremarkable eating qualities and considerable fiber in the flesh.

A+ has definitely developed mango preferences. Like me, she likes the smooth, sweet creaminess of Ataulfo and other Philippine-type mangoes. She's the one who regularly checks the mangoes for ripeness and reports on their status, letting us know as soon as they're soft. After a good meal, she often prepares a mango for herself, using a paring knife to skim it close to the seed. Sometimes she cuts a criss-cross grid and flips it into a turtle, or scoops out the insides for chopstick practice. She's gotten much better at getting most of the mango out; there's usually very little for me to scrape off the rest of the skins. Without prompting, she remembers to wash her hands before and after. One evening, watching her deftly cut her mango, I said, "People pay good money to send kids to cooking classes so they can pick up knife skills. Could buy a lot of mangoes for that money." We had fun joking about the short-term and long-term benefits.

I grew up eating mangoes in the Philippines. Sometimes they were on the breakfast table. Sometimes I had them at merienda (afternoon snack). Mangoes were either yellow, kidney-shaped, soft, and sweet, or the tart green mangoes that were also delicious in a different way, either straight-up or with salt or with bagoong (fermented fish or shrimp paste). (It took me a while to appreciate bagoong, but eventually I got the hang of it.) Green mango shakes were also a treat.

After I moved to Canada in 2005, I went a long time without regularly buying mangoes. Still mentally converting costs to Philippine pesos, I balked at the expense of individual mangoes. The supermarket rarely sold good-looking Ataulfo mangoes, mostly just other mango cultivars that were more fibrous. If they did have the yellow kidney-shaped mangoes of my memory, the ones sold individually tended to be wrinkly and sad. A case of mangoes felt like overkill for just me, and I never quite got around to seeing if any of my friends wanted to, I don't know, rotate mango buying.

I think we only started buying cases of mangoes last year or the year before that. Now we're more comfortable knowing that even if we buy cases one after the other, we'll eat them before they go bad. We'll never say, "I'm all mangoed out." (And if we ever do get to that point, I can just dehydrate whichever mangoes are left.) It is definitely a frill and we're lucky to be able to enjoy them.

When it's warm enough for the kids to complain of the heat, we tend to ramp up our mango consumption even more. For the past two years, I've been bringing a cooler of frozen treats to A+'s park playdates. It started as a way to fend off temptation from the ice cream trucks that like to prowl around parks, and as a reaction to the ridiculousness of retail/wholesale pricing when it comes to summer refreshments. My days in A+'s sphere of friends are numbered, so I may as well make the most of it. It's a splurge, but time-limited. She will probably not invite me to lurk in the background with a cooler of popsicles when she's 18 years old. So yes to all the things, for now: home-made mango freezies; strawberries and peaches from the farmers market when they're in season; freezies made from pick-your-own strawberries when we make it out to a farm. (Child labour!) Raspberry freezies are sometimes too intense or too seedy for the kids. A+ is not a fan of cantaloupe freezies, but I like them. For the watermelon freezes, we're a bit divided. I like to add a little bit of sugar to the watermelon if it seems like it needs it. A+ takes pride in not adding any sugar to home-made freezies, so whenever she wants to be in charge of making them (which is almost always), I let her go with whatever she wants. She likes to use the mini-watermelons and add a splash of lemon juice. It always tastes refreshing.

Sometimes we bring Chapman's ice lollies (the kids prefer the single-flavour ones) or other store-bought treats. Sometimes A+ proudly insists on paying for these herself; early experiences of prosocial spending, hooray! When the fruits are in season, I prefer to make home-made freezies. We don't follow any recipes. We just prepare the fruits and put them into the blender.

I use disposable popsicle bags from AliExpress since I haven't found a local source I like, and have determined that:

• Zipper seals are nice for filling, but difficult to open. The best bags have a little notch for tearing under the seal, but this is hard to see in product photos. I often bring scissors if the bags don't have notches.
• 22cm x 5cm: just right
• 28cm x 5.5cm: too much

We have a couple of reusable freezie molds that we sometimes use. I save those for A+ and me because I know they'll find their way back to the cooler.

I used to walk to the playdates with A+ in a stroller (she still fits in the Thule Chariot Cheetah XT, even at 9 years old), with the cooler balanced on top of it. It took me 45 minutes to an hour to walk to her usual park playdates, but the freezies were fine if I packed the cooler with lots of ice packs. With the cargo bike, I can get to the playdates in 15 minutes or so, which means there's plenty of time for A+ to play and get warm before she decides it's time for a freezie break, and the freezies are all still nicely cold.

A+'s favourite friends get first dibs by virtue of proximity when she decides it's popsicle time (after A+, of course, who gets first pick). It feels quite satisfying when A+'s friends sidle up and ask very politely if there happen to be any more of those mango popsicles. Then we extend the selection to everyone else in the playgroup, and then, when everyone's sorted out, the occasional brave soul who wanders up to the strange woman handing frozen treats out to kids. I try to make eye contact with their grown-up first to check if it's okay. Sometimes when I'm distracted, I ask the new kids if their grown-up is okay with it, but I get the feeling that their quick nod might not be entirely reliable as it tends to be done with their eyes fixed on the prize. Gotta find their actual grown-up. I know A+ likes to go back for seconds or thirds on really hot days, so sometimes I keep a special stash for her in a nylon drawstring bag in the cooler. Sometimes I have one too.

I'm Filipino. Part of my love language is food. Taste can anchor memories, and I hope these are part of her core experiences of childhood. I want these to be part of my memories of her. That's worth the mangoes.