My husband is a graduate student. This creates any number of pros and cons in our relationship and family life, but the bigger picture is, theoretically, worth it. He's aiming for graduation and the job he wants instead of ongoing misery as a high school teacher (more power to you if you can be, or be married to, a high school teacher; clearly none of the adults in my house can handle it with proper sanity and aplomb).
The most recent saga had to do with comprehensive exams [cue scary music]. He was assigned to write two papers over the course of a month, and to take an in-class math test (but with no numbers and in topics I can't begin to conceptualize - and I went to an engineering school for my undergraduate degree, so I'm not math-phobic). It's hard work, and we really didn't see him much over the past month. And in the last week, he was really feeling the crunch, so I decided to dive into the cute and brightly-lit world of indoor children's entertainment, just to clear out the house and help the small ones sleep better at night. I thought I'd share some of our experiences, along with a huge sigh of relief that my children, being 3 and 7, are big enough to function independently at all of these venues. I have ongoing back pain from a stupid and graceless fall a few weeks ago, and the stooping-and-chasing required of parents of smaller mobile critters at these places would've about killed me.
Children's Museum of Maine, Portland, ME
I love the name of this type of establishment: "children's museum." When you go to an art museum or a science museum, what do you see hanging on the walls? But never fear, children's museums are about entertaining the wee ones, not finding the ideal height and lighting with which to highlight their anatomies. If this is a disappointment to you, please don't attend any further birthday parties at my house, mmm-kay?
Friend Gretchen and I took the kids up, and met her mother there, for an afternoon. Very clean and well-lit, fun stuff for the kids to do. A touch on the overpriced side, in my opinion, given that there's not only nothing for parents to do and no alcohol served on-site, but there's not a lot of places to sit comfortably and watch, but nor are the displays all adult-accessible. But there's a solution to this: contact your local library. Many have discounted admissions to the various museums and such in the area, and we were able to get half-priced admission for four people. Memberships are also good for the money thing, but only if you live close enough to go regularly, which we don't. Another note on money: the gift shop is expensive, though they don't force you to walk through in order to leave, which is helpful.
A starfish in the Touch Tank... poor thing.
Jacob, 3, endorsed the area that involves balls and gravity and basic laws of physics. Emily, 7, was a big fan of the fire truck, and of the waterfall and dams with the ability to create apocalyptic eddies and waves which could swamp and scuttle a toy boat without warning.
We'd go again, happily enough, but only if we were planning to meet someone in the area. The Children's Museum of Portsmouth in New Hampshire is much nearer to us - and moving even closer sometime in the future, and is comparably fun and entertaining without as many Are we there yet?'s.
Chuck E. Cheese, Newington, NH
We've been known, at times, to refer to this as the Evil Mouse Place, and normally I leave with a headache and a general sense of overstimulation. It's gotten much better as my kids grow, because now I can institute the Table Rule: I find a table and make them sit for a few minutes to memorize where it is. Then I keep the cup of tokens with me and send them off with one or two tokens at a time. They come back at regular intervals to get more tokens, which lets me keep track of them without stepping on (as many) strangers' children in the process.
It's still overstimulating, but it's kept cleaner than one might expect a place that serves that much greasy pizza and cotton candy, and the kids salivate whenever we drive past on the highway, so it meets some deep, sensory need for them. I have to admit, greasy pizza aside, that they do have a good salad bar.
It can get expensive, because they charge, like, a billion dollars per pizza, but there are regular coupons in the newspaper and you can get them online, as well, so that helps. And sometimes we get a lot of tokens, other times just a handful, because there are token-free activities there. Or we can just go home sooner, which does have its own charms.
Kids Playground, Woburn, MA
Another family favorite, though it does require an hour drive in good weather, and two-plus this past Sunday. I would have been happy to turn around and avoid the snow, but the kids knew where we were heading and were threatening an uprising, and I couldn't reach my friend, whom we were planning to meet there with her kids, so we soldiered through. There's a good range of age-appropriate activities here, which gives it a huge advantage over Chuck E. Cheese.
It's got a reasonable fee structure, with kids costing more than adults to get in, and they have a free membership thing, where you get a card for each child and they swipe it through the computer when you enter. They have a rubric, such that every so-many visits equals a discount at the food counter, and every other-many visits equals a free admission. I can't keep track of the math, but it seems like we that fre admission a lot. I love the word free. The food is a bit less horrifying than that which they sell at Chuck E. Cheese, as well, such that the three of us were able to eat and get snacks for the ride home, for less than the $12 I had in my wallet.
Walmart and McDonalds, ubiquitous
No, really. This was my father's idea; he called up on Saturday morning saying, "I haven't seen the kids in a while. Can I take them out to dinner tomorrow night?" Awesome. And he's well-enough-versed in the ways of small children to know that it doesn't have to involve a lot of driving and kid-specific activities and money to entertain them. They went to Walmart first, wandered and browsed a bit, and he let each kid pick out an under-$10 toy, and then to the McDonalds with a Play Place, to run and climb until the restaurant (no, really, that's what they call it) closed. It's not a high-nutrition kind of experience, physically or mentally, but they all had a great time and I didn't have to go.
Seems like just about enough, don't you think? I sure thought so.
OK, February. I get it.
