Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

Thursday morning, we bundled up Mia and headed over to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. I’ve been wanting to take Mia there for quite some time, especially for some of the hands-on animal activities that take place a few times each month for kids her age. Unfortunately this was not a day when this activity was taking place, but I thought that she would enjoy the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven. Mia loves butterflies – at least in theory, based on her strong appreciation for pictures of butterflies, a stuffed butterfly she has, and her favorite butterfly barrette. I had been warned by another mom with a daughter the same age that it might be a bit intimidating for her, since the butterflies can fly right up into the little ones’ faces.

At any rate, when we arrived at the Museum we asked for suggestions on activities that a 20 month old might enjoy. We were told to try out the children’s Discovery Center on the first floor, which is a gated nature-themed play area for the younger kids.

So we headed into the museum, and the first thing we noticed – hard to miss – was an enormous, life-size (seemed larger than that to me) stuffed polar bear, taxidermy-style. Pretty impressive, and the other kids seemed enthralled, but Mia was terrified! I had her put her head down and make her look the other way as we walked past. The stuffed cougar, however, got her all excited and roaring.

The first room we went into had an exhibit with water tables that kids could interact with, but this was too advanced for Mia. We walked through the rest of the room, and came across lots of animals – the kinds you’d find out there in the wilds of Illinois. Again, much of this was lost on Mia, who would be much more entertained seeing farm animals as opposed to tarantulas, frogs and snakes. For older kids, it’s awesome. With no prompting or prior teaching from me, Mia uttered “Ew!” at the spindly bugs, animal skeletons and other not-so-cute items on display. It’s innate!

The play room for kids was much more Mia’s speed, with non-intimidating animals like a beaver atop a dam, a climbing area with a slide, and nooks and crannies for playing and exploring.

After spending some time in the play room we headed up to the Butterfly haven. It’s a very hot, humid room filled with greenery and flowers, and butterflies everywhere you look. There were not so many butterflies that you felt like you’d step on them or get hit in the face, yet there were enough that they seemed to be in every spot you looked. They were really beautiful, and while many were flying around, many were sitting still so you could get an incredible close up view. Mia was fascinated, and while she seemed a bit apprehensive, she was not scared at all. She moved her hands open and close, imitating the sitting butterflies’ wings opening and closing. She didn’t want to leave, and when we finally exited she kept saying “more more.”

We spent some time walking around the upstairs exhibits, and while activities were geared toward older kids, she enjoyed a few random things that we stumbled upon, like a giant turtle and a penguin’s iceberg that she could walk underneath.

Overall, I was really impressed with the museum and Mia had a great time, but I think she’ll get much more out of it when she’s a bit older. I still would like to take her back for some of the hands-on animal activities, so that she can get another chance to see the butterflies.

Commitmentphobe? Try some short term classes!

I'm always looking for fun things to do with Mia, but as this blogs reflects, it's a bit challenging with my schedule. One thing I have been looking into are ways to test out kid classes with a trial class - test drive before you buy!

So for you parents who are looking for a short term commitment for kids activities, there are some great events being offered in the coming weeks at Bellybum Boutique - 4347 N. Lincoln Ave in Chicago - one of my favorite stores. Plus, they offer some free demo classes to try before you buy!

Itsy Bitsy Yoga Toddler / Itsy Bitsy Yoga Infant:
You can try out a free demo on January 4, and then sign up for a 4 session class. The classes are taught by a certified Itsy Bitsy instructor, and are part of a developmentally-centered program for young children.

Dance With Me Toddler:
For toddlers ages 1-3, this class gets baby moving. You can register for 4 sessions starting on January 6, or drop in for $15 on Wednesdays at 11am (Jan 6-27)

Sign & Sing with Baby:
4 sessions starting January 21. I'm a BIG fan of baby sign, even though we only taught my daughter a few signs. Had I know how useful the signs she learned would be, I would have taken a class. And in this class, signing is taught along with music to increase ease of learning. I highly recommend giving this a try if you a have a little one!

Other classes for moms include Child Led Potty Learning, How & Why to Cloth Diaper Your Baby, Going Green for Me & Baby to Be, and more. Check the web site for more details on these and MANY other fun events: www.bellybumboutique.com/calendar

Cat & Mouse Game Store

I headed over to Cat & Mouse Game Store to find some new things for my daughter Mia to play with. She's 20 months old now, and really starting to develop her own interests, so I was interested in hearing some suggestions. I've been wanting to check out this store for a while, especially since hearing that their specialty is non-electronic games!


I loved the store right away. It's set up nicely, and there's room to browse yet you can see from the games stacking up high that there's a LOT to choose from here. They've got a fantastic selection of puzzles and games, and boast of an expanded collection based on lots of research and customer feedback. There's lots of great games and puzzles for adults too, including some great classic, strategy and fantasy games. The selection for kids Mia's age was not too expansive, but they did have a really nice assortment of things we already love. They have a nice selection of wooden Haba toys and games, and lots of brain-exercising puzzles and toys even for the little tots. We were helped by a very knowledgeable staffer who gave us some suggestions based on Mia's interests. I think in just a few months we'll be able to head back and find a lot more things that she will love.

The store does a game night, but this is more geared toward adults. However there are tables set up and games out to try, so it's a fun place to visit with your kids.

Indoor Fun at Fantasy Kingdom

Fall is here and I'm hoping to find some fun indoor options for Mia this winter. I admit that I'm a little paranoid to take Mia to an indoor play place where kids are taking turns putting everything in their mouths. However, the alternative would be never letting her leave the house, which would drive us all crazy.

We finally tried out Fantasy Kingdom a couple of weeks ago. We invited a few friends to join us, and brought a few treats to share. Fantasy Kingdom has a nice clean kitchen area for parties or for just giving your kids a snack while they're playing.

Mia just turned 18 months old, so I wasn't quite sure what she'd be into at a place like this. It's a nice big space, mostly to the theme of a castle/kindom. In addition to the castle theme there is a police station, firehouse, and grocery, complete with costumes, slides, climbing areas, and plenty of little nooks and crannies for kids to explore. There's also a special separate area for the pre-crawlers and crawlers, with plenty of toys and things to keep them busy.

Mia was too young for a lot of the pretend play, but she found a few things that kept her completely enthralled. She had never ridden in a pretend car before, so she absolutely loved getting in and out of the pretend emergency vehicles. She fell in love with a plastic rocking horse, spent a good 15 minutes pushing around a lawn mower, and she became obsessed with a few of the realistic plastic animal toys. These aren't earth-shattering toys and activities, but they were the things that she ended amusing herself with for nearly 90 minutes!

I'm looking forward to going back and seeing how her interests change as she gets older. There are definitely toys and features for kids at every level up to age 6.

The parking is convenient there - we happened to luck out with street parking, but there's a huge indoor lot that's just $5 with validation. Regular admission is $12 per kid during open play hours.

Check out the web site at http://www.fantasykingdom.org

Back to Blogging

As someone with a background in internet marketing, having advised numerous big brand clients how critical it is to really BLOG if you're going to start a blog, it's quite embarrassing that I have not written in over a month! My last post was right before our first airplane ride with Mia - overseas - and I could legitimately say that we've been recovering ever since. That trip is a long story - involving an overbooked flight, Mia having two 2-hour nuclear meltdowns on the overseas flight and vomiting on 2 complete strangers (and on my husband), our luggage arriving more than 24 hours after we did, ten days of a very cranky jetlagged baby, and a return trip with Mia all by myself. There's plenty more. You know it's bad when the airline provides you with a complimentary scotch on the rocks.

At any rate, we're back now and getting ready for winter, and I realize that trips to the park aren't going to be happening quite so often in the cold weather. So I'm making a commitment to get Mia out of the house so that we can check out new places to go with kids around town.

We've already started with Wiggleworms, which I'll write about in a separate post, and we're planning some outings to other family destinations in the coming weeks. So check back soon and I will have some more to blog about!

Farmer Mia

Our daugher Mia finally got to go to a real farm this weekend! She's been obsessed with cows since she was 6 months old, and while she only likes to say 2 real words so far (mama and daddy) she has an entire repertoire of barnyard sounds - at least 8!

Her dad and I dropped her off for a night at Grandma and Grandpa's in the suburbs, and on Sunday they took her to Wagner Farm, located at 1510 Wagner Road in Glenview. She had a great time seeing the cows, horses and other animals close up.



My parents report that the farm was a ton of fun, super clean, and that Mia was completely captivated by the animals. They can't wait to take her back, and now I'm planning to take her there as well!

At her age, seeing the animals is the exciting part, but there are lots of ways that older kids can get involved.

Kids can visit the Milking Lab and Parlor and see milking demonstrations, learn about growing common farm crops, see how mechanization changed farming into a commercial endeavor, and do hands on activities and learn more about how farms work and the roles that they play in the world.

For more information about visiting the farm, go to http://www.wagnerfarm.org.

Wicker Park Fest - Kids

This weekend is Wicker Park Fest, and there's a great lineup of music and activities for kids going on all day on Saturday and Sunday.

The Kids part of the fest takes place near Milwaukee and Evergreen. Kids will have a chance to let their hair down and rock out with Psychobaby in the Rock 'n Roll Kids Tent, featuring Punk Rock Hair Styles, Create Your Own Band Tees and Custom Photo Shoots.

Musical entertainment goes on all day at the Beat Kitchen Kids’ Stage. The lineup includes Mary Macaroni, Lindsey Weinberg, Jeremy Babcock of the Dream Shakers, Little Miss Ann, Laura Doherty, Karen 4 Kids and more.

Here's the schedule:

Saturday July 26th

Noon- Mary Macaroni
1:00- Lindsey Weinberg
2:00- Beazley Phillips
3:00- Jeremy Babcock of the Dream Shakers
4:00- Bucktown School of Music
5:00- Little Miss Ann

Sunday July 27th

Noon- Mary Macaroni
1:00- Kid's Yoga with Soulistic
2:00- Chang's Martial Arts
3:00- Mad Science of Chicago
4:00- Laura Doherty
5:00- Karen 4 Kids

Sweet!

Being that my ChicagoKids.com logo is penguins, it was only a matter of time before I made my way into Suckers Candy at 3256 N. Damen. Visitors here are greeted by an enormous penguin statue, and I felt that I had perhaps stumbled upon a place that was my soul match (nevermind all the goodies inside and my insane chocolate addiction!)

The store is absolutely adorable, from the outside right on in. Containers of candy fill the store, and you can fill your bag with whatever you like. They had every type of gummy candy, from bears to fish to fruit rings, hard candies, chocolates, lollipops - you name it! It's great for kids, so you can just let everyone fill up their own bag with whatever they want.

They also do gift and goodie bags. A friend of mine has used them before to make goodie gift bags, and she said they did a great job.

Unfortunately it was over 90 degrees the day we stopped by, and since I'm a chocoholic I couldnt' really stock up too much or everything would have melted. So of course we will be returning soon on a cooler day!

Kohl Children's Museum

We just got back from our first visit to Kohl Children's Museum with Mia and my parents. It was Mia's first trip to a museum, and I think she had a pretty good time!

There's a kid-sized grocery store and Potbelly's that kids can play in, pretending to be employees and customers, which I thought was pretty great. That was way over Mia's head though, so we looked for activities that should could enjoy. For some perspective, Mia is 13 months old - and thankfully she's walking, because it was too crowded to push a stroller around.

We found quite a few activities that Mia was able to enjoy, and we can see that she's going to grow into many of the other areas. She's not quite old enough to do a lot of the things at this museum that make things happen - like pull a lever, push a bar, etc - but she was able to enjoy watching what happened when we did those parts for her.

The Water Works area let kids explore water, and the tables where lots of the water flowed was just low enough for Mia to check it out and enjoy it. She liked the simple things - like just pulling balls out of the water or watching bubbles moving. I can see how she's going to really enjoy this room when she gets older!

We spent a lot of time in the Music Makers area, since Mia's pretty musically / rhythmically inclined, and it was very noisy which was a bit overwhelming for her. There was one small room off to the side in that area where we were able to play with just a few little drums at one time and it wasn't so crowded. She loved this, and it was nice to have a little space that wasn't so overwhelming to her. She really liked banging on some funky xylophones too.

We ended up finding activities that she liked and that worked for her age throughout the museum. There were quite a few things that caught her attention in the temporary Color Play exhibit. A globe full of colorful feathers that blew all around; patterned wheels that she could spin and watch; and even big spotlights of color on the wall were pretty exciting for her!

I was really impressed by how much kids can actually learn, once they're old enough to understand. This is all lost on Mia now, but there's so much hands on learning about how things actually work, like color, water, and light. Overall, even for a one-year-old, this was a really fun museum and it kept Mia very entertained for an hour. We could have spent more time exploring, but Mia was starting to get tired. We'll definitely be going back, and my parents were kind enough to get Mia a membership (this also ensures that we bring Mia up to their place to visit more often!) The membership which will also get us into the Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier, which I'm very excited to check out!

Here's Mia peering out at us from inside the hollowed out trunk of a big plastic tree. She has no idea where she's supposed to be, but since it was quite conducive to Peek-a-Boo, she loved it.

Be an animal!

Some new residences have sprouted up at The Morton Arboretum! Animal Houses is open, and eleven gigantic human-sized animal house are ready for inspection.

If your kids wonder where all those squirrels go when they're done running around your yard, they can climb through a "squirrel drey" and see how the squirrels live. A 20 foot raccoon den shows kids where raccoons go off to sleep, and an oversized rotting log shows kids all sorts of different animals that make this their home.

Animal Houses are open through November 14.