Me and the Big Boys

We are on our way home now, with several fun stops planned along the way. From St. Louis, we headed to Cincinnati, Ohio, so that we could go to the Newport Aquarium and experience the walk-through shark tank, penguin parade and jellyfish exhibit. Cincinnati is a little out of the way for our journey home, but not by much. It's a 6-hour drive from St. Louis, and about one hour south of Dayton, Ohio.

The Franz family in Newport, Kentucky, with a Cincinnati skyline backdrop.

The Newport Aquarium is actually in Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Newport, Kentucky is considered part of the Cincinnati region. I opted to stay at a Quality Inn on the Ohio side, about 3 miles from the aquarium, because it was about $40 cheaper than staying on the Kentucky side within walking distance of the aquarium, and the other hotels I found online were further away. I like to be close to my destination, especially since we wanted to catch the Penguin Parade at 9:15, and the aquarium website warned me that the line for tickets might be long.

In retrospect, I would recommend arriving earlier in the day and staying in pedestrian-friendly Newport, because the "riverwalk" area near the aquarium has a lot of activity: outdoor music, concerts, restaurants and shopping. The Cincinnati side was run down and there was nothing close enough to our hotel to walk to. We drove around a while looking for a place to eat dinner, but it was late and the kids were tired, so we settled on the place recommended by our hotel check in girl, a Big Boy. The kids enjoyed their meals of spaghetti, fish sticks, vegetables from the salad bar and french fries, but Paul and I are not big on that genre of food. However, my goal was to quickly feed my kids a healthy meal and get them to bed, and that I accomplished, so it was a good choice for the moment.

Magic House

After a few days of family gatherings and celebrations, we went to The Magic House St. Louis Children's Museum. http://www.magichouse.org/

We had a tough choice to make: The Gateway Arch (where you can ride to the top), the City Museum (with a circus exhibit, aquarium and climbing structures) and the Butterfly House (with live butterflies that land on you) were also at the top of our list. I described all the venues to Adam and let him make the choice, and he made one that suited us all.




The Magic House is one of the premier children's museums in the nation. I was told this by Lindsay Thompkins of Shelburne who, with business partner Mia Beer, is spearheading efforts to create a Burlington children's museum at the former Moran Plant. Lindsay said the Magic House is one of the children's museums they have used as a model, and that is great news for Vermont.

The Magic House offers something -- make that a lot of things -- for kids of all ages, from babies through teens. Adults, too, can learn and enjoy the exhibits. Recently expanded, the museum holds hundreds of exhibits arranged by themes. To name just a few:
village - role play in a restaurant, car shop and t.v. station
bubble room - blow giant bubbles and surround yourself in a bubble
music - play oversized instruments and musical (literally!) chairs
star spangled - try out the president's desk and sign the Declaration of Independence
mystery - follow clues to find the answer to a problem

There are things to climb on, make noise with, dig in, slide down, explore and discover at every turn.

For the very young, there is Baby and Me, where crawlers and toddlers can put balls in tubes and watch where they go, play peek-a-boo with shuttered mirrors and climb on ladders and slides for little people. There's even a Nursing Nook with a comfy private bench so moms can nurse while watching their other children play nearby. I chatted with a mom who was pumping -- I could not see the apparatus hidden under her shawl -- who was grateful for this safe spot to create a meal for her special needs child.

To maximize each child's play time, we split up: Paul went one way with Adam, and I went the other with Zac and Grandpa. We arranged to meet in an hour, unless we found each other sooner.

Zac loved the sand table, where he shoveled and raked fine white sand with other toddlers and little kids. The table was just the right height for a young child to stand and dig with colorful plastic toys. Grandpa and I had to drag Zac out of there, clutching a rake, so we could move on to another exhibit.


He also loved the water works area. I wrapped him in one of the waterproof smocks hanging on hooks. All the smocks were much too big for a 1-year-old, but it kept him dry, except for his feet. (I noticed another child who was without shoes and socks. Probably a good idea for keeping feet dry, although I would be concerned about foot fungus. I suggest wearing watershoes or sandles.) Zac made friends with other children and practiced sharing cups and toys while he worked on his developmental skills of scooping and dumping.

Adam's top spot was the beanstalk, a la Jack and the Beanstalk, where he could climb up the leaves (surrounded by netting) and say "Fee Fi Fo Fum! He also liked fishing for magnetic fish, changing a car tire, solving math problems and serving pizza in the restaurant. And the Ginormous spiral slide that the kids ran up the stairs to and yelled "woo hoo!" all the way down.

The museum has a real restaurant, which we did not patronize, and a gift shop, where we found a robotic "Grabbit" hand for Adam and a maraca for Zac (total sale, less than $5).

The best thing was that the museum was air conditioned -- it was 98 degrees and extremely humid outside. The bathrooms were clean with changing tables, it was completely set up for families and kids and parking was free. What more could we need? Nothing. I'm glad Adam picked the Magic House.

In the summer, the museum is open 7 days a week from morning to evening (closed Mondays and weekday mornings during the school year. Admission is $8.50 for ages 1 and up.

Lions, Monkeys and Bears, Oh Hi!

Today we went to the St. Louis zoo.
www.stlzoo.org
We go every time we visit St. Louis, because 1: it's an awesome zoo; 2: We always have fun there and 3: it's FREE. There is no entry charge -- thanks to the generosity of St. Louis taxpayers. (There are fees for the children's petting zoo, train ride, carousel ride and special exhibits, plus you could spend a fortune on snacks and souvenirs). We knew it would get hot quickly, so we went early to avoid the worst heat of the day. We made it there by 8:30 and headed straight to the primates because Zac loves monkeys. The gorillas and chimps must have been sequestered somewhere, but the primate house was active with lemurs, maquaqs and furry little monkeys. Zac did his best "ooh ooh ooh! eeh eeh eeh! ah ah ah!" sounds. Big cat country was also active. We watched a lion play with a ball and a young leopard, about Zac's age, run up to the fence to entertain his human audience. We saw zebras (Adam's favorite animal), giraffes, antelopes, birds from Asia and Africa, grizzlies and sunbears. Sadly, the line for the new Carribean Cove exhibit was very long, so we opted to avoid that. It would have been fun to touch and feed live stingrays. Also, we longed to enter the cold Penguin & Puffin Coast enclosure but the line for that was long as well and the kids were melting and melting down, so we skipped that too. Maybe we can return to the zoo before we leave St. Louis. We'll definitely be back in the future. It was soooooo hot by 11:00 -- I dunno, close to 90 I guess, with high humidity --- that we reminisced about the cold the weather we had in Vermont when we were packing for this trip (I remember wondering whether we'd need long sleeves and sweatshirts!).

Staying Fit While Traveling With Kids

Mom-to-Mom: Exercising on the Road

Today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an article about family road trips, with some tips for making it a good experience. Reporters Elisa Crouch and Ken Leiser suggest that, while most people know they should make sure their car is in good shape before taking off, they don't take the same care of the driver. They suggest getting two nights' good sleep before departing. I suggest getting the body in shape to feel better and comfortable. You'll need a strong core to keep your back pain-free during long periods of sitting, flexibility for frequent reaching to the back seats to hand out snacks and pick up dropped toys, muscle strength for carrying children and luggage and endurance for long walks at your destinations.

Here are my ideas for maintaining your fitness while on the road.

1. Strengthen your core with Pilates exercises while you are also: minding a child napping in a stroller;watching your kids play on a rest-stop break; or sending tweets and emails on your handheld device.


2. In the car, use rubber tubing (as in Dynabands or Spri tubes) wrapped around your feet and hands to do bicep curls and shoulder presses.

3. While waiting somewhere holding a squirming child, strengthen your muscles and entertain the kids by doing squats, lunges, bicep curls and shoulder presses. Here's how:


4. Get in some cardio/strength intervals while walking with your family: Jog ahead of them, then do lunges and wall pushups while they catch up (assuming that a grownup is walking with the kids).

5. At rest stops, do park bench yoga. Copy and paste this web address into your browser:
http://www.vermontfitness.org/pdf/ParkBenchPanels.pdf

Do you have more tips like these? Post them as a comment on my blog!

Send Red Robin Over

Vermont needs a Red Robin restaurant! We ate dinner at one in Dayton, and I give it two thumbs up.The food is good, service is exceptional and atmosphere is laid back, kid-friendly. The childrens menu offers a variety of healthy choices, including fresh vegetables and fruit as side dishes. Adam chose spaghetti with raw baby carrots and ranch dressing dip and milk. Zac ate grilled chicken on a stick and fresh cantaloupe slices, greatly enjoying holding the sticks and slices in his hands. The adults ate burgers and chicken sandwiches, excpet for me: I enjoyed tortilla soup and a salad with grilled chicken, black beans and cilantro sour cream. And a margerita, of course. They also brought us endless complimentary baskets of crispy steak fries -- we emptied 5 or 6 of those. A costumed Red Robin character came over to visit, and each kid got a balloon. No, Red Robin is not sponsoring my blog -- yet!

For Kids Who Love Planes

We landed in Dayton on Wednesday and stayed with my cousins whom I've never visited before. It was nice to be in a real house and have home cooked meals for a couple of days. No children in the household, just grown ups and cats, so my kids entertained themselves with the cat toys and Zac found plenty of items to remove from cabinets, drawers and low-tables. The house was not toddler-proofed, so I had to be extra vigilant. My cousins found it entertaining, I think.

On Thursday we went to the National Air Force museum. My cousin works on the base so he knows his way around. NO ENTRY FEE and miles of exhibit on all aspects of flight travel.

Kids (and grownup) will love it here.There are hundreds of planes, from prop planes to jets, and exhibit areas for aviation's early years (a la the Wright brothers), World Wars I and II, the Cold War and the modern era, including missions in Iraq and Afganastan.

The exhibits prompted Adam to ask a lot of questions about war, which I found difficult to answer. He wanted to know who Hitler was, why he wanted to take over the world, why people make missles that blow up buildings and people,why America bombed Japan and why countries fight each other. I did my best to explain things without scaring him.

We saw a B-57 jet bomber flown by Vermont's Green Mountain Boys in World War II. We sat in a flight simulator and peeked inside Air Force One planes from all of the past presidential administrations. We bought toy airplanes in the gift shop and ate lunch in the museum cafeteria. It was an inexpensive and entertaining three hours.

Cleveland Rocks!

June 16: We woke up rested and ready for breakfast -- so did everyone else at the downtown Cleveand Comfort Inn -- holy cow, this place is packed! At the little lobby restaurant you can cook your own waffles or toast english muffins or bagels, slurp yogurt or cereal and have all the juice and fruit you desire. Perfect for my little men's tummies. It's crowded -- I wonder if people walk in off the street to eat breakfast here?

We're off to the Great Lakes Science Center. Paul google mapped the directions from the hotel, I applied sunscreen, and off we go. I discover that we're in the Theater District. Very cool! There are theaters after theaters after theaters here, and lots of cool shops and restaurants. It's a beautiful sunny day. We walk, and walk, and walk. I am grateful we have a stroller. We leave uptown and walk through downtown. Not such a nice neighborhood. Glad it's day time. We go and go. Google Maps was not so accurate on distance, surprise (NOT).

Past where the Browns play football and downtown folk go to partake in Cleveland amenities......The first "Are we there yet?" was from ME!!

We arrived at the science center -- 15 minutes before they opened -- am I just lucky or what?
We goofed around in the foyer/atrium, plenty of stuff to do for 15 minutes -- then bought our tix to go in. 9.50 for adults and 7.50 for kids 2-7. Zac was free.

First destination: The polymer playroom, an area for children aged 1-7. Kids with comprehension could learn about polymers, but the rest of us jumped in the bouncy house, rolled in the ball pit and marveled at balls floating in the air and objects moving by water power. There's and indoor and an outdoor area to play in and we had both all to ourselves. Also, this place has free, clean socks to borrow instead of charging money for them like the other museum did.

At this museum we also: made our hair stand up with an electrostatic charge, tested our stability on balance boards, built things with plastic gears, traced shapes of the Great Lakes, learned what makes bubbles so bubbly, explored the states of matter (liquid, solid, gas) and gazed out at Lake Erie. We stayed for five hours! At $26.50, it was a bargain. We decided to forgo the Children's Museum of Cleveland, as we had all we needed at the Science Center. We ate lunch in the restaurant there, and Zac took a nap in his stroller.

We also enjoyed the walk to and from the Science Center, which gave us an opportunity to see downtown and uptown Cleveland. It's a big city for us Vermonters, and a real change of pace. Along with the big tall buildings and cool statues, there is a lot of green space in parks and outdoor malls. We played in some metal ball sculptures for a while and practiced our air guitar skills on a giant guitar mounted near a bus stop. After all, Cleveland Rocks!