Low-key Fourth of July

I favor the more home-grown and low-key Fourth of July celebrations.  When I was a teenager and in college, I had my fair share of the crazy and busy July 4th celebrations.  I've learned, though, through some hard experiences that some of the best 4th of July memories that I have are the ones that involved a day at the pool, sparklers in the back yard, and then catching the local fireworks.

That's not always a popular decision.  It's hard not to want to cram a lot into your holiday weekend.  It's one full glorious day off, and who wouldn't want to have a cookout and swimming and the best possible fireworks (I live outside D.C., so the downtown fireworks don't get much better than that... but the commute in and out of the city is grizzly no matter what you do), and to create a big ole demonstration in Americana.  The fact of the matter is, though, that most kids can't handle it.  A long day on the 4th means a longer week ahead for us.  So, we kept things very low-key yesterday.  We played with flags, did some home-made drawings of patriotic icons and talked about their significance, spent the morning having a nice big brunch and then drove 10 minutes to the nearby county fireworks display, which was perfect.  The kids fell asleep in the car on the way home, slipped into bed... and it was done.

Patriotic, and relatively tantrum free... which to me is its own kind of freedom :-)  Happy Fourth of July to you!

Green Meadows Petting Farm

If you live in the DC area and have young children, a trip to Green Meadows Petting Farm is in order.  Yesterday, the girls went with their dad and had a very full day petting goats and kids, pigs and piglets, cows and calves, turkeys and chicks and much much more.  Everyone had a chance to milk a cow and take a hay ride.  It was the most interactive petting farm we've seen yet, and the number and variety of animals so far exceed the agricultural fair, which had been a family favorite for years.  It will take a lot more, though, to top this experience.  From llamas to kangaroos and zebras to buffalo and a red tailed deer, the girls and their father were able to get up close to animals and really appreciate them.

Families with small children who are unable to walk long distances will want to bring some sort of large-wheeled stroller or carrier, since the farm is spread across quite a few acres and there is much walking involved.  You would do well to be prepared with ample fluid (especially during the hot July afternoons), and food.  Bring plenty of hand sanitizer, too.  There are places to wash hands, but for little ones, you may want to make sure you follow up with antibacterial gel as you walk from barn to barn.

Still, these are small considerations against the backdrop of big smiles and hands-on experience with all kinds of animals who are usually on a "look but don't touch" basis.  Milking cows was the biggest challenge, but it was the 4 year old who had the most success at it!

To get the most out of your trip, try showing your children the photos of animals at the farm in advance and get a sense of what interests them most.  Be sure to hook up with a tour, as they tour guides will do the best they can to help your children understand and appreciate the animals.  Books about farms and farm animals will go a long way before and after the trip.  Be sure to bring a camera, as there are many great opportunities for photos.

Take me out to the ball game!

Rather than having a big Fourth of July celebration *on* the 4th, we decided to celebrate early with the "All-American Pass Time."  Despite all our advance planning, though, we learned quite a few lessons from our first outing to the ball park with 2 small kids.

Lessons learned:

1.) Pay attention to the sun.  It can make or break your entire day.  For example, if a day that was forecast to be  cloudy and potentially raining turns into a 95 degree scorcher, telling your child to "sit down" may *actually* become a form of torture, as the seats will feel as though they are 350 degrees and appropriate to slow-bake brownies.  Of course, the rain option isn't entirely pleasurable either... as sitting in the middle of a downpour will not be the "adventure" with your kids that it might have been on your first date with your college crush.  So, a word to the wise: Don't worry about sitting in the front row for your first game.  Spend your money sitting in a double letter row under the mezzanine level or somewhere in the shade where neither rain nor unrelenting sun will  destroy any hope of your child even looking at the field, which she or he can see just as well 10 rows back.

2.) Plan to eat your way through the game.  You may have the strength of Hercules or the will of Athena, but I can guarantee that it will do you no good in a hot ballpark with people eating all around you.  Sure, you can bring your factory-sealed water bottles (and you absolutely should) and your single-serving factory sealed snacks (again, don't leave home without them), but this will decidedly not take the place of the allure of cotton candy, hot dogs, lemonade, and ice cream.  Your children will most likely turn into midget-sized eating competitors who can slam 2 hot dogs before the end of the first inning and learn how to whistle for the lemonade vendor before the end of the third inning.  You will be out of your "factory sealed" snacks and desperate just to get to the end of the game at this point.  In the past, you may have come up with all kinds of tricks for keeping an eye on your wallet, but those are for grown up thieves.  Kids are much more devious... have you seen the pick-pockets in the BBC Dickens movies?  Before you know it your child will be hailing for peanuts and tipping the usher, and they will learn this before they know or care what the seventh inning stretch entails.

3.) Apologize to anyone sitting between you and the aisle early and often.  If your luck is anything like ours, once you do bribe the usher to allow you to sit in the more expensive and slightly shadier rows, you will not be on the end of that row.  Instead, you will be stuck 5 seats in with 2 of the largest people you've ever met sitting on either end.  Those 2 (or in our case 4) people will have a super-jumbo sized cola and a bucket of nachos balanced on their bellies, which they have wedged into place during the first inning and had no hopes of moving until the bottom of the ninth--that is until you come along.  Be assured that you will single-handedly ruin their game.  Instead of inhabiting a couch-transported-to-public-space for 2.5 hours or more, their seat choice will now constitute the most exercise they'll see this month... all because of you and your brood.  No matter how many times you have asked your children if they "need to go to the potty" before taking your (new) seats--and even if you have dragged them kicking and screaming to the bathroom in advance--chances are that within the first 10 minutes they will have to go to the bathroom again.  And then most likely they will need to either go to the bathroom, get a drink, meet the mascot, find a balloon artist, or sign up for the motocross speedway raffle every 15 minutes for the rest of the game.  This involves getting in and out of your seat.  You will look back and forth between the two ends of the row wondering which single nacho eater will hate you the least for making them get up *every* time, but it won't help.  You are stuck, and your usually quiet, and patient child will turn into a ticking poop time-bomb who would like to announce at top volume, "I HAVE TO USE THE BATHROOM!!!!" And at that point, with all hopes of discretion lost, you'll have to slink down to one end of the row and say "excuse me... so sorry..." Your row-mate will look up at you, sigh *deeply*, and begin to shuffle the 5 course snack-meal around so that she or he can desperately press him or herself toward the seat-side of the row, and you can very uncomfortably try to slide out without making unwanted or inappropriate body contact.  Not that this happened to us...

4.) Have something to look forward to *after* the game.  I know. Right about now, you're thinking, "Um, but the game is supposed to be the treat."  Yeah right.  The game is an elaborate attempt to teach your kids that going to public sporting events and behaving in public will ultimately be a skill worth having.  Don't be fooled.  It's not about loving baseball or doing something they've always wanted to do.  And chances are that if you don't do a very good job early on, your child will end up like the obnoxious and drunk 22 year-old recent college grad who sat behind us and explained at the top of his lungs why he hates his job and his commute and whom most of the people sitting in our section wanted to kill with the white-hot anger of their "evil eyes." When you have a child younger than, let's say, 9 years old, going to a game is still about teaching your child how to behave in a public space... pure and simple.  It's like going to the mall or to a restaurant where you can't order out of your car window.  And as with most adventures in parenting, the carrot always works better than the stick.  In this instance, it was that the kids would get to "run the bases" at the end of the game.  They were so excited to get out and onto that field, that holding that up as the carrot worked when it needed to, and in the end, watching our girls round third base and sprint for home was better than the 9 innings of professional baseball that proceeded it.

You're probably wondering at this point whether or not it's worth it.  Why go?  Why make the attempt and the effort if in the end you're hot, tired, your kids are whining, the entire metropolitan area knows that you torture your children by making them sit on hot seats and drag them screaming to the bathroom?  What could possibly be fun about that? Yes, it was worth it, and it was worth it because it was never about the baseball.  It was about time together as a family, about enjoying the chaos.  It's one more adventure in the "roller coaster" parenting that the grandmother describes in the Steve Martin movie Parenthood.  If you never go, you won’t learn that your youngest child can swear like a sailor at tall people to sit down.  You will miss out on singing "Take me out to the ball game" with your kids at the top of your lungs and spilling an $8 ice cream on the floor when you realize you are all on the Jumbotron monitor.  These are the things you'll remember with all the fondness and nostalgia and selective memory that you can muster when you are 70 and your kids take their kids to their first game.

So, sometime in September, if you see a family singing at the top of their lungs at the end of the row in the cheap seats of a televised National's game... we're waving to you.  Come join us.

Camping with kids

Last weekend we took our kids with a group of other families to Rocky Gap State Park for a weekend camping trip.  I cannot stress strongly enough what a great idea it was.  Camping forces you to take time just to be with one another.  Electronics were allowed for the car trip up and back, but once we arrived on the campsite, all electronics were left inside the car, unused.  For three days, we spent time just getting to know each other again. Despite the fact that my children are only 4 and 7 and that I only work part-time, the school year has tended to have a dehumanizing effect on all of us.  Stuck in the daily routine of school, practice, homework, dinner, bedtime, it just felt as though we were all growing and changing, but didn't have time to think or talk about everything that was going on in our crazy lives.

Camping gave us the opportunity to slow down and to focus on the members of our family.  Each of us had to help the others out, learn about each other, and spend time talking about what was interesting or happy or confusing to one another.  I learned so many things, like that my older daughter, whom I expected to be less fond of "roughing it" in the woods, took to the whole enterprise very naturally.  I learned that my usually bold and adventurous 4 year old really doesn't like the dark... it's not just something she does at bedtime to drag the whole process out.  I learned that the girls really love fishing, know how beaver lodges are constructed, and like to talk about all the things that confuse them.  We talked about why friends are mean and why girls and boys fight all the time.  We were able to let them roam around on their own a little bit (within reason) between the campsites of families we knew and develop some independence.  The kids created their own talent show, hiked 3 miles under their own steam, and learned how to hold a paddle while we kayaked together.

Rocky Gap was a great place to start.  For the avid and frequent camping family, it may be too resort-like, but for those families who are just getting started, it makes a perfect introduction to outdoor lving.  (In fact, Rocky Gap *does* have a resort with all kinds of amenities like a spa and a golf course, but those are on the other side of the lake...) There's a beach on a lake with canoeing and kayaking and a lifeguard on duty to watch swimmers in a special section on the lake.  There's sand for sandcastles and a snack shop for those who want to have some ice cream or avoid cooking outdoor fare for a couple of meals.  In the summertime, this is key.  It gives everyone a chance to cool down and relax on what are easily hot and humid days in the mid-Atlantic region; however, the higher altitude (nestled among the Blue Ridge Mountains) helps to keep the temperatures down, too.  Each camp site (we used a tent, but there are plenty of facilities for campers and some sites even have their own cabins) has a bath house with clean showers and a dish-washing station.  Additionally, the sites have a "camp host" who can sell you firewood should you run out in the evening or who can help in case of emergency.

All in all, what we discovered was that camping in a low-key way with small children gave us the opportunity to rekindle the positive aspects of the parent-child relationship.  We were able to teach our children a little more about the wonders of the natural world, without feeling so far away from it that we were stressed or anxious about what could or might happen.  There was plenty of time for looking for Jackolopes and chasing gnomes and enough to do to keep even the busiest of busy bodies active throughout the day.  Better yet, it's inexpensive.  One night on a campsite costs only $22-$28 per evening... well worth the price of admission for time to reunite, regroup, and revive family ties.

Added 7/7/2011: Here's a better review http://www.our-kids.com/static/?f=rockygap