RookieMoms Blog

Ahhh yes, another “free” (with paid membership) place to hang out with my feisty toddler on rainy day.

Holden can find all the squashed balls in the ball pit before climbing in and around the train structure, then meander over to the bouncy house, and finally contemplate the climbing wall.

My three complaints:

1. Lock your stuff up; some nasty person stole my cash out of a poorly locked backpack
2. Purell dispenser is always empty; sometimes I feel like I need to bathe in it if I’ve been in the ball pit with a runny-nosed kid
3. Leave the big kids at home: I’m not sure what twos and threes look like (yet) so I’m always wondering about some of the taller, more aggressive kids that wander into baby gym. Saturday mornings should be safe for babies.

We have made a tradition out of going to the baby gym (supposedly only for kids under-three) at 9:15 on Saturday mornings now that Holden has kicked his morning nap. Followed up by the Berkeley Farmer’s Market, we feel very productive indeed. If we were really feeling ambitious, we could head across the street to Habitot, but I think at this point, we’ve earned brunch.

Bottom line: a great Saturday morning activity; just bring your own Purell and leave your $$ in the car.

First, a confession… my son is only 18-months old, I didn’t have to go to Habitot every rainy day last year. I don’t (yet) call it Hellitot and I know I may feel differently by the end of the winter.

Whitney turned me on to Habitot because her family membership allows her to bring two guests. Holden and I joined them a few times and really liked it before biting the bullet on our own family membership. I have to talk about the membership for a three important reasons:

1. It’s almost 100% tax-deductible
2. It gets you in at a bajillion other children’s museums around the country
3. It makes Habitot more appealing than all the other fabulous play cafes in town because going there doesn’t cost a penny (and there’s a Starbucks upstairs and a Peet’s across the street if you want your caffeine fix)

Ok, with that out of the way, I can tell you that it’s a fun, varied, and dark/cavernous place to hang out. We like the water tables (Holden likes to drain them, so bring dry clothes and socks!) and the art studio most right now. Julian seems partial to the train table and the grocery area. Two weeks ago, I even painted Holden’s face… but that was definitely more for me than for him.

There are hallways just outside for toddlers who want to run. Unlike the other kiddie destinations I’ve reviewed this month, there is no danger of them exiting the building onto on a busy sidewalk.

Bottom line: a great weekly activity. Go with a friend and then get a membership!

Tumble & Tea on Telegraph in N. Oakland is a great little cafe. The food and drinks are excellent. In fact, I was so obsessed with the apple and brie panini one Saturday afternoon that I went without my baby just so I could have one. It’s that good.

A few points worth mentioning:

• Holden loves the train table, the play kitchen, and the climbing structure (he invariably climbs up and down without sliding down the slide).
• The price is right. Pay $6 for one kid, $2 for siblings, and adults are free. It’s a good place for me to drag the grandparents or even my local kid-less friends because they don’t need to pay extra for themselves. I can’t see going every day or dropping a bunch of money on a pass, but it’s a really good weekly staple especially to get us through the rainy months.
• Did I mention the panini? Umm, yeah…
• The size is great. It’s just large enough that if your baby needs intense supervision, you may be anti-social, but generally speaking, you can easily check in on your friends and kids and still finish your beverage.
• There are regularly-scheduled multi-cultural activities and other events (yoga, massages, support groups) to keep the focus on moms and caregivers (a big Rookie Moms plus!).

Watch out for the big door opening onto Telegraph Ave, the kids are mostly cordoned off behind a black mesh fence, but you’re expected to be the barrier to traffic and strangers… remember, this paradise still isn’t day care.

Bottom line: A great weekly activity as long as I can find the $$ and the excuse (friends to meet or an errand in Rockridge)

UPDATED: 2008, OUR LITTLE PRIPRI IS OUT OF BUSINESS

I want to love PriPri Cafe on Solano in Berkeley. I really do. It’s owned and run by nice, family-friendly people. There is no admission charge at all. Food and drinks are tasty (but service can be on the slow side) and Holden definitely has fun there.

BUT (the big BUT), it feels so unclean and chaotic all the time (whether there are dozens of people there or just me, Whit and the boys) that I can’t fully get on board.

PriPri Cafe has regularly-scheduled multi-cultural activities, but the big draw for Holden is the long pebbly hallway leading right onto Solano Street. Lately, he and Julian have taken to racing baby strollers just to the door and then turning back around. Whitney and I wait patiently at the far end to give them their taste of independence and to discourage the “you run, I’ll chase” mentality, but it’s a little scary that they’re running full board toward the open road.

Play cafes are not day-care centers. They do not have the obligation to put up a baby gate at the front door because I’m supposed to be carefully watching my own son… I get it. That being said, here are my few suggestions to make PriPri my favorite place to bring baby and have a cup of cocoa all winter long:

• Toss out some of the broken-down/dirty toys, have a “wet box” for the stuff that has been mouthed
• Put up a baby gate at the front door
• Tidy up and make periodic checks for loose pebbles so my baby doesn’t choke

Bottom line: A great weekly activity when I’m out of $$ and/or I’ve already been to Tumble & Tea once

In a seven-day span, I will admit to visiting Cafe PriPri, Tumble & Tea, Studio Grow, Habitot, and the kindergym at the Berkeley YMCA. Why did I do that? Did I do it for you, dear anonymous reader? Did I do it for myself or my son? No, I did it because Whitney asked me to and sometimes I still like that. I’ll be reporting back on all my opinions and findings in the next two weeks.

When I open the door to your Studio Grow play space, the angels sing… “ahhhhh” (can you hear it?). The place is frickin’ beautiful and makes me wish that I were three years old again and could really kick back and enjoy myself (rather than a thirty-three-year-old pregnant woman chasing around an inexplicably sobbing 18-month old).

What I really love:

• It’s so big and spacious, with so many stations and opportunities for fun (balls, keyboards, water tables, doll houses, etc!)
• The stations invite imaginative play experiences with appealing, simple, well-organized toys and/or manipulatives.
• It’s clean and bright (even on a gray day) with handy Purell dispensers at every turn
• There’s a place for snacks and nobody’s making me deal with a two-drink minimum
• There are regularly-scheduled multi-cultural fun activities (although to be honest, that’s not much of a differentiator in Berkeley, and Holden can’t sit still long enough to enjoy himself)

What I really don’t love:

• The price - even with the volume discount packages, I can’t afford the place. Additional adults all cost more money. I feel like I just need to go to the depths of Habitot because it’s already paid for the year.
• It’s so big and fun, I never get to hang out with the friends who meet me there

Bottom line: Awesome for special occasions, when somebody treats me to admission, or if I have a full day to kill

As we’ve been making the rounds of the indoor play spaces and cafes in Berkeley and Oakland, my friends and I have been admiring their toys. Of course no one has room for all of these enormous train tables and climbing structures, but it’s fun to pick out the few things you’d really like.

Today when my Hearth Song catalog arrived, I saw that they had a great little play kitchen, much like ones I’ve admired at Studio Grow and Tumble and Tea. As the mother of a boy, I really like that it’s gender neutral. As a human being with good taste, I like that it’s not made of hideous neon plastic.

This mini-kitchen is $89.95 and requires some assembly.

It’s a pretty sweet baby monitor. And if you really want to splurge on your monitoring device, I might say to go for it…

The great parts:

• sleek-looking and cute.
• very lightweight “parent unit” (AKA handset or receiver thingie) — in fact, I accidentally took it to work one day because it was in my purse.
• rechargeable battery included and recharging happens automatically when parent unit is in the base.
• eliminates background noise — our other monitor broadcasts the baby’s white noise machine, this one cuts that out by adjusting the threshold for sensitivity
• very clear audio — almost sounds like he’s in the room with us when he makes a sound

The stuff I’d like to see changed:

• the parent unit is so lightweight that it often “floats” above the charger and I really need to wiggle it to get it to settle in.
• the lullabies are fine, but we use a white noise machine and I would LOVE that feature in addition or instead of the remote songs. Then I wouldn’t have to travel with both devices for an overnight.
• it is too easy to hit the parent-speak button when adjusting other menu items. I don’t want my kid to hear, “Alec, how do you adjust the sensitivity threshold?” when he’s trying to sleep.
• for this price (about $199), can’t you get a video monitor? that would be fun as long as we’re splurging!

Yes, I believe we should all let the laundry pile up once in a while, but after that, it needs to be done.

I just posed this question to Asha at ParentHacks to see if she or her seasoned team of expert-parent-readers may be able to help.

This is driving me nuts. I decided that I want to have 5 matching laundry baskets (one for each member of the family plus one) and decided that the little square size would be nice (but I’m not picky) so I bought a matching set of Sterilite hard-plastic square baskets at Target (this was especially nice because we have four* mismatched-broken-in-different ways baskets at home) and before the week was out, two of them literally shattered.

WTF? I returned them and looked for the rubbery Rubbermaid kind. Couldn’t find any (they don’t seem to stock them in Target and upon visiting their website, my pals at Rubbermaid don’t seem to make any compact size baskets). Went to Bed, Bath and Beyond… couldn’t find any.

The question: what brands and models of laundry basket do people/parents use and have success with?! And are there any good laundry strategies out there?

* Four mismatched-broken-in-different ways baskets:

1. melted by baseboard heater
2. blue hand-me-down arrived broken to clothing swap
3. purse-style handle broke off
4. fancy hiphugger with different broken irreparable handle