A week into the 2014 school year finds me back on the ‘pay to play’ circuit.
Climbing structures.
It’s feels odd to be back. I have mixed emotions about it. Going to Kookaburra Play Cafe this morning meant doing something I had done a hundred times before, like starting a project again from the beginning with all the confidence experience brings but with none of the thrill that it had the first time around.
Infant area
Still it was something I could never do with Ben. His sensory processing disorder would have made it impossible to watch all the kids without getting dirty looks from other moms. I was anonymous for the time in ages. And unlike when I used to frequent these places with Jack and Ben the first time around, nowadays I don’t feel the need to connect with the other moms. Being nobody never felt so good.
As far as ‘pay to play’ spaces go, I was pretty impressed with this one. They all charge pretty similar prices but some can be quite run down. Kookaburra was modern and clean.
It had enough space so that the twins barely entered two of the areas but the space was laid out well. At Little Beans Cafe, the open space is central with all the play areas on the periphery. The result is a lot of kids running into each other with little cars or body to body. Kookaburra’s open spaces meandered so you could still ride little cars around in a natural path.
Reading area
They had lots of really cool things to ride too. You can see a motorcycle above but there were caterpillars, cars, Lightning McQueen and more.
There were also random things I didn’t capture like a structure with 3 hoops and a ton of balls, a bin of food to put in grocery carts, a small puppet theatre, a dress up corner and loads of huge stuffed animals. Aaron spent quite some time carrying a Scooby Doo around that was larger than he was singing, “Where are you?”.
Music Room
We had a lot of fun in the music room. The keyboards played songs and the twins danced and shimmed around the room for a good 30 minutes. It was a magical moment.
Chalkboards and crayons also in the music room.
Kitchen Area
Later we discovered the kitchen area. The twins loved feeding the dolls, something we have NONE of at home. I loved that the woman in charge let them clear this table and eat lunch on it later.
It was very enjoyable morning. If you’ve ever been to my house you know I probably have just as many toys as this place. But sometimes you just need to shell out the money and go somewhere else where there is no laundry, or computer, or dishes so that you can remember to spend some time enjoying your kids undistracted.