children’s museum – BabyCostsMoney

All the way to Santa Fe.

Published on June 11, 2018June 10, 2018 by Darlene Dee2 Comments

The girls and I took an impromptu road trip to Santa Fe. I wanted to see some more of the Mountain Time Zone, Princess Buttercup wasn’t doing anything else, and Babystar goes where mama goes.

Also, I had finally unpacked THE LAST BOX and I needed to gtfo. It was either leave all the stuff I just unpacked behind and start a new life in Mexico or take a small weekend escape. I made the responsible choice. But maybe not the best one tbh.

Our first stop was Dinosaur Ridge ($18) in Morrison, Colorado. Did you know that the first Stegosaurus skeleton was found there? And did you know that the Stegosaurus on Dinosaur Train is named MORRIS the Stegosaurus? Coincidence? Maybe.

If you have a little dinosaur lover (or a big dinosaur lover), go here now. Babystar touched dinosaur bones and climbed in dinosaur footprints and then dug for legit FOSSILS in a sandbox. She got to keep one as long as she buried the others. The friendly volunteers stock the sand with teeth, shells, and ammonites like trout in a lake and Babystar LOVED it. I mean, it was her two favorite things: dinosaurs and sand. She did not want to leave.

But we did finally leave, after buying her a new friend named Parasaurolophus ($6.99).

We then drove south. Guess what we found in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico between Denver and Santa Fe?!?!?! NOTHING! There are no people. There are only aliens.

Ok, there are some people but mostly there is otherworldly landscape. (I was driving so there aren’t any pictures but just imagine a place where aliens might choose to land because it feels most like home to them.) It was really quite beautiful, if a bit weird for these east coast girls aspiring to be mountain girls. I mean, we drove hundreds of miles without passing a Starbucks. And Princess Buttercup saw either a bear or a moose. (Her vision is not great.)

PROTIP: If you are so over momming that you need to G-E-T-O-U-T, but you of course have a toddler along for the ride, go to as many children’s museums as you can find. You can take a step back from your regular life, drink all the fancy coffee you can find, AND get mom-of-the-year points. Win-win-win.

We visited the Santa Fe Children’s Museum ($20). Highly recommend. The outside space is just as big as the indoor space. And BONUS – the water play feature was under construction as in NOT WORKING. (Yes, I consider that a good thing!)

We also visited Buell Children’s Museum ($16) in Pueblo, CO. This museum is big on crafts. If you love crafts, you’ll love this museum. There are other cool things too, like a toddler room with a sort of farm theme, a magnetic ‘fishing’ pond, a pirate ship, a room of giant blocks, and a dress up station. Though I understand they are switching the Pirate Theme soon so your mileage may vary. I suspect they will still have TONS OF CRAFTS. Like, they had a craft room bigger than our old townhouse AND they had craft stations every ten inches throughout the museum.

It was a pretty cheap road trip: we did a lot of just walking around and looking at stuff. We also mostly brought toddler-approved road snacks and shared our restaurant food (and free hotel breakfasts) with Babystar, but I did spend a little on food and ice cream: $6.99, $4.49, and $3.99. We also popped in to the Georgia O’Keefe museum and the Taos Pueblo but those were for me (and anyway she was free).

Oh, and I did buy her the Satin and Chenille Trolls ($14.99) on this trip because I am a sucker. And some apples ($2.99), because I am a REALLY good mom.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $28,329.09

I Joined a Museum 100 Miles from Home.

Published on October 4, 2017October 3, 2017 by Darlene Dee8 Comments

Have any of you ever been to the Children’s Museum of Richmond?!?

It has EVERYTHING. A scarf ballet, a fully stocked art studio, a cow that you can milk (but don’t drink it), a diner with all the (fake) food you can eat, an actual ambulance to play in, an indoor carousel, and a Wegman’s. And that isn’t even half of the cool stuff at the Children’s Museum of Richmond. This place is literally the best children’s museum I have ever seen.

And it is right down the street from my oldest daughter’s college. We bought the $180 yearly membership (plus additional adult) so we have a fun place for Babystar to play on visits. She has never gotten bored here. The single downside is that she never wants to leave when they close at 5pm. We have been a few times now and we haven’t even played with everything. On our most recent visit, Babystar mostly dug in the rubber sand for dinosaur bones and then cooked her sister and I a very hearty meal.

Have you ever had ketchup in your coffee? I highly recommend it.

The visit before, we spent a lot of time in the art studio making masks. Another time, she did water experiments for an hour at the super awesome water table. (I totally brought about five extra shirts last Friday and she didn’t even LOOK at the water table. Of course.)

There are also locations in Short Pump, Chesterfield, and Fredericksburg. We may check them out sometime as they are included in our membership. But the nice lady that sold us the membership said that those locations are not as big. And I am certain that none of them are five minutes from any of my children’s colleges. If we do go, I will report back.

Regular admission is $9/person. (Babies under one are free.) We only paid the regular admission once, actually. Then we did the math and realized that we should just buy a membership. So far, we have gone to the museum every time we visit Richmond. Since at least three of us (Babystar, the college girl, and whoever is driving) visit each time, the membership will pay for itself shortly.

Like many children’s museums that I have seen, this one has a lot of different areas to play, and each area is sponsored by a local or regional business. The main difference is that THIS museum has SO MANY areas to play.

CMoR is awesome and we love it. Go there.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $21,413.93

VCU and Melissa and Doug and Lucy.

Published on March 25, 2017April 9, 2017 by Darlene Dee4 Comments

Last Saturday was ‘Admitted Students Day’ at VCU in Richmond, and the Teenager is one of those admitted students. We woke up before the sun to drive down and check out the school. The Teenager has big decisions coming soon, but shhhhh, she doesn’t like to talk about it.

(Side note: Since I have been paying attention, I have noticed that literally every adult asks every college senior they meet if they know where they plan to go to college. Poor kids.)

So, we went to VCU. VCU is cool. Babystar hung out in the Tula for most of the walking tour bits. We all got free lunch at Chick-fil-A (thanks, VCU!) but had to pay $2.88 extra for Babystar. Pretty good deal.

(OMG, Babystar accidentally drank some of my husband’s lemonade instead of her water and then got obsessed. She cannot say ‘lemonade’ but she tries and it sounds like ‘ell-mell-mleh’ and her tongue literally turns upside down in her mouth and it is my new favorite thing. #favoritethings)

After college-ing it up, we did a 180 and went to the Children’s Museum of Richmond to let the toddler run out her wiggles. That place rocks, btw! There are a bunch of different areas all sponsored by local (or regional, I guess) businesses. There was a tiny Wegman’s play grocery store and a kid-sized play Silver Diner and a cool water table area and a tv studio and a stage and a reading room and a separate giant toddler area and and and we didn’t even have time to see everything. Legit cool. If the Teenager decides on VCU, we will definitely buy a family membership there. (No pressure, Teenager.) $30 after AAA discount plus a carousel ride.

On the way out (we only left because they closed), I bought Babystar some cool Melissa and Doug activity books. Except they aren’t really books. I bought some paint with water activities and reusable sticker scenes. They were $4.49 each, totaling $24.13 with tax. So far we have played with the puffy barn scene stickers and she is OBSESSED. We also did one of the Paint with Water pages and it was a huge hit. (I did one too — it’s super fun!)

We were completely exhausted, but still hungry, and we can never leave Richmond without stopping at our favorite restaurant, Lucy’s. This is not the kind of place that has a kid’s menu, and it’s not really for kids. I mean, there’s no strippers or anything, but also their single high chair is from, like, 1973. (But luckily, they let us come eat anyway.) Thank you, Jason Lucy, for making a super yummy grilled cheese sandwich for Babystar. She totally ate one bite and lots of french fries. ($5.) And she loves the homemade ice cream on homemade cookie sandwiches. And omg so do I. ($3.)

The sun was setting as we finished dinner and headed home. So pretty.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $15,615.20

Fun in the Sunshine State

Published on March 22, 2017April 9, 2017 by Darlene Dee7 Comments

Earlier this month, Babystar and I (and my favorite 3.5 year old niece, V) flew to Florida to visit family. My (20yo) son and mom and dad and grandmother and sister and nephew, along with random other cousins, live just outside of Jacksonville, Florida. My nephew just turned three (since the trip, actually), so we were riding deep with ToddlerMonsters.

We stayed at my parent’s house, so it was actually a really inexpensive trip. Babystar still flies free. (I didn’t buy V’s ticket.) I still would have taken the trip if Babystar did not exist, so I would have had the expense of the ticket either way. I thought hard about this, because I started to list the ticket price as part of Raising Babystar. But. I miss my oldest child, my mom has cancer (and reads this blog like a good mommy — hi mom!), my dad can’t really travel while he’s busy taking care of mom, my grandmother is getting very old (omg I cannot even think about that), my nephew keeps growing, and my sister is too far away and just, you know, life. So, yeah, I would have gone anyway. I DID pay for my dad’s parking ($6) and he only parked to come in and help me with the bags since I had the babies. And I had to bring along Babystar’s car seat, so I bought a car seat cover for $19.99.

I brought snacks from home for the airplane ride to Florida. I did buy a bottle of water at the airport but I always do that. I drank most of it, too. Babystar LOVES the airport! She was excited that we were getting on a plane but her dad had taken her twice already just to watch the planes. (Metro fare $1.75 x 4 but I think I need to tell him that I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t need a ticket. Maybe she just wants her own. He’s pretty cool like that.)

I went to the grocery store in Florida to stock the house with Babystar-friendly food. Mostly fruits and organic eggs and whole wheat bread and ‘hippie’ stuff like that. Of course we shared with everyone, but I totally went just for the Toddlers. $51.95. And I brought a bunch of disposable diapers with me. Not quite two packs but I did buy two packs of Target brand diapers. $9.98.

We were there for only four days, and a lot of the time was just spent visiting. OMG am I eighty years old?? Come on sweetheart, let’s just sit and visit. HAHAHA.

My sister and I took the three toddlers to an AMAZING place in Jacksonville called Bay & Bee. You may remember the name as the place I sent my oldest child last June because they got the Tula Coast the same day that my son flew to my house. I need to thank him again, because Bay & Bee is so far across Jacksonville it is basically in the Atlantic Ocean. But it was freaking awesome. (I will share more in another post.) It was also FREE to first-time visitors, and my sister had never been either. So the Littles played for hours for free. Wow.

We went to Chick-fil-A afterwards. It was just like home: play place then Chick-fil-A. LOL. $27.64. (Two adults and three Tinys, but I wouldn’t have been there at all if not for Babystar so I guess it all counts, right?)

The next day we drove all the way into Jacksonville AGAIN to play at the Hands-On Children’s Museum. ($20.50…I paid for my oldest son and his girlfriend too, but again, we wouldn’t have been there if not for Babystar.)

It was extra sweet because I remember going to the same place with my first two babies who are now basically senior citizens.

All that driving took all that gasoline so I filled the tank: $47.37.

The rest was all family visiting and family dinners. I did buy an overpriced cup of fruit and a ‘blueberry cookie’ (except it really was a muffin) for the girls at the airport for $8.73.

On the ride home, my darling niece explained to me the per the pictures in the safety instructions booklet, we were going to ‘fly and fly and then go in the water’. Um. And then when we were landing at DCA, which is right by two rivers, she saw the water and said, loud and excitedly, LOOK I TOLD YOU WE ARE GOING IN THE WATER. I hope the people sitting near us weren’t nervous fliers. HAHAHAHAHA.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $15,550.19