This article is being published in conjunction with the Howard County Dads Group, a non-profit dedicated to improving father involvement. You can find their website here.
Making memories as a couple and as a family is one of the most important things to me. My fiancé works 30 hours a week along with taking 12 credits each semester and works 50 hours when he’s off during the summers and on breaks. I work in the mornings and bring our 2-year-old daughter with me, and then I am busy the rest of the day taking care of her, errands, and chores around the house. Since Sean comes home, does homework, and then studies until it’s time for bed, we don’t get a lot of family time until the weekends, and even that is stretched for time. When we do have time, we try to make the most of it and go to places since our little one loves to explore and get out of the house. Here are some of our tried and true activities that are available on the weekend, and are interesting for both parents and kids alike.
The Farmers Market The Catonsville Farmers Market is held every Sunday until 12:30 pm at 730 Frederick Road in Catonsville, MD. There are other farmers markets available over the weekend, but for the sake of moving forward, I’m just going to list this one. The farmers market is a great place to introduce your little one to new flavors, colors, shapes, smells, and different ways of life. When we go, I like to show our daughter different foods and ask her what color they are, tell her about the food, and tell her about dishes it would be used in. We count produce and talk about how the food is made or where it’s grown. We smell flowers, produce, and everything else that’s around us. We play I Spy, counting games, and it’s a good place for her to meet new people and walk around in a relatively safe area, especially since they are usually blocked off from cars driving around, and they aren’t super crowded. A lot of farmers market stands will let you sample the foods, and that is a good way to help expose children to different tastes and textures. There is a certain joy and excitement that comes with tasting something via a sample from a store, versus just being handed a plate of a new food at home. This also opens up an opportunity to practice those manners that toddlers (and everyone else) need so desperately.
The Dinosaur Park Embrace your inner Ross, and be a paleontologist for the day! The Dinosaur Park is located at 13100 Mid-Atlantic Boulevard in Laurel, MD. It’s on the Prince George’s side of Laurel, but it’s located right off of Route 1, so it’s an easy drive, and only took us about 18 minutes to get there. The site is tucked in the back of a business park, so don’t get discouraged as you’re trying to find it. It’s there. Their Interpretive Program is free and open to the public on the first and third Saturday of every month, and you get to go onto the dig site and can look for fossils and other artifacts from the early Cretaceous period, which was about 115 million years ago. There is also a little dinosaur themed playground in front of the dig site that is open at all times. This is a fun experience for all ages, and is a good lesson in science, history, and listening skills.
Hyper Kidz Located at 9309 Snowden River Parkway in Columbia, MD, this ocean themed indoor playground is a great place to take your kiddos when its just too darn hot or rainy to go outside, but your kids are just so wired up that they need to get out of the house and get that energy out. Hyper Kidz is nice since they are pretty inexpensive, and up to two parents/caregivers are free, which means you aren’t paying for yourself. I’m all about scoring a good deal, aka, cheap or free, and I think having to pay for parents/caregivers at a place for children, especially when you still have to look after them, is a rip off. It’s another thing if I can drop my tot off, or be able to veg out while she has fun, but I personally don’t like paying to be on duty. The only downside to Hyper Kidz, is that some of the kids there are really hyper and will knock you or your kid over. However, as most of you reading are dads, you’re probably not 5’2 and 125 pounds, and can withstand big kids. My daughter is strong for her age, but she’s also only in the 10th percentile for height, making her excellent knockdown material as well. Hyper Kidz is also nice in that you pay for the day. So if you take your child in the morning for play, and go home for naptime, or out for lunch, you can bring them back with no additional fee when they recharge later in the day. There are multiple floors to this fun, and they have different sections for different heights and ages (although, in reality, they aren’t strict about that). There are multiple things that parents aren’t allowed to go on, and everyone will need socks. They take orders for lunch, and have a café where you can purchase food and drinks. There are several good photo spots there, including a Captain Jack Sparrow! They have a light up dance floor, slides, ball pit, floors of fun, trampolines, tunnels, wrecking balls to swing on to live out your Miley Cyrus dreams, and a coconut tree your kids can ride on, among many other fun things you can find there.
I hope you enjoyed my first Howard County Dads article, and I’m excited to write the next one for you guys! Enjoy!
As a nursing mom, I’m always hungry. So even though dinner was about an hour from being done, I needed something healthy, quick, and light to snack on since I accidentally skipped lunch. Thankfully, my avocados were ripe, and I found some pita crackers in the pantry. I didn’t want to just put mashed avocado on my pita since I wanted something a little more flavorful, but I also didn’t want to create something that would take a lot of time or clean up. Hence, my one bowl guacamole:
Lockets & Pearls 