14 Best Restaurants for Kids

Today on Babble:

“14 Best Restaurants for Kids”

By Christina Couch

Great meals with a side of pirates and ninjas.

Read it here.

Girl’s Message in a Bottle Follows Her Home

Eight-year-old Meagan Bilodeau was out on a cruise ship in the middle of the sea when her dad talked her into writing a personal message, sticking it into a water bottle, and tossing it into the ocean.  “I always wished someone would find my bottle if I sent one. If found, would you kindly write back to me? Please? Please? Please?” she’d written.

She imagined it finding its way to far off places — CNN reports the most likely destination was the U.K. — but something happened to throw that bottle off course and it nearly followed Meagan all the way back home.  Teddy Herrick, 11, found it while boating with her own family, just fifteen miles from Meagan’s home in Falmouth, Massachusetts.  Teddy lives in Colorado and the girls plan to be penpals.

Continue reading »

Theme Park Offers to Hypnotize Away Rollercoaster Fears

A British theme park convinced that too many parents are acting like fuddy duddies and spoiling the fun for their thrill-hungry kids has come up with a solution: a free session with a hypnotherapist. Continue reading »

Bad Elmo Terrorizes Times Square

It’s all fun and games until a little kid sees Elmo roughing up tourists in New York City.

That’s exactly what kids who show up near Planet Hollywood in Manhattan will get a load of these days - a cranky “Elmo” who allegedly lunges at tourists who attempt to take his picture without handing over a tip first. Continue reading »

Unemployed Family Takes Infant to All 30 MLB Ballparks

If you have to spend the summer unemployed, you could have it a lot worse: a couple of former federal employees who were laid off in January have spent the summer on the road with their six-month-old. They’re at number twenty-two on a trip to hit all thirty Major League Baseball ballparks.

I can’t decide whether to be insanely jealous or glad that I’m not the one on the road with a six-month-old. Continue reading »

Now THIS is a Family Vacation

Some would call life with three kids a bit of a zoo. For the Taviano family, it really is.

Fifty-two zoos, to be exact, visited over a stretch of fifty-two weeks by the Ohio family of five. They started last August in Louisville and wrapped up their “Zoo Year” this week in Columbus, Ohio. Continue reading »

Travel: Have Breakfast with a Giraffe

Would you like to have breakfast with a giraffe?  These friendly giants will stick their necks out, literally, to spend some quality time with your family during your morning meal. In Kenya, in the shadows of Mount Kilmanjaro, there resides a  English styled manor that was built in the colonial era. The 140-acre grounds have some very tall residents, eight rare Rothchild giraffes.

Each morning the giraffes Continue reading »

5 Fab Free Family Outings in San Francisco

Like doing stuff for free? Do you live in San Francisco or will you be visiting anytime soon? Take advantage of some of the fabulous free events and free admissions to an pretty awesome array of culture, music, and science. From seeing the San Francisco Symphony, checking out priceless art or cold chillin’ with some critters, here are five outings for the family pinching pennies. Continue reading »

Parent as Packhorse?

I don’t fly (my husband refuses), but Lisa Unger’s frequent flier article over at the NY Times this week had me groaning in total agreement.

I too have plane shame - or the road-tripping parent’s equivalent. Where I once traveled with one bag in hand, I now carry six. And it’s all due to the three-foot-and-change person who travels with me. Continue reading »

Travel: 10 Tips for Surviving Disneyland

Disneyland makes the claim that it is the “happiest place on earth.” Many a parent shudders to think of bringing their child to such an overwhelming, over stimulating wonderland of sights, sounds and non-stop action. But when done correctly, a trip to Disneyland can be a hassle free festival of pure unadulterated fun, not to be feared but enjoyed by you and your kid. How do you make the claim of “the happiest place on earth” ring true for you? Here are 10 tips on how to survive Disneyland with your little ones. Continue reading »