Archive for April, 2008

Bay Area kids reared on gentle PBS cartoons and vegetarian snacks get a real snootful of violent American culture at the movies, in THX no less. Hey, let’s stick a terrifying CGI dragon in a movie about princesses! Let’s have some great big freaking sharks menace a tiny fish! Hey Hollywood people, d’you think you could make a movie that wouldn’t give my preschooler nightmares for three days running?

Berkeley’s Elmwood Theatre’s this-week-only revival of Mary Poppins is a kinder, gentler option for moviegoers, and a rare chance to see a classic on a big screen — a great big screen in fact, in a theater that hasn’t carved up its space into a multiplex. Enjoy the pristine Art Deco lobby and the nice price for early shows. The main-floor screen is even stroller and wheelchair accessible.

When: Wed.-Fri., 4/30-5/2, 1pm, 4pm & 7pm; All ages; Adults $7.50 for early shows, $9.50 evening show, Kids under 11, $7.

Where: Rialto Cinemas Elmwood,  2966 College Ave. (at Ashby), Berkeley, 510-433-9730, rialtocinemas.com.

Holy moley, it’s already the end of April. Did you plan to let your kid hang around the house all summer, starting fires and eating handfuls of Cap’n Crunch? No? Then you’re going to have to figure out what to do with the little darlings, and your best friend in this endeavor is the monthly Bay Area Parent magazine, which publishes a mammoth, essential Summer Survival Guide each springtime. Every blessed page of it is online, so you don’t have to go scouting for it at libraries or grocery stores. Just about every article is clip-and-save worthy: primers on local ballparks, beaches and pools, calendars of local outdoor concerts, spotlights on unusual summer camps. Fire up your printer, drag out your calendar, and schedule yourself an unforgettable summer.

Yeah, I thought it was a great idea to rent The Secret of Nimh for my sensitive two-year-old daughter. Talking animals! What could go wrong? Cue dark-and-creepy scenes of lab rats being experimented on…and she watched the rest of the movie from my lap.

Why oh why didn’t I consult Commonsense Media before I rented? The San Francisco-based organization runs a sort of Consumer Reports for kid media, and would have told me that The Secret of Nimh contains animal-torture scenes. I will never again rent my kid a video, buy a game, or watch a TV show without checking Commonsense Media’s highly specific, darned high-quality reviews. In fact, I may stick to their lists of recommended media picks. Let’s see, I’ll start with Smart Movie Girls and then move on to Best Movie Moms…

A night out looks a lot pricier from this side of the baby divide. Even if you only have one sprout, most babysitter charge upwards of $15 an hour. Add that to the cost of dinner and a movie and date night starts to empty Junior’s college fund.

A better option, for those whose kids have left the pull-up stage: San Francisco Gymnastics’ Parents Night Out, a bi-monthly party for kids age 41/2 and up. Parents drop the tot at 5:30 or 6pm (depending on if it’s a Friday or Saturday) and race off to enjoy themselves, while kids are stuffing their faces with pizza, playing games, navigating obstacle courses around the gym, and watching a movie. According to one savvy mom I know, most kids bring their pajamas and a sleeping bag for the movie portion of the evening, and by the time parents return at 9:30 or 10pm the kids are exhausted, pliable, and ready to fall asleep like a lil angel in the car. The best part? Parents Night Out is just $25 for singleton kids, $20 for each sibling.

Find out more at sanfranciscogymnastics.com.

Leaping dancers, creeping bugs, reading kids and sippy cups: get out of the house this weekend.

Bug Day

The cutest, most-child-friendly museum in the city is even better today at its annual Bug Day, with special exhibits and activities to teach kids about all that creep and crawl. Kids can participate in maggot races, touch silkworms, walking sticks and millipedes, create insect art, and play amongst the Randall’s other cool regular toys, including the model train station open only on Saturdays.

When: Sat., 4/26, 10am-2pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way (at Roosevelt), 415-554-9600, randallmuseum.org.

Dia de los Niños/Dia de los Libros

This San Francisco version of the Latin American holiday celebrating children has morphed into a storytelling festival, with on-stage reading of kids’ books, music, dance performances, and a visit from the Bookmobile.

When: Sun., 4/27, 1-4pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Dolores Park, between 18th and 20th Streets and Church and Dolores Streets, sfkids.org.

Young Choreographer’s Festival

Bring budding dancers to this National Dance Week celebration, which stages shorts works from Bay Area choreographers aged 16 to 21. Following the hour-long festival, 30 dance companies and solo artists will perform until 5pm. The Bandshell stage is open-air; dress accordingly.

When: Sat., 4/26, 12pm-5pm; All ages; Free.

Where: The Golden Gate Park Bandshell at the Music Concourse between De Young Museum and Steinhart Aquarium (at Martin Luther King Jr Way), San Francisco, 415-640-2784, mfdpsf.org.

The Sippy Cups: A Rock & Roll Circus

Kids go absolutely apesh*t for this band, a bunch of cheerful adults who do kid-friendly versions of songs parents will recognize, such as The Velvet Underground’s “Who Loves the Sun” or Kool & The Gang’s “Jungle Boogie,” accompanied by puppets, juggling, acrobatics and the like. Parents will be thrilled with the venue, sleek Bimbo’s 365 Club. Alternadad author Neal Pollack emcees the show and will sign copies of his book.

When: Sun., 4/27, 1pm & 4pm; Ages 0-8; $17.

Where: Bimbo’s 365 Club, 1025 Columbus Ave., (at Chestnut Street), San Francisco, 415-474-0365, thesippycups.com.

It’s becoming more and more clear that exposure to bisphenol-a, a.k.a. BPA, is harmful for humans — particularly teeny ones. That particular hormone-disrupting chemical nasty, found in many plastic baby bottles, sippy cups, can liners (most notoriously cans of baby formula), sealable storage containers, etc. etc., can leach into liquids and thus be ingested, potentially causing everything from breast and prostate cancer to early puberty.

How to minimize your exposure? SafeMama has a great list of BPA-free bottles, milk and food storage systems and sippy cups. Print it and take it when you when you buy baby supplies, because even though San Francisco banned the sale of BPA-containing baby bottles in 2006, you can still find plenty of tainted polycarbonate on grocery and drugstore shelves around town.

For the sippy-cup set, BPA-free SIGG kids’ water bottles are all the rage amongst San Fran parents. You can buy gorgeously patterned ones at the ACE Hardware/Standard 5 ‘n’ 10 in the Laurel Village shopping plaza, at most Whole Foods, or REI, though they don’t have as many cute kids’ bottles as Whole Foods or ACE. My own kid’s wild about a Hello Kitty BPA-free Thermos FUNtainer we got at Target, but you’ll look a whole lot cooler carting around a SIGG, trust me on this one.

Today is Earth Day. And sure, you could go to some cheerful little art activity, coloring in globes or what have you, but why not inspire in your child a more profound realization of the impact humans have on our planet? Bring something to discard, and spend a morning tiptoeing around the SF Dump. Viewing a crazy tangle of paper, old mattresses, discarded refrigerators, scrap wood, and other refuse is a reminder that what we throw in the trash doesn’t just go away. An additional attraction: the dump even has a sculpture garden.

When: The dump is open Mon.-Fri., 7am-4:30pm; All ages; free.

Where: Tunnel Avenue (at Recycle Road), San Francisco, 415-330-1400, sfrecycling.com.

Got a community project that needs an infusion of cash, or just a grand plan you can’t bankroll? The San Francisco Chronicle has a line on a local agency that distributes hundreds of thousands of dollars in “Parent Action Grants.” The money comes from a pool of $564 million raised by Proposition 10, which increased taxes on cigarettes by 50 cents a pack. SF gets about $9 million to spend, about $200,000 of which is handed out to average Joes and Janes by First 5 San Francisco, an agency charged with improving the lives of kids aged five and under.

And apparently, says the Chron, which takes a rather chiding tone, First 5 isn’t uptight about the grant programs having some widespread impact. Examples of some of the projects funded by First 5 San Francisco: “‘Multi-Family First Time Camping Experience’ included a camping lesson and overnight trip to Big Sur for six families” and “‘Couples Travel and Learn Together’ included an overnight stay at the Four Points Sheraton in Pleasanton, where couples from Chinatown took marriage workshops. It also included $250 in Target gift cards.”

Nice! The grants aren’t based on income, like many social programs, so just about anyone can get them — a relief for parents like me, who in most other cities would be well-off, but in San Fran are just scraping by. There’s a reason why families have fled our city in droves, and it’s not that we don’t like foggy afternoons and Victorians. As the Chronicle article notes, “Children younger than 18 made up 22 percent of the city’s population in 1970, compared with just under 15 percent in 2006.”

Find out more about First 5 San Francisco funding opportunities at its website, first5sf.org. Hey — maybe this is the way I can get my dreamed-of organic garden started in the blighted patch of city-owned land in my neighborhood!

Yeah, you meant to keep a baby book for your kid. But then you got busy feeding, burping, changing, soothing, rocking, walking and talking to said baby, and your good intentions went up in smoke. San Francisco-based Memento Press will do the work for you . For about $60 and up, Memento will transform your digital or hard-copy photos into a luscious book; for about $100 more they’ll even pick through your disorganized photo files and optimize the best ones for your book. These things are coffee-table worthy. I’ve seen ‘em. And grandparents cream over ‘em. There are other companies that perform this same service (people seem to like Picaboo), but I certainly wouldn’t want to trust my precious hard-copy photos to the mail when I could just stop by Memento’s San Fran store at the Crocker Galleria, 50 Post Street in San Francisco, 415-773-1878.

The weather is beautiful. Don’t even bother reading this email because where you should be is the park.

See 

Project Bandaloop: Interiors

The aerial dance troupe’s website says Interiors “reframes movement, relationships and values in the context of the interior of a house.” Whatever. All the kids will care about is that the dancers are flying through the air and all over the room.

When: Fri., Sat., 8pm; Sun 2pm & 7pm; Age 5+; $15-28.

Where: Cowell Theater at Fort Mason, Marina Blvd. (at Buchanan), San Francisco, 415-345-7575, www.fortmason.org.

Go

PartyKidz

Music to set the tots’ toes tapping, kiddie snacks, a dance floor, and a whole lot of parents elated they can drink at a kids’ party.

When: Sat. 4/19, 1-5pm; All ages; Free-$10.

Where: Club NV, 525 Howard St., San Francisco, 888-638-9983, www.partykidzllc.com.

Go

Physics of Toys: Our All-Time Favorites

Visiting the often murderously crowded Exploratorium is worth it today, with demonstrations and hands-on projects parsing scientific principles behind playthings like kaleidoscopes, slime, and magnets. Kids will make a project to take home.

When: Sat., 4/19, 11am; Ages 10+; Free with admission.

Where: Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3601 Lyon St., 415-563-7337, www.exploratorium.edu.

Do

Earth Stroll

Celebrate Earth Day with live animals, toddler activities, and an educational walk around Crissy Field.

When: Sat., 4/19, 11am-3pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Crissy Field Center, 608 Mason St., San Francisco, 415-561-5418, www.presidio.gov.

Do

Earth Day Celebration on Stinson Beach

Artists and passers-by create sculptures using beach flotsam. Do I smell sand globes?

When: Sat., 4/19; 11am-3pm; All ages; Free.

Where: South end of Stinson Beach, www.naturesculpture.com.