Archive for October, 2008

You thought old-fashioned trick-or-treating was out of fashion in these paranoid days, eh? Wrong! There are still plenty of places your children can mill around begging for treats. Just be sure to accompany them; lurking in the driveway if your group of kids is ashamed that Mom and Dad came along.

There are two main areas for candy-sack-lugging kids on Halloween night in San Francisco. Fair Oaks Street in Noe Valley closes off six blocks, between 21st and 26th Streets, and throws a giant party, complete with elaborately decorated houses and thronging children. Belvedere Street in Cole Valley has a similar, albeit a bit smaller event between Parnassus and 17th Streets, and practically every house is decorated to the nines, with owners sitting outside proudly accepting compliments, drinking cocktails, and handing out candy. Both parties start early, 4ish, and continue on until 9, 10, or even later depending on the whims of those who live on the streets.

If the sound of a big party doesn’t thrill you, good trick-or-treating can be found in the Saint Francis Wood area, as well as the Sea Cliff neighborhood. Just look for Halloween decorations, music, and lights on. And make sure the kids get a big haul; all the better to raid when the little ones have gone to sleep. Save a peanut butter cup for me!

Strap on those costumes and build yourself a Day of the Dead altar–this is a big, big weekend for Bay Area kids.

Phantasmagorium

Blow off the big candy grab–eh, they added vegetable oil to all the cheap chocolate, anyway–in favor of a spooky party at the Exploratorium, which digs into the science of death, Halloween, and Dia de Los Muertos. View a decomposing snake, learn about leeches and their role in medicine, or watch sugar skulls being made.

When: Fri., 10/31, 6-9pm; Age 4+; Free with admission (Free-$14).
Where: Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3601 Lyon St., 415-563-7337, exploratorium.edu.

Paxton Gate’s Menacingly Morbid Macabre Museum of Unnatural Wonders

The purveyors of odd flora and preserved fauna (think: venus flytraps and taxidermied mice) celebrates the opening of its new children’s section of the store with the Museum of Unnatural Wonders, spooky displays demonstrating concepts in zoologiy, biology, botany, and other natural sciences.

When: Fri. & Sat. 10/31 & 11/1, 5-8pm; Age 4+; Free.
Where: Old New College Building, 766 Valencia Street (at 18th Street), San Francisco, 415-824-1872, paxtongate.com.

Dia de los Muertos Procession & Altar Exhibit

Take part in this traditional Latino holiday that commemorates those who have passed on with a solemn parade that ends at Garfield Park, which is liberally festooned with altars built by the families of the deceased. The parade and altars may be too spooky for younger children, as celebrants often wear skeleton masks and rattle bones.

When: Fri., 11/2, 6:30-10:30pm; Age 6+; Free.
Where: Parade begins at 24th Street (at Bryant Street) in the Mission and continues to Garfield Park, 26th Street (at Harrison Street); dayofthedeadsf.org.

Dia de los Muertos Family Concert

If the kids are too young to drag them on an altar tour of the Mission, soak up the culture at this Day of the Dead concert, featuring Latin music, Aztec dancer, traditional sweets, face painting, and altars displayed throughout Davies Symphony Hall.

When: Sun., 11/3, Age 3+; $7.50-15.
Where: Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Avenue (at Hayes Street), 415-864-6000; sfsymphony.org.

San Francisco’s new Culture Bus, a special bus route that runs between museums in Golden Gate Park, SoMa, and Union Square, is intended for tourists and day-trippers who want to zip between must-see sights quickly. But it’s a great option for families too, on those days when you’re fitting in multiple activities. At $5-7 a head ($3 for those with Muni passes) Culture Bus is safer than a taxi and cheaper than parking at museum garages–and you’ll save whine-time too by not strapping and unstrapping the kids multiple times from the car.

Once you pay the Culture Bus fare, you’re free to get on and off as many times as you’d like. Buses run every 20 minutes from 8:40am to 5:50pm every day between the following stops:

• Asian Art Museum
• California Academy of Sciences
• City Hall
• Conservatory of Flowers
• Contemporary Jewish Museum
• de Young Museum
• Museum of the African Diaspora
• Museum of Craft and Folk Art
• SFMOMA
• SF Camerawork
• Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
• Zeum

For more information call 415-701-2311 or visit sfmta.com.

If you don’t tread carefully in the grass in San Francisco’s parks, you’ve probably washed dog crap off more than one pair of Crocs. It’s sad, really; with too many people and pets and not enough parks, there’s hardly a green space in town without a few landmines hidden in the long grass to surprise the unwary.

Sunnyside Park, however, has a lawn to end all lawns. Located in a relatively upscale area of town, Sunnyside is well-cared-for, remote, and locked at night. Therefore, no nocturnal wanderers to foul the grass with dog droppings, beer bottles, and used syringes under the cover of darkness. So go ahead: picnic! Roll! Kick a ball all over! Here you can relax.

The spiffy, well-appointed play space is surrounded by pine-needled hills, a favorite spot for older kids to climb and a good place to catch a nice view of South San Francisco. There’s even a clean, nice, new bathroom and a working water fountain. One thing there isn’t: a lot of shade. On hot, bright days you’ll sizzle here like bacon in a pan. But on cooler days, when other parts of the city are blanketed by fog, Sunnyside Park is clear. They don’t call it Sunnyside for nothing.

Sunnyside Park is located at Foerster Street (at Melrose Avenue), San Francisco. Call 415-337-4720 or visit sfgov.org.

Working at home during naps sounds so easy–until you actually try it. Yes, I too thought my newborn baby might sleep in a basket under my desk, waking up for storytime and hugs before drifting peacefully back to sleep again when I needed to meet a deadline.

Ha, ha, and also, ha. Nothing is as tough on a work schedule as a small child, who, awake or asleep, has you hopping, and it’s tough to get work done when you’re fetching milk, Play-Doh, and the remote control so an episode of Dragon Tales will give you some sweet, sweet relief.

Down in Menlo Park, however, at least one group of enterprising parents has found a solution: Cubes&Crayons brings together rent-able shared office spaces with onsite childcare. Opened in January of 2008, Cubes&Crayons offers a variety of care packages: You can rent a space by the month or by the year, full-time or a specified number of hours a week, bringing infants or children all or part of the time you’re there. You can buy drop-in day passes or half-day passes, with or without childcare; with childcare and a shared office, rates run about $20 an hour, just $5 more than the Bay Area’s going nanny hourly rate. Working 10 hours a week with childcare will run you about $600 a month.

Cubes&Crayons has proved so popular in the South Bay that they’re headed north. The San Francisco office is in its planning stages right now and seeking investors and early adopters. Got a question? Contact Felicity at felicity@cubesand crayons.com.

The Menlo Park location of Cubes&Crayons is located at 1122 Crane Street (at Santa Cruz Avenue), Menlo Park, 650-323-2551, cubesandcrayons.com. The Menlo Park mothership also has a nice blog, with profiles of members and information on other activities going on at the branch, like yoga classes and date nights.

Who needs five minutes to take a phone call, go to the bathroom, or get that last load out of the dryer? You do! That’s just what Dial-a-Story services give you. Offered free from area public libraries, Dial-a-Story selections generally change weekly and are available 24 hours a day (sort of like your need for five minutes of peace). Some local lines:

• Marin County Free Library:  Press 1 at the prompt for an English language short story. 415-499-60451
• Mountain View Public Library: Users can select three- to five-minute stories in English (Press 1) or Spanish (Press 2). 650-903-6771
• Oakland Public Library: Stories and poems in English and Spanish; updated weekly. Press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish. 510-597-5054
• San Francisco Public Library: Stories, poems, and songs for kids aged two and up. Separate lines for stories read in Cantonese (415-437-4883), English (415-437-4880), and Spanish (415-537-4332). Stories range from about two to five minutes.
• San Leandro Public Library: Miss Penny reads stories in English for young kids (age 2-6), with new selections each Wednesday. 510-577-6067.
• Sunnyvale Library: This service offers separate lines for English stories (408-730-7333) and Spanish (408-737-4907).

Everyone’s favorite candy-soaked, costume-wearing holiday is next week, but most of the events happen this weekend. Slip on something strange and join the fun.

Pumpkin Patches

One of the best holiday events for small kids, pumpkin patch days involve haunted houses, hayrides, bounce houses, Halloween games and picking out the biggest, roundest pumpkins to take home and carve. Most of the Bay Area’s pumpkin patches can be found on Highway 92 in Half Moon Bay; particularly glorious examples include the Arata Pumpkin Farm and Lemos Farm Pumpkin Patch, which counts a petting zoo, pony rides, and a train ride amongst its wonders. But just driving down Highway 92 and sighting patches from the road will net you a good time. You can also find plenty of patches in Marin; just motor along 101 and look for telltale spots of orange. Happy hunting!

Jack o’ Lantern Jamboree

Come in costume to this annual Halloween party, which boasts a pirate school (!), pumpkin crafts, face painting, and the festive, make-believe atmosphere of Fairyland.

When: Sat. & Sun., 10/24-25, 10am-5pm; All ages; $10 per person.

Where: Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Avenue (at Lake Merritt), Oakland, 510-452-2259, fairyland.org.

Gardens Halloween Costume Walk

Music, clownery from the Unique Derique, and group games like ghost stories and Monster Mash are highlights at this costume party, where kids can trick-or-treat the nearby merchants. Kids in costume receive free admission to Zeum’s Haunted House Experience (with parents). The costume walk is at noon, giant pumpkin carving at 2, and Children’s Garden planting/composting at 3.

When: Sun., 10/26, 12-2pm; Age 0-10; Free.

Where: Children’s Garden at Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission St. (between 3rd and 4th Streets), San Francisco, 415-543-1718, ybgf.org.

Pumpkin Pandemonium

Watch ’80s Halloween revue “It’s Like, Halloween,” trick-or-treat the many, many shops, and wander the pumpkin patch to pick a free pumpkin. Kids will be invited onstage to show off their costumes.

When: Sun., 10/26, 12-4pm; Age 2-12; Free.

Where: Pier 39, Embarcadero Street (at Beach Street), San Francisco, pier39.com.

We’ve all been there. You take public transportation to a big festive public event with no parking. You imbibe. You walk around. The kids jump themselves silly in the bounce house. And then, at the end of the event, you have exhausted kids who needed to be at home asleep hours ago, and a long, long trip home.

What to do? Raising your arm and yelling “Taxi!” comes to mind. But wait–did you bring your carseat with you? As a post in the San Francisco Chronicle blog the Mommy Files explains, by failing to secure a small child in a carseat in a taxi you’re risking a brush with the law, and worse.

“Many parents aren’t aware that even in taxis children must be properly secured in the back seat in a child restraint system that meets federal standards until they are at least 6 years old or 60 pounds. There are no exceptions!” according to Jordanna Thigpen, executive director of the San Francisco Taxi Commission.

…

 ”It is never safe to put your child in any vehicle without the proper restraint system,” says Merry Banks, director of traffic safety at the California State Automobile Association. “If you put your 2-year-old in a seatbelt and there is a crash, they will be severely injured. When traveling, you have to lug that car seat or rent one from a car rental when you get there.”

Oh, ugh. Did I mention the carseat weighs 900 billion squillion pounds? Nonetheless, traveling in a taxi without it could get you, not the taxi driver, a $100 ticket. Maybe you’d better wait for that bus after all.

A travel tip: You can get information on transit delays or the next arrival of a particular bus by calling 511 on any phone, including your cell. The system prompts you to identify where you are and what bus you’re waiting for, and then it tells you exactly when the next bus is coming.

By the way, if you’re traveling to or from SFO and need a ride, neither taxicabs or shuttle services are required to have carseats, and very few will be able to accomodate you if you need one. Private car services are almost as cheap as taxis (about $60 each way to SFO if you live in San Francisco, not including gratuity), and usually have carseats for you if you call at least 24 hours in advance. The two most popular services locally are Bauer’s Transportation, 415-522-1212, bauerslimousine.com, and City Limousine of San Francisco, 415-956-1006, citylimosf.com. Warning: you won’t be getting a stretch limo with a backseat bar for $60. A Towncar is about what you can hope for.

Right after Halloween’s over, the holiday season steamrollers into our lives, and with it invitations to parties with cut-crystal drinks glasses and little girls in velvet dresses. There are plenty of pretty dresses for party-bound girls in children’s boutiques both large and small, but the selection for boys tends to make them look like either li’l funeral ushers, or Richie Rich.

Velvet & Tweed offers a more stylish silhouette for the discerning young bon vivant, special occasion clothing that looks like scaled-down version of Daddy’s dress-up clothes. Check out this little number, with pinstriped pants and a blue shirt that I bet’s the exact color of at least one of your kids’ eyes.

All of Velvet & Tweed’s clothing is designed and sewn in San Francisco under the stewardship of Tina Schreiber, a designer best known for working on the launch of Janie and Jack. Her own line shares a similar style: cush fabrics, muted colors, fine styling.

Velvet & Tweed’s line is not available yet online, but can be found in two Bay Area boutiques:  Mill Valley Baby & Kids Company, 12 Miller Avenue (at Sunnyside Avenue) in Mill Valley, www.mvbabyandkids.com, and Danville Baby & Kids Company, 760 Camino Ramon (in Rose Garden Mall) in Danville.

Ann Cooper doesn’t want your kid to eat any more crap at school. Interviewed for the wonderful “Obsessives” series on our sister site, CHOW, the Director of Nutrition Services for the Berkeley Unified School District was hand-picked by doyenne Alice Waters to improve the state of the school lunch. You may recognize the sorts of lunches Cooper was met by when she arrived in Berkeley: pizza, fried chicken patties, grilled-cheese sandwiches, “Extremo burritos.” “All of the food came in these plastic bags,” cracks Cooper. “This food was never touched by human hands.” After she got her hands on the lunch program, trans fats, fluorescent orange nachos, and high fructose corn syrup were out, and fresh, from-scratch meals were in.

Learn how the USDA is implicit in pushing grade Z cuisine on our kids through the National School Lunch Program, purchasing low-grade food that costs the program about a buck a kid per day, or a mere $5 a week. “We now live in a country where we spend more money on our daily coffee than we’re spending to feed our children for an entire week,” Cooper rants intelligently. “The government also sets the guidelines that say ‘this is a healthy meal.’ Chicken nuggets, tater tots, chocolate milk, and canned fruit cocktail with high fructose corn syrup is allowable. The government will pay me to feed that to children every day!”

“What they’re really making a priority,” Cooper continues, “is the crap that these big agribusiness companies are producing and feeding to our children.”

Yeah.

This page links to lunch/breakfast menus for the San Francisco school district. Hamburgers, pepperoni pizza, and macaroni and cheese are all well-represented. At least they offer fresh fruit and actual vegetables, although the vegetarian daily entree is awfully cheese-specific.