Rainy Day

A baby food swap, the Hillwide garage gala, and other ways to while away your weekend.

Organic Homemade Baby Food Swap

Karen Solomon, author of Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It, hosts a swap-meet for parent-cooks. Anyone who brings an organic mash in 10 half-pint containers can swap with other cooks.

When: Fri., 8/13, 11am-noon; All ages; $5.

Where: 18 Reasons, 593 Guerrero Street (at 18th Street), San Francisco; info@18reasons.org.

Build and Grow Clinics

At these weekly Saturday learning sessions, kids make free wooden toys like ant farms. And you can buy light bulbs and a new faucet.

When: Each Saturday, including 8/14, 10am; Age 3+; Free.

Where: Lowe’s Home Improvement, 720 Dubuque Avenue (at E. Grand Avenue), South San Francisco; lowesbuildandgrow.com.

Nihonmachi Street Fair

Live music, cultural demonstrations, arts and crafts booths, and the incredible thunderous roar of the taiko drummers.

When: Sat.-Sun., 8/14-15; 11am-6pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Japantown, Post Street (between Laguna and Fillmore Streets), San Francisco, nihonmachistreetfair.org.

Bernal Hillwide Garage Sale

Just in time for back-to-school shopping, this giant garage sale is traditionally a great source of clothes and gear for families.

When: Sat., 8/15, 8am-4pm (but open times vary by location); All ages; Free.

Where: The streets surrounding the Bernal Heights Playground and Recreation Center, 500 Moultrie Street (at Jarboe Avenue), San Francisco; 415-695-5007.

Surprise: Kids weaned on Wii still like pinball. The low-tech thrill of bleeps, bloops, and a couple of flippers lives on at the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda. Ten bucks gets you in the door (a mere $5 for kids), and all-you-can-play pinball in any one of a warren of rooms. Which one you’ll like might depend on when you were born. Did you grow up playing the gentle pinball machines of the ’60s, with just a couple of dingers and no multi-ball challenges? Did you learn how to play on a machine with a buxom broad painted on the back in the ’70s, or did you learn on Indiana Jones in the ’80s? They’re all represented here, and many more.

All the machines are set to free play and kids are free to wander. There’s no alcohol sold on the premises, just sodas and Wright’s pink popcorn for $1. The kitsch value is incredible, and a lot of the games are still surprisingly fun to play. Make sure not to miss the notorious Orbitor 1, which uses magnets to send the ball on unexpected looping trips around the board. Oh, and be sure to leave all your stuff in the car, you don’t want to be dragging the diaper bag when you’re working the flippers. If you come on a Friday or Saturday evening, the Museum opens the “back 40″: an old gaming parlor called Lucky Ju Ju with an additional 40 vintage machines.

Pacific Pinball Museum, 1510 Webster Street (at Santa Clara Avenue), Alameda; 510-769-1349; pacificpinball.org.

You want your kid to get exercise, but she wants to prance around in dress-up clothes. Why not do both? At Cardio-Tone, a brand new gym in Noe Valley, Princess 101 is a “storybook dance class,” with movements inspired by classic fairytales like Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Little princesses (and princes!) can wear their favorite dress-up clothes as they learn about storytelling through dance.

The class is recommended for kids aged 3 and up; smaller siblings are welcome at the on-site childcare. And Mama can sit and read a book and relax. Bring your own tiara.

Cardio-Tone is located at 3813 24th Street, San Francisco; visit cardio-tone.com. The Princess 101 class is offered each Thursday at 3pm.

You read their books night after night, but what do you know about the artists who illustrated your favorite children’s books? Likely not much, a situation that can be remedied with a visit to “Once Upon a Book,” a neat exhibition in the San Francisco Center for the Book that focuses on Bay Area children’s book illustrators. Curator Thacher Hurd, himself an illustrator and writer, has impeccable taste in illustrators, choosing to focus on such well-known luminaries as Maira Kalman (Max Makes a Million, Max Deluxe), David Macaulay (The Way Things Work), Chris Raschka (The Hello, Goodbye Window) and Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret, The Doll People). But best of all is the segment of the exhibition devoted to Remy Charlip, the octogenarian San Franciscan who’s fiercely venerated for books like his Fortunately and 1966 classic Mother, Mother I Feel Sick; Send for the Doctor Quick, Quick, Quick.

Get a look at the artistic processes each artist goes through with video interviews, sketches, original drawings, and other ephemera. The exhibit’s only open another few days so go now!

“Once Upon a Book” is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Friday, August 7 at San Francisco Center for the Book, 300 DeHaro Street (at 16th Street), San Francisco. The exhibit is free. Call 415-565-0545 or visit sfbc.org.

Summer is dwindling fast: take advantage of the snappy weather to get the kids outside, or tuck them away for a night off.

Tour de Peninsula

Take a one-mile fun ride with your small kids or the full 63 mile course with the older ones at this bicycle tour of the most beautiful parks in the South Bay. If your kids aren’t up for the early morning kids’ ride, rangers lead loping family rides at noon in Coyote Point.

When: Sun., 8/2, 8am-3pm (family rides through the park start at noon); Age 3+; Free-$40.

Where: Rides begin at the Captain’s House in Coyote Point Park, North Bayshore and Coyote Point Drive, San Mateo; 650-321-1638; supportparks.org.

Summer Fun Nights

Drop the kids out for a heart-thumping night of trampolining, bungee-jumping, zipline play, tumbling, and other delightful pursuits at this party for kids age 6-13. Pizza will be provided.

When: Sat., 8/1 (repeats on 8/25), 6:30-10pm; Age 6-13; $30.

Where: Acrosports, 639 Frederick Street (at Lincoln Avenue), San Francisco; 415-665-2276; acrosports.org.

World Breastfeeding Week Mini-Conference

Get all your breastfeeding questions answered at this two-hour mini-conference, which offers breast pumps, nursing pillows, and lactation consultation time as door prizes.

When: Sun., 8/2, 1-3pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Bothin Auditorium, California Pacific Medical Center, 3700 California Street (at Van Ness) San Francisco; cpmcbabysteps.org.

Meet Sid the Science Kid

A person dressed as the titular character from the popular PBS series will mug and play with kids, demonstrating how to do scientific observation and learning at special exhibits aimed at preschoolers.

When: Sun., 8/2, noon-2pm; Age 3-6; Free with museum admission (Free-$11).

Where: Lawrence Hall of Science, Centennial Drive (at Stadium Rimway) on the University of California, Berkeley campus, 510-642-5132, lawrencehallofscience.org.

Do the Moonwalk, hold the world by a string, or be a hair hopper on this last July weekend.

Sing-Along Hairspray

Wear your puffiest skirts and biggest hair to a screening of the 2007 remake of the classic John Waters movie, with words on the screen to prompt a mass sing-along.

When: Fri., 7/24, 8pm; Age 8+; $10-15.

Where: Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street (at Market Street), San Francisco; 415-621-6120; castrotheatre.com.

Berkeley Kite Festival

It’s high-flying fun with Japanese kite battles, Taiko drummers, kite ballet. Fledgling flyers can learn how to make and fly their own kites.

When: Sat.-Sun., 7/25-26, 11am-5pm; All ages; Free (Parking $10).

Where: Cesar Chavez Park, 11 Spinnaker Way (at Virginia Street), Berkeley; 510-235-5483; highlinekites.com.

Splashdown 2009: 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 at the USS Hornet

Learn more about the first manned mission to the moon at the Hornet, recovery ship for both Apollo 11 and Apollo 12. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin will be in attendance and there will be numerous educational exhibits to peruse.

When: Fri.-Sun., 7/24-26, see website for open hours and activities; Age 4+; Free-$25.

Address: USS Hornet, 707 West Hornet Avenue, Pier 3, Alameda, 510-521-8448; uss-hornet.org.

Imagining Fatherhood Workshop at Natural Resources

Jeremy Adam Smith, author of The Daddy Shift, leads couples through a process whose goal is to help them imagine how they will split parenting duties.

Where: Sat., 7/25, 2pm-5pm; Age 18+; $39-59.

Where: Natural Resources, 1367 Valencia Street (at 25th Street), San Francisco, store.naturalresources-sf.com.

Dear God, it’s been hot. So very hot. And it seems like no one in the Bay Area has air conditioning, not me, not you, not the grocery store where the lettuce is as limp as the streamers tied to the fans blowing the hot air around. You know where it’s nice and cool? At the movies! Cinemark Theatres sweetens the deal with the Summer Movie Clubhouse, 10am screenings every Monday and Tuesday for just a buck a show (or $5 for the whole 10 movie series).

This week’s movie is Space Chimps; I hear it’s pretty meh but: air-conditioning! Two whole hours where you won’t have to get anyone milk! The cavalcade of films continue until August 17-18, when things wind up with Open Season. Save a seat for me at CineArts at the Empire, 85 West Portal Avenue in San Francisco. Call 415-661-2539 or visit cinemark.com.

I’ve written before about San Francisco’s gritty city swimming pools, and they’ve only gotten worse (and cut their open hours!) since then, as Rec/Park budget cuts have started taking hold. There is, however, a bright spot: the newly renovated Charlie Sava Pool, out near Stonestown Galleria in the West Portal neighborhood. After multi-million dollar fix-ups, the pool is fresh and gleaming, 75 feet of pristine water and spanking-new locker rooms, without the standing pools of water so common to SF facilities. A bonus for parents of noise-sensitive kids: the ceiling is equipped with noise-canceling baffles, and the pool isn’t as echo-y loud as many.

The downside: unless you sign up for one of Sava’s classes (and all the Learn to Swim classes are sold out for the summer), the pool is only open for one short recreational swim period a day, 2:30-3:30pm Monday through Friday, and 2:30-4pm Saturday. The pool isn’t even open on Sundays! But if you’re in need of a swim and can hack the schedule, the facilities at Sava are mighty sweet.

Sava Pool is located at Wawona and 19th Streets in San Francisco; call 415-661-6327 or visit sfgov.org.

The best way to ensure a quiet afternoon is to plan an exhausting morning, but sometimes Mama just isn’t up to a long run across the soccer field, or endless chase games on the playground. Tire them out instead at Habitot’s weekly Wednesday dance parties. For a half hour each week, kids aged 0-6 are given the space, the music, and the go-ahead to dance their little hearts out to rock, swing, country, disco, and other musical styles. Parents can bring CDs for kids who have favorite tunes, or they can just enjoy Habitot’s collection.

Bring a lunch (there’s a snack room, but no food on sale), hang around playing after the dance party, and you’ll be bringing home a carful of tired, quiet children by afternoon.

Dance parties happen each Wednesday from 10:45 to 11:15am at Habitot Children’s Discovery Museum, 2065 Kittredge Street (at Shattuck Avenue), Berkeley. Call 510-647-1111 or visit habitot.org.

Kids whip through their clothes faster than they wear out, particularly the first year, and grow in and out of gear at a similar rate. A good consignment store that accepts and sells gently used children’s clothing and gear, can be your very best friend when you’ve got boxes and bags of discarded stuff piling up in the closet and a child who can’t fit into any of his shoes. When the items you’ve consigned sell, you get cash, or credit you can spend at the store.

Perhaps the best-loved San Francisco consignment store is Chloe’s Closet, two paired side-by-side retail outlets on Bernal Heights’ Cortland Street retail strip that sell everything from maternity clothing to books to My Brest Friends (trust me, you don’t need them to be new). Clothing is the store’s main stock-in-trade, with one whole space dedicated to kids’ clothing, mostly for age 0-2 but ranging up to the 6s and 7s. This is where you’ll find that special item you didn’t know you needed: red velvet leggings, a floaty green tutu, a chicken costume. Chloe’s savvy buyers pick from the cream of their affluent customers’ consignments, so practically everything in the store is an “Awww!” item. There are also a lot of new toys of the Melissa & Doug variety.

Three features of Chloe’s makes them particularly beloved to parent visitors: chairs you can sit and nurse in. Toys that the children of shopping parents are encouraged to play with. And an open-to-the-public bathroom with child seats.

Chloe’s Closet accepts consignment dropoffs every day of the week but Monday and Thursday, and is located at 451A and 443 Cortland Avenue (at Andover Street), San Francisco. Call 415-642-3300 or visit chloescloset.com.