Snow day got you down? (today)

What a crazy winter! Before I take the kids sledding on the frozen slushballs from yesterday’s ice storm and the skiff of snow from today’s flurries, I thought I’d share some links to or instructions for indoor activities that I’ve found particularly useful lately.

And as long as you’re online, be sure to check out NPR’s wonderful Morning Edition story on the evolution of play — it may make you want to take a closer look at simple activities like these.

One idea, appropriately themed for today, is How to grow a borax snowflake. It may well be that I’m one of the few old-fashioned housewives out there who keeps borax handy by the washer (because I’m allergic to most other laundry-boosting products), but in case you have it on hand, this a fun project to do during the day, not overnight as the author recommends. The kids will get a kick out of checking the crystals’ progress. It takes about seven or eight hours for the snowflake to fully form.

Along those same lines, About.com’s chemistry guru has a whole list of science projects for bored kids. (Some are messy!!)

A very simple but endlessly fascinating one is to shave crayons with a vegetable peeler, collecting the pieces onto waxed paper. Let the kids arrange them as desired, then place another piece of waxed paper over the top. Dry-iron the paper to melt the wax, let it cool, and peel back the waxed paper. You can cut out shapes and hang them from string as suncatchers, if you want.

I kind of forgot about paper bag puppets until M. brought one home last week — now all the kids want to do is puppet shows behind the couch. The prefer gluing on features — yarn hair, googly eyes, etc. — but you can also simply draw on bags to make the characters.

Let your kids wander the house taking photos with an inexpensive digital camera — you may be surprised at the new perspectives they come up with on the architecture and each other! I also often let them make photocopies of everyday objects on our little HP all-in-one scanner/copier/fax. (I limit the number of copies they can make of each arrangement to save on ink!)

One of the favorite sensorial table activities from preschool is rice play, and if you happen to have a lot of rice on hand, it makes for a lot of fun, as these testimonials suggest.

And I might have already mentioned the “art projects” the kids love — collages of cut-out pictures and stickers on clear contact plastic (covered with another sheet of contact plastic so they’re impermeable). Right now S. LOVES to point to the objects and animals on his so much that we use it as a placemat to keep him at the table longer than two minutes per mealtime.

Based on the preschool version of the Operation game (if you haven’t seen this oldie but goodie, I guarantee you need to keep an eye out for it!), there’s the Feely Game, where household objects are hidden in a box or pillowcase and found by touch.

If you happen to have on hand a lot of tube-shaped pasta, you can dye it with 1 tablespoon of vinegar and a couple of drops of food coloring. Put them in a zip-top bag along with some pasta, shake until it’s colored, then spread it out on a paper plate to dry. After it’s done, string the various colored “beads” on yarn or string.

Have a great snow day, and look out for us on the sledding hill!

Hit the ice (until early March)

Everyone seems to be looking for signs that winter is almost over, and I have a good one for you: Local outdoor ice skating rinks will be shutting down for the season soon — March 3 for most of them. The next 10 days are a good chance to check out one of the lesser-known rinks below (’cause you probably haven’t been to any of these except Steinberg, have you? )

• Cahokia Ice Rink, 200 Cahokia Park Drive, 618.337.9521. Public skating sessions are available certain afternoons and evenings; admission is $4 a person, with kids under 5 in for free; and YMCA members get discounts.
• Granite City Ice Rink, Wilson Park at 300 Fehling Road, 618.877.2549. Public sessions are Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; admission is $4 for non-resident kids, $5 for adults.
• Florissant’s James J. Eagan Center Ice Rink, 1 Civic Center Drive, 314.921.4470. Public sessions are offered daily; non-resident kids under 5 are free, kids under 17 are $3 and those older are $4 (resident rates are lower).
• Steinberg Skating Rink, Forest Park, 314.367.7465. This granddaddy rink is open pretty much all day and evening (except Mondays) for public skating. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under.

The lion’s still dancing (Feb. 12)

For those who missed out on last week’s performances by the Shaolin Lohan Pai Lion Dance Troupe, here’s good news. There’s another chance to catch it at a local library, this time at the Julia Davis branch of the St. Louis Public Library (4415 Natural Bridge Ave.) at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 12. Looking ahead on its calendar, the troupe will also be out and about at the end of the Spring Festival (as the Chinese New Year is known) on Feb. 21, and it’ll be doing its regular gig at the Olive Farmer’s Market in University City at 1 p.m. on the Saturday after that, Feb. 24.

The Olive Farmer’s Market is an Asian grocery, but it’s unlike any other supermarket in the area, particularly when it comes to fish and seafood. I don’t think I can describe it better than the Riverfront Times did in the 2007 “Best Of” write-up — it’s definitely a good place to introduce kids to the exotic foods of another culture, especially if they (like mine) have been learning about China during this festive season. Frustratingly, although he enjoys looking around, the only exotic food from Asia M. will try is gum … but at least he’s getting exposed to new tastes, right?

Happy (Lunar) New Year (Feb. 7)

It’s next to impossible to catch even half an hour of world news lately without hearing about the chaos caused by snowstorms in China as the Chinese New Year approaches.  It seems very “over there” in some ways, but in fact Thursday’s new year celebration is a big event for many in our community, and it’s not tough to find a way to share in it.  There are Asian restaurants serving traditional foods, for example, and there are many educational institutions that will be commemorating the Year of the Rat too.

One of those is Governor French Academy in Belleville.   It’s a grammar and college prep school with a diverse student body — and a group of teachers and administrators who are willing to share their vision with the community by way of open-door events.  The celebration on Thursday, Feb. 7, starts at 6 p.m. with a potluck supper.  Authentic Asian foods are encouraged — and I love potlucks like that because you know you’ll find traditional dishes that restaurants don’t serve — but you don’t have to bring authentic food, or even know much about the lunar new year, for that matter.  At 7:15 p.m. there will be presentations by various dignitaries, followed by performances of Chinese and Korean dance and music and a display of Taiwanese painting and weaving in the school’s gallery.  The grand finale is a Lion Dance.

I have high expectations for this event for a couple of reasons.  The academy places Chinese language study on the same level as Spanish, complete with a native Mandarin speaker as the teacher, and its diverse student body includes pupils from Korea who’ve no doubt had a big hand in shaping this event.  But even if there were no live experts on hand, I think the school would put on a respectable show.  After all, none of its students or teachers were around during the renaissance, but it staged a very successful festival on that theme a while back.

And if you’re seeking a truly authentic rendition of the Lion Dance, check out the Shaolin Lohan Pai Lion Dance Troupe, a St. Louis group that touts itself as one of the nation’s finest.  It’s performing tonight at 6 p.m. at the St. Louis Public Library’s Buder Branch, as well as restaurants in coming days.  To see its schedule, visit its homepage.

Beads, baby, beads! (Jan. 27, Feb. 2)

Every time the weather forecast comes on the radio, people in this neighborhood shush the kids and hold their breath. Will it warm up? For all that people love Soulard’s Mardi Gras, no one wants to freeze their t— off (toes, that is, toes!) celebrating it. Now that the forecast for Sunday, Jan. 27, is a balmy 50, dog owners are breathing out in relief that their precious pooches won’t freeze their t— off either at the Barkus Pet Parade. It starts at 1 p.m., but plan to arrive early and stay late (after the crowning of the king and queen at 2 p.m. near Soulard Market); pet-watching is just as much fun as people-watching — more fun, actually, because if you get caught staring you simply strike up a conversation with the pet’s owner. The costumes can get so creative and elaborate, it almost makes me wish we had a pet … almost. Don’t tell the kids!

After Sunday, the breath-holding starts again for Saturday’s Grand Parade. Last year’s chill put a damper on our party — only half the RSVPers showed up, and we were eating leftover food for weeks — but it didn’t seem to matter once we got to the parade route and the beads started flying.

We always situate ourselves right near the end of the route (at Sidney Street and 7th Street). There’s ample stroller parking at the rear of the crowd (strollers are great for storing plastic bottles of beverages — cans, glass and coolers will be confiscated — as well as seating kids who need a break from the action and holding surplus beads). The lewdness lessens the further south the parade gets, and there’s a relatively small chance that kids will see much flesh, regardless of the weather. (And I know from experience that if fellow parade-watchers ARE flashing, kids notice it way less than their adult male chaperones.) The final reason we like that area is that the floats are looking to offload beads in a big way.

If you come, be prepared to park on the west side of I-55 (Benton Park) or downtown and ride a free shuttle. The drop-off points are near the north end of Soulard, so if you ride the shuttle you’ll probably want to stick near the parade’s starting point (at Chouteau and Broadway), which I’ve heard is pretty kid-friendly too. Definitely bring plenty of food and drinks for the kids — it’s fine as long as it’s not in coolers, glass or cans. Plenty of wipes too, because if the ground is muddy and kids are scrambling for beads that have fallen there, things get messy fast.

This year the free live-music stages are both in the heart of the party, so we’ll content ourselves with the DJs in parking lots along the route. We’ll also skip the Fat Tuesday parade downtown. The route is straight along Broadway this year, from Lumiere Place to Kiener Plaza, and I can’t imagine a more unattractive place for it (going under I-70, for example). The buildings are close to the street for pretty much the whole route, so the sidewalks will be jammed … Too bad, because I love the atmosphere of nighttime parades. The world needs more of them.

Heck, the world needs more Mardi Gras parades in general! I got hooked back in ‘95, when my husband and I lived in Biloxi, Mississippi, for a winter. We Mardi Grased like locals — no parade was too small for us — and we’ll never forget the people we met and the sights we saw. (Oddly, I don’t remember much lewdness there either. As in St. Louis, there are sections where it’s de rigeur and others where it’s not, and I guess I’ve just always been attracted to the tame stuff!) Then we moved to Germany, where the weather’s just as cold as St. Louis but the Fasching season is longer and more elaborate. Now I’m not sure if I could live in a place that didn’t do Mardi Gras.

And here’s a picture from 2008!

Feathered friends and sturdy steel (weekends Jan. 19 until Feb. 24)

The bald eagle is all over the news these days thanks to its wintertime presence across Missouri. Whenever I hear about the eagle-watching events, like the one this coming weekend at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, I feel like I should go — after all, good friends of ours travel the country each spring on massive bird-watching expeditions. We, on the other hand, have special birds here for most of the winter, and I can’t even drive across town?

I wish I were more of a bird person. However, I am a man-made-wonder person, and I can really appreciate the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. My family’s been going there since M. was a toddler, and the recent upgrades (potties, yay!) have only made the experience better. Do your best to ignore the hassles you might get in the Missouri-side parking lot, pay the fee (or park on the Illinois side for free, or, during the Eagle Days events Jan. 19, 20 and 21, take the free shuttle from North Riverfront Park) and climb aboard. It really feels as if you’re taking a voyage just by walking onto the span; within minutes you’re above the treetops and over the rolling water.

Don’t worry about kids falling off, but do keep them off the chain link fence for your own peace of mind. We’ve never encountered anyone who was scared of the height — and I say that as someone who hates driving over bridges across water. I think the freedom of walking on the bridge actually helps keep me calm. And the structure itself is more like a building than a walkway; it’s been on the National Register of Historic Places for more than a year now.

S o there are two good excuses to visit the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge during the next five weekends: the eagles and the bridge. Eagle Days’ educational programs run 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Jan. 19 and 20, but the bridge is open longer. For complete hours, see the homepage of Trailnet, an organization that promotes active living (although you may know it best as a bicycling advocacy group). It manages the bridge and has been working with a host of partners to upgrade it into a true visitors’ destination.

And now, a photo from our first visit back in 2004 …

An ice carnival? You betcha (Jan. 19)

One of my longstanding desires is to visit St. Paul, Minnesota, during its Winter Carnival. This year it’s Jan. 23 to Feb. 3, and once again I won’t make it. I’m getting closer, sort of — we were at the Minnesota State Fair in August, also in St. Paul — and since 99 percent of my husband’s family lives in Minnesota I’m pretty confident that one day I’ll be in the Crystal Courtyard, munching something from the Hot Dish Tent …

The closest I’ll get this winter is The Loop’s Ice Carnival on Saturday, Jan. 19. It’s some consolation that a group of snowboarders from the Great White North will be down to school the locals in their art. Word is snow will be trucked to St. Louis for the event, although I also heard that snow machines would be on hand. Either way, the temps will be right for it!

There are other attractions too — chili cookoff, snoball-throwing booths, ice sculptures, human dogsleds — and there’s a full schedule at The Loop’s homepage.

And now I’ve got to log off and get my own little Abominable Snowman healthy enough so he can participate! Or, at the very least, fed and back down for a nap so I can pay some bills and keep our heat on.

Reserve your picnic spot now (summertime)

Last spring I learned the hard way that savvy St. Louisans who want to book a covered picnic shelter in Tower Grove Park on a weekend do so early — like up to a year in advance.  The kind staffer who fielded my one-month-in-advance request was very polite in telling me that a weekday might be a possibility, but if I wanted any Saturday or Sunday between May or September, I could forget it.  My party, sheltered by trees at the open-air Gurney site, turned out lovely anyway, but if you’ve got your heart set on the Turkish Pavilion or the Chinese Pavilion, now’s the time to get on the phone: 314.771.2679.

The early 20th-century pavilions in Tower Grove Park aren’t the only coveted outdoor party spots in city parks, although they definitely have the most character.  The picnic shelters in Carondelet and O’Fallon parks are also lovely, and also reserved well in advance.  (And yes, that latter one is in North St. Louis, but believe me, it’s quiet and lovely — don’t be put off by its geography.)  For info on reserving them during the May-September “picnic season,” when a permit is required to use the sites, call the Parks Division at 314.289.5330.  At other times of the year, picnic sites can be snapped up by the first group to get there, no permit required.

Tears for a good tree (anytime)

Someone should have warned me that disrobing the Christmas tree is NOT a family-friendly activity if a higly sentimental 4-year-old and a highly curious 18-month-old are involved. But I didn’t know, so we spent a good three hours yesterday dealing with the aftermath.

Knowing how hard it is for M. to say goodbye, I prepped him: We spread some mulch in the record-breaking afternoon warmth, and we talked about where it comes from and how good it is for living plants and trees. And being a smart little guy, he understood what I was telling him. It just didn’t ease his misery at all — when we started taking ornaments off, he started crying. The tears ebbed and flowed the rest of the evening no matter what we did to staunch them. I fixed his favorite dinner, let him have as many bubbles as he wanted in the bathtub, read “O Christmas Tree” by Debbie Trafton O’Neil a dozen times. I even went online to the National Christmas Tree Association’s Web site for pictures of recycling programs where trees aren’t ground up into itty-bitty pieces. Unfortunately, none of them are around here — I had hoped that, since the association is headquartered in Chesterfield, there might be a recycling showcase of some kind locally. No such luck.

After soothing my own pain with half a bottle of wine left over from New Year’s Eve, I came up with a brilliant idea: a tree-unlighting ceremony similar to the ones that mark the start of the season. We always take down our tree on or around Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas — isn’t that a logical date for such an event? Then all the little kids who’re sad about the loss of their tree can get together, sing some songs, learn about what will happen to their trees, and perhaps leave feeling a little happier.

Or perhaps M. is in the minority, and most kids are more like S. He left the ornaments alone while they were on the tree (although he did try to snitch kernels from the popcorn-cranberry garlands). Once those glass balls came down, though, they were fair game. He wanted to handle every one, and his dad made a couple amazing dives and mid-air catches. Happily, no ornaments were lost, and next year we can put up exactly the same decorations in exactly the same places … on our artificial tree. Yes, the National Christmas Tree Association rants against them, and yes, we’ll lose our special ritual of going to the same farm on the same date every year to get our live one. But I’ve made my promise.

A month ’til Mardi Gras?!? The Soulard season begins (Jan. 6)

As my brother was getting ready to depart a couple of days ago, we got to talking about reasons to lure him back here (aside from his nephews, of course).  He’d been talking about coming for Mardi Gras for several years, so we looked up the date in 2008:  Feb. 5!  Brrr…  But he checked out tickets and everything, so I’m betting he’ll be here.  If not for the actual Fat Tuesday parade downtown on the 5th, definitely for the Grand Parade on Feb. 2 in Soulard.  I’ll give more details on that one later — we’ve been there with our kids every year, and this one won’t be an exception.

The kickoff party for Soulard’s Mardi Gras is this Sunday at 7 p.m., when there’s an official proclamation followed by a musical procession to raise the tri-colored flag.  Starting point is the front steps of Johnny’s on Russell; ending point is 7th and Soulard.  You may not want to hang out with the kids at Johnny’s (unless you’re the type who hangsout with the kids at Hooters)  but the procession is a safer bet.   For details on the Twelfth Night event and other festivities throughout January, visit the Web site or call 314.771.5110. Note the other two freebies this month: the Children’s Art Fair on Jan. 20 and the Krewe of Barkus Pet Parade on Jan. 27.

Like many of the Mardi Gras activities, each of those involves a parade.   One of the things I like most about Soulard’s Mardi Gras is that it gets people outside during these rotten, cold months.  Heck, even M.’s school does a procession during the Mardi Gras season: the Teaching Peace Parade.  No one comes out for it (except parents), but the kids are energized nontheless.  Something about banding together and marching around in crazy costumes makes you feel like you can take on the world.