By now you may have noticed that these kid-friendly posts don’t take you to places that are solely kid-oriented or kid-centric.  Instead they focus on interesting places that happen to be accessible with small children for one reason or another.  That is by design.  There isn’t much value in noting that, say, Chuck-e-Cheese is kid-friendly.  That should be an obvious statement – it’s the whole point of that establishment.  Not only would it make for a pretty uninteresting post, it does little in the way of offering anything new.

One of the challenges in stay-at-home parenting is breaking out of the routine and trying new things.  You’re home, you’ve got kids with you, so you go with what you know works, and if you’re not careful each day could look exactly the same.  It can be a very isolating experience.  Admitting to yourself that you might feel either of these things brings about horrible guilt.  After all, you should be on cloud nine staying home from work, spending all your time raising your beloved angel children.  More than a few women of our grandparent’s generation abused prescription drugs as a way to overcome this feeling of monotony, loneliness and associated guilt.  So it goes.

I know my own tendency is to live through momentum.  At any one moment I’m just a few days from being a complete hermit, half-naked and covered in cheetos, wincing at the sun.  On the other hand, the more I’m out and about doing interesting things, the more likely I am to be out and about doing other interesting things.  My energy snowballs, and that can be up or down. Getting out of the house and finding something new and neat is very important to my sanity.

Throughout the first few months of writing this Kid-Friendly series Loren and I have tried out destinations ranging from military forts, to museums, to national landmarks, to deli’s.  With the exception the National Building Museum (which was featured for being unexpected and somewhat off the beaten downtown tourist path), none of these places have been kid-specific destinations.

The process that I’m slowly learning and developing is one where I try to break down the elements of what makes something kid-friendly.  In a very weird way my background and training as a lawyer comes in handy in all of this.  The lawyering process is one based largely on analogy, and evaluating what makes two things alike or different. That’s really the nut-shell version of the profession.

For example, if I were to describe to you a hand, I’d say a hand is something that has five fingers, each ending with a fingernail of sorts, it has knuckles, it is covered in skin, it’s located at the end of your arm, on one side is a palm and the other side you should know rather well.  That about sums up a hand.  If you later saw something that matched that description you could say, aha! a hand!  But a left hand and a right hand are not the same thing.  In fact, in many ways they are complete opposites despite having all those same characteristics.

A lot of people see an argumentative kid and think, “oh he should be a lawyer one day since he likes to argue so much.”  The truth is, that has very little to do with it.  He’ll be just as likely considered “an asshole” as he will be considered “a good lawyer.”  What people should do is see the kid that organizes his toys into separate, distinct and specific categories and think, “now there is the future lawyer.”  That’s the kid who is honing the appriate tools for the trade at an early age.  She should also like reading.  A lot.

So what makes something kid-friendly?  I don’t have an exact formula just yet, but I’m starting to get some ideas.  I’ve mentioned before that cost plays a role – though it isn’t a fixed variable.  The more expensive something is the worse it hurts to leave if your toddler should he have a total, irreconcilable melt-down.  Ease of access is important as well.  Like cost, if you have to invest too much effort just to arrive at your destination, the pain of leaving too soon might make the trip not worth the hassle.  The absence of physical hazards often comes into play also, but a padded room isn’t always the answer (or particularly memorable).  Kids like a little thrill too.  Loren’s new thing is walking on curbs as if they were balance beams – balance beams several feet wide.

I find it helps if the destination has simple food options (a salad bar for beans and veggies is great) or a place for you to sit and eat your bag lunch.  An interesting backdrop helps too, be it inside or out – that’s part of the breaking-your-routine aspect.  Some space for the kids to stretch their legs and burn off energy is just about always mission critical.

With each place I visit I find a new element I might be able to add to my definition of “kid-friendly.”

There are also the intangibles, like attitude, that can make or break a place.  Yesterday Loren and I took a walk to Woodley Park.  There is a playground over that way I wanted to try out, just to shake things up.  Of course, we left the house way too late in the morning and about five minutes into the trip my stomach was growling for lunch.  Walking up Connecticut Avenue I passed up several restaurants in hopes that my hunger would subside.  It didn’t.

A few blocks later we came upon Lillie’s Restaurant and Bar.  On first glance this wasn’t the type of place I’d expect to be kid-friendly.  It’s a somewhat upscale neighborhood spot that I’ve passed over hundreds of times before.  It always intrigued me as a nice place for a date, but never as something that might work well with a kid.

But then I saw the sign for a seven dollar lunch special and I figured what the heck.  I ended up getting a great Italian sandwich and fries for myself, and a pretty big side plate of steamed veggies (green and yellow squash and carrots) for Loren for four bucks.  He loved them and ended up eating the whole plate.

And the staff just got the whole kid thing.  Their welcoming and patient attitude made everything about the visit more pleasant.  Maybe it was because they were excited we broke their routine a little bit, being a different sort of customer and all.

Either way it worked out great and we were made to feel right at home.

Eating outside right on Connecticut Avenue has the added bonus of a steady stream of toddler entertainment in the form of big trucks and buses passing us by every few seconds.  Between the food and the view, Loren was occupied the whole time we ate lunch.  The entire experience was perfectly kid-friendly.

Lillie’s also happens to be just a few blocks south of the Zoo – good to know the next time you’re visiting.  They have a little kids’ menu too, not that we ordered from it.  But we had the option if we wanted.

These are the sort of places I like to highlight here.  When you come to DC you might not immediately think of this type of establishment as being kid-friendly, but it absolutely was.  The National Building Museum probably isn’t on your list of places to take the kids, but it should be. A short trek out to the Teddy Roosevelt Island might not be in your plans, but if you pass it up on account of the kids you might be doing the both of you a disservice, and missing out on an inspiring and peaceful experience.

Not everyone that reads this blog lives near the destinations I can visit everyday, but I hope in sharing these different stories and explaining my process I might help your search for kid-friendly places where you live.  Like I’m doing in creating my definition of “kid-friendly,” use my experiences as an analogy.

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It was a light week of posting for me:

-I started the week worried over dealing with the real problems in owning a hundred year old farmhouse;

-But I rejoiced in finding an amazing produce stand that gives its entertainment away for free; and

-Later I contemplated some deeper parenting thoughts while exploring the very Kid-Friendly destination of the Theodore Roosevelt Island.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!