Kung Fu Panda Kids

This past Sunday, my family was invited by the New Jersey’s Moms Blog (where I also write) to an exclusive Kung Fu Panda party. To cover some of the basics, it was held at this adorable children’s botique / salon / play area Kidville & HP sponsored the event. We mainly went for our daughter, since the weather was going to be nice, and we’d never taken the baby into NYC yet. I never realized that everyone there was a blogger, either from NYC or the NJ Moms Blog. One gal happened to be up from DC, too. It seems the majority of us were busy with our kids and didn’t have all that much opportunity to chat, but a few grownup conversations were had.

There was a moon bounce, which my daughter always loves. A big hit for her was the Playdoh station where she got to make a pretty accurate Po the Panda statue. Her all time favorite was getting to play the XBOX 360 Kung Fu Panda game. She (almost) beat the pants off her dad playing the game. It totally amazes me how she (or any kid there) could pick up the controller and somehow instinctively know how to play the game. Finally learning how to use chop sticks was a huge help to me, as I don’t use them properly and really could never teach her! The girl that worked the candy counter and taught Kidlette how to pick up Goldfish and gummy bears with them should list that skill on her resume.

We are huge Jack Black fans, from School of Rock to Nacho Libre, and this movie will be no exception. Since the weather here in the Garden State will be swamp-ass hot this weekend (upper 90F) a movie theatre, some Cokes, and a hopefully quiet 7 month old will be enjoying the movie.

As for our trip into the ‘city’ with two kids, well, I could have planned better. My husband and I are used to working and commuting there from our house, but whoa brining kids is a whole different animal. Kidlette is easy, she’s just shy of 7. Besides making sure I throw a few bottles of water and some snacks in my bag, she’s good to go. The baby, well, breastfeeding lightens my bag by a pound or two, and a container or two of food for him as well as some diapers and a change of clothes and we were golden. But, then, THE STROLLER. The. Evil. Stroller. Not that I don’t adore the pack-mule-on-wheels, I do, but try getting around on NJ Transit trains and the NYC subway system with one. My first thought was to just carry the baby in the sling all day, but then realized what a wreck my back would be. Note to self, the subway system SUCKS for strollers or people with wheelchairs, period. Plus, traveling the subway on a weekend is hard. I’m guessing it’s when all the maintenance goes on, and the C line wasn’t running to/from where we needed it to, so instead of trying to figure it all out, we just grabbed a cab. Surprisingly easy with a stroller.

Next time we venture into NYC with the kids I plan on doing something that we can do at an easier pace (we were 30 minutes late for a 2 hour event). I can see the draw for some people to live in the city with kids. There are seemingly hundreds of things to do within walking distance and almost all of them interesting to both parents and tots.  For now, I’m more than happy in my Garden State!

[tags]Kung Fu Panda, Jack Black, HP, Hewlett-Packard, Kidville, NYC, NJ Moms Blog, XBOX, XBOX 360[/tags]