02
Family Culture
Things I love: watching movies, reading novels, eating in restaurants, going to the theater, visiting museums and making crafts.
“Cultural” activities I participate in regularly: watching Little Einsteins, reading picture books, eating at Waffle House (Love their waffles!), going out to the park, visiting child-oriented museum exhibits, making balls and snakes out of Play-Doh.
Okay, so in a way, I still spend some of my time away from work in activities I enjoyed before children ruled my world.
While I miss my weekly trips to the movies and dinners out at nice restaurants, rediscovering childhood’s pleasures is one of the best parts of parenthood.
Some can even be fun without kids.
Here are some of my recommendations to all of you for family fun in the Triangle:
1. The Museum of Science and Life (Durham)—exhibits featuring live animals, butterflies, space equipment, musical instruments, and a train ride. We’ve been there several times and still haven’t seen it all.
2. Pullen Park (Raleigh)—train, boat and carousel rides, swings, slides, sand, indoor pool. My train-crazy three-year-old’s favorite place.
3. The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (Raleigh)—free exhibits related to plants and animals (live bugs, snakes and fish). Storytime for small children and other special events throughout the year.
4. Observation Park (Raleigh)—watch airplanes take off and land at the airport on the observation deck, play in the sandbox or pretend to be a plane on the little runways.
5. The Streets at Southpoint Mall indoor play area (Durham)—lots of opportunities for kids to climb, slide and injure themselves—they love it—near the food court
6. Carmike Blue Ridge 14 movie theater (Raleigh)—second run movies for $1.50 (because when you are taking kids, who wants to pay $7 for a movie you aren’t even sure anyone will enjoy or sit through.)
7. Kids Together Park (Cary)—four fantastic play areas for kids of different ages, including swings, slides, water and sand play areas and a dragon to climb on. It even has specially designed equipment for special needs children.
8. Sweet Tomatoes (Cary and Raleigh)—a great place for a family dinner out. The huge salad bar, soup bar, pasta, bread and muffin bar mean no waiting for food to come and something for even picky eaters. Plus, they have these cool infant seats to wheel your baby along as you walk down the salad bar.
9. Forest Hills Park (Durham)—nice playground, water play area, and large grassy space to run and play
10. Kids Night at Tomato Jakes (Durham)—$1 slices for kids, free balloon sculptures
11. Jordan Lake (Apex)—when drought hasn’t depleted the water level, I hear it is quite lovely and you can swim there. Despite low water levels this summer, my son had fun wading in the water and playing at the playground at the Ebenezer Church beach area.
12. Durham Bulls game (Durham)—baseball, family activities, junk food, playground
