Best of Nashville Kids

BEST WAY TO FIND A BABYSITTER, IF YOU’VE GOT THE BUCKS: MOMMY MIXER

BEST PLAYGROUND: NASHVILLE ZOO AT GRASSMERE’S JUNGLE GYM

Macaws circle a waterfall, while gibbons hoot in the background. A large snake peeks out from under a tree, and a huge bamboo wall surrounds a wooden fortress. You might think at first that you’ve stumbled across some island paradise, but in truth you’ve simply found the coolest playground around: the jungle gym at Nashville Zoo. This fantastic, multistory playhouse towers over the zoo’s playground. There’s a gaping snake tunnel, swings, a beach’s worth of sand and a giant climbing net that connects the playground’s bridge to its tower. Best of all, this place is guaranteed to exhaust even the most hyperactive kids. —JOHN PITCHER

BEST LOCALLY HATCHED CHILDREN’S CLOTHING BRAND: LOS POLLITOS DICEN

With a handful of colloquial Spanish sayings, Carrie Ferguson and Oscar Alonso are translating simple onesies and toddler-size T-shirts into an international brand. Their children’s clothing line, Los Pollitos Dicen (translated: The Little Chicks Say) decorates simple kids wear with traditional kid-friendly Spanish expressions, such as Feliz Cumpleanos (Happy Birthday) and Fo! (Stinky!). After a couple years of incubation, their logo of tiny chicks popping out of shells is cracking into the mass market—for a limited time this week, Los Pollitos Dicen is on sale at Target.com. The twee clothing is available (packaged in egg-shaped boxes) at lospollitosdicen.biz. —CARRINGTON FOX

BEST WAY TO TRICK KIDS INTO LEARNING: MAD SCIENCE

Say, “Hey, kids, today we’re going to learn about plate tectonics,” and watch every tot in the room give you the Brussels-sprout face. But put the matter a different way—“All right, who wants to build a skyscraper and hit it with an earthquake?”—and you’ll hear more “Me! Me!”s than at a PlayStation giveaway. Armed with dry ice, acid, a Bug Eye Viewer and other way-cool implements, owner/managing partner Angie Edwards and her cohorts show that if you grab children by the imagination, their sense of curiosity will follow. They adapt their circus of scientific exploration to any setting, from school assemblies to parties, using spectacle and showmanship to advance concepts such as natural laws, insect behavior and cellular structure. Not convinced? I watched them captivate an audience of more than 100 cranky kids up waaaay past their bedtimes at Davis-Kidd’s midnight Harry Potter release party—and buddy, you don’t know a tough room. It just goes to prove Principal Seymour Skinner’s undying adage: “Every good scientist is half B.F. Skinner and half P. T. Barnum.” Call 573-2702 or see madscience.org/nashville. —JIM RIDLEY

BEST PLACE TO EAT WITH KIDS: OLD SPAGHETTI FACTORY

You won’t find any 6-foot-tall rodents running around this eatery. There are no giant play structures, no faux country stores in the reception area. But what the Old Spaghetti Factory, located on Second Avenue, does offer are basic foods (spaghetti with tomato sauce, macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches) that even the pickiest toddlers will usually eat. Better still, mom and dad can enjoy adult cuisine—some chicken fettuccine or spinach tortellini, perhaps—and a glass of wine while the youngsters greedily wolf down their pasta. Hey, you can’t do that at Chick-fil-A. —JOHN PITCHER

BEST USE OF A FAMILY MEMBERSHIP: CHEEKWOOD BOTANICAL GARDENS

If you’re like me, you’d love to give your kids a little more nature time, but you’re leery of taking them alone on Warner Park’s more secluded trails. Enter Cheekwood. With more than 55 acres of paths, you can choose from 11 different gardens to roam through, taking you down paved trails bustling with hundreds of butterflies, around ponds and reflection pools and through enchanted-looking forests. Add to that a museum of art, a restaurant that I hear is quite good, and free children’s art classes on Tuesdays and Saturdays and I’m sold. If you’re handy with a camera, Cheekwood is worth a membership for its stunning family portrait potential alone. A family membership is $75, but with our Citipass coupon and an extra $10 off for joining the same day we visited, we spent $55 for the year. —LINDSAY FERRIER

BEST PUMPKIN PATCH: GENTRY’S FARM