Best of Nashville
BEST WAY TO FIND A BABYSITTER, IF YOU’VE GOT THE BUCKS: MOMMY MIXER
For a cool $100, you too can attend a Mommy Mixer, where you’ll be introduced to the best babysitters Vandy has to offer. Yes, it’s pricey, but getting your hands on a Mommy Mixer notebook filled with the cell phone numbers of 24 Vanderbilt-educated babysitters, many of them education majors, feels a little bit like finding the Holy Grail. Get information on upcoming Mommy Mixers in Nashville at mommymixer.com. —LINDSAY FERRIER
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
You could go to Kroger, grab a pumpkin from a crate and let your kids think they originate that way, like basketballs. Or you could take a half-hour drive to this 150-year-old family farm, about three miles from the Franklin square, where goats, horses and beef cattle graze on a hillside above sprawling tangles of pumpkin vines. Pick your own or choose one from the huge piles at the tent; either way, don’t miss the hayride—a leisurely plod over hill and dale with enough slopes and jounces to qualify as a grand adventure. The activity area (which includes the hayride, a 4-acre cornfield maze, tire swings and encounters with sheep, pigs and rabbits) is $5 per person, with pumpkins extra: be advised that this year’s pick-your-own crop may run a little smaller. Open weekends only to the public through Oct. 28; for hours and directions, see gentryfarm.com or call 794-4368. —JIM RIDLEY
BEST ALTERNATIVE TO CHUCK E. CHEESE: YOUNG CHEFS ACADEMY
Stuff they don’t teach you in Daddy-Mommy School: once your kid enters pre-K, the hub of your social life becomes children’s birthday parties. Unless your idea of relaxation is a casino overrun by sugar-crazed midgets and a moth-eaten rat the size of Yao Ming, you’re gonna draw a pizza cutter across your wrists if you have to attend more than one Chuck E. Cheese function per decade. To avoid Tunica for Tots, have your kid cozy up to that bookish, well-behaved child with two working parents—the better your likelihood of attending a party at this snug Brentwood kid-chen where tykes press out their own little pizzas and calzones. It’s cute, it’s orderly, your child looks adorable in the paper chef’s toque, and best of all, no rat. Packages start at $225 for 12 kids; call 371-2151 for more info. And if it’s booked, Pie in the Sky makes a nice alternative. Tough luck, Chuck. —JIM RIDLEY
BEST PARK FOR KIDS (FALL): CROCKETT PARK/ PINKERTON PARK
In winter, it’s fun to wander through the not-quite-deserted Dragon Park; in spring, dogwoods and ornamental cherries bloom near Bellevue’s Red Caboose Park; in summer, the Bicentennial Mall’s plaza of streaming water jets becomes a mini-Riviera for squealing kids in saturated swimsuits and flip-flops. (Bring lots of sunscreen.) But this is fall—live in the moment. With its pervasive canopy of shade trees, Brentwood’s Crockett Park showers its sturdy wooden trestles, tire swings and fortress mazes with a steady rain of leaves that crunch underfoot. By contrast, Franklin’s Pinkerton Park is more open, but its walking trails lead to a footbridge over the Harpeth and hills streaked with autumn colors. Hold your kids’ hands tight until they see the playground; let them go, gently, and watch as they run, laughing all the way. —JIM RIDLEY
BEST TOY STORE: PHILLIPS TOY MART
You can probably find a Thomas the Tank Engine set or a Groovy Girls doll at just about any big-box store. But what if you’re looking for an Abraham Lincoln or Red Baron action figure? What if you want high-end educational or wooden toys or sophisticated train sets? Phillips Toy Mart on Harding Road is the place to find toys they don’t stock at the big chains. Founded in 1946 and privately owned, Phillips does carry the name brands—Lego, Playmobil and Small World Toys. But it’s the unusual items—a 7-foot-tall parking garage from Wader Quality Toys, for instance—that set Phillips apart. And since there are only 82 more shopping days left till Christmas, you might want to get over to Phillips right now. —JOHN PITCHER
BEST FREE KIDS’ ENTERTAINMENT: NASHVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY STORY TIME
It’s no secret that I think the Main Library’s weekly story time is the best free kids entertainment this town has to offer. Mary Mary, the Professor and Library Pete keep the preschoolers rapt with songs, juggling, puppets and, of course, a book reading somewhere in the mix. Plan to spend some time in the library’s fabulous children’s section while you’re there, perusing the large book collection and logging your kid on to one of the children’s computer terminals. End the morning with lunch at Provence, on the library’s first floor. Story time is at 9:30, 10:30 and 11:30 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the Children’s Theater on the Main Library’s second floor. —LINDSAY FERRIER
BEST PLACE TO INTRODUCE KIDS TO CLASSICAL MUSIC: ORCHESTRA VIEW SEATS AT THE NASHVILLE SYMPHONY
The orchestra view seats at the Nashville Symphony rise up steeply behind the stage, facing out toward the audience. They aren’t great date seats—you’re lit up along with the stage—and, frankly, the acoustics don’t seem as fine as those in the rest of the hall. But they are absolutely fabulous seats for peeking into the magical world of musical performance. You are practically seated with the orchestra. You can see the conductor’s face up close, communicating with the musicians, moved with artistic passion. You can feel the energy of the musicians’ taut yet fluid movements. Don’t find out what happens when you force a kid to stare at the back of a stranger’s head for two hours. Instead, give that child an intimate encounter with artistic creation. —LISA ROBBINS
BEST TODDLER HANGOUT: THE BOUNCE FACTORY
The name of this toddler mecca speaks for itself. Located on Murfreesboro Pike, Bounce Factory is a huge warehouse filled with giant slides, moonwalks and other bouncy inflatable toys. Birthday parties are one of the Factory’s specialties. But there are also public playtimes for toddlers (10 a.m.-noon Tuesday-Friday), an afternoon family bounce (3-8 p.m. on Tuesdays) and a new parents’ night out (6:30-10:30 p.m. the first Friday of every month). Pizza is served on the premises, so the kids will have plenty of fuel to hop, skip, bounce and jump till they drop. —JOHN PITCHER
BEST FAMILY OUTDOOR ADVENTURE: TIP-A-CANOE, ON THE HARPETH
Just a few minutes outside of Nashville, rent a couple of canoes and spend the day floating down the lazy Harpeth River, where you’ll spot all kinds of interesting flora and fauna and feel like you’re miles away from civilization. As long as your kids can swim, bring along the entire family. Yes, someone will inevitably tip his or her canoe, but the waters are slow and shallow so expect hilarity rather than terror to ensue. You might want to leave the camera behind, though. Tip-a-Canoe is located at 1270 Highway 70 in Kingston Springs, right off of Interstate 40 (tip-a-canoe.com). —LINDSAY FERRIER
BEST WAY TO GET THE NEIGHBOR’S KID OFF YOUR DOORSTEP: BUY A NASHVILLE CITIPASS BOOK
Bypass the runny-nosed kids offering up tacky wrapping paper and useless magazine subscriptions in favor of the lucky child hawking Citipass books. It’ll be the best $25 you spend on entertainment this year. From Pied Piper Creamery and Otter’s to Genghis Grill, Kalamatas and Wolfgang Puck Express, you’ll find buy-one-get-one-free entrée coupons for many of your favorite restaurants. Other coupons are good at the Adventure Science Center, Cheekwood, Blockbuster Video, Ace Hardware, the Belcourt Theatre and Phillips Toy Mart, just to name a few. With more than 300 participating merchants, expect to get your 25 bones-worth in no time. nashvillecitipass.com. —LINDSAY FERRIER
BEST PLACE TO WATCH FLICKS WITH THE RUGRATS: FAMILY WEEKEND CLASSICS AT THE BELCOURT
So your kids recoil instinctively from Turner Classic Movies or anything without robot trucks, CGI pirates or color, eh? Guided by Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr’s book The Best Old Movies for Families, Belcourt film programmer (and proud parent) Toby Leonard has assembled three months of matinees that’ll convert even the staunchest Disney Channel addict to the pleasures of golden-age Hollywood. Included are dramas (To Kill a Mockingbird), screwball comedy (Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve), action (the Errol Flynn Adventures of Robin Hood, my 3-year-old’s current favorite) and sci-fi (Fritz Lang’s silent Metropolis)—but Burr and Leonard suggest you just take the kids without telling them what you’re seeing, the better to let them discover the films on their own. After all, what’s West Side Story but the High School Musical of 1961? The series starts Saturday; see the full schedule at belcourt.org. More details in next week’s issue. —JIM RIDLEY
BEST PLACE FOR COOL KIDS’ STUFF: POPO COOL KID STUFF
Tucked off the mommies-with-strollers corridor of Belmont Boulevard sits Popo, a refreshingly un-prissy children’s store with sassy clothes, furniture and toys for the avant toddler set. (That said, even the most bad-ass and nonchalant fashions are precious in those sizes.) New York transplants Velaire Woolsey and Susan Tyler fill the wardrobe with fun, colorful, washable togs from Europe and the East and West Coasts, reinventing the image of baby clothes. Without a single prissy ruffle of eyelet, the happy rainbow of jelly bean colors looks almost good enough to eat—and certainly good enough to cuddle. —CARRINGTON FOX
BEST PLACE TO TAKE THE KIDS ON A RAINY DAY: ADVENTURE SCIENCE CENTER
I can only compare Nashville’s Adventure Science Center to an educational sugar high. Everywhere you look, there’s something that will require your child’s immediate attention: there are geometric shapes to manipulate, parachutes to build, walk-on pianos to dance upon, gigantic internal organs to squeeze and brain waves to analyze, among many, many other things. For the younger set, a portion of the center is devoted to giant Lego tables, a playhouse and other activities 2- to 5-year-olds will enjoy. We’ve taken my 3-year-old everywhere from the circus to Disneyland, and she’s never been more excited than she was here. Admission is $9 for adults, $7 for children. Visit adventuresci.com. —LINDSAY FERRIER
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