Las Vegas Mama

Here is the article I wrote for AOL City's Best a while back on play dates for $10 or less. I figure it bears repeating. See the original article here . Family Fun for $10 or Less: Play, Stargaze & Skate! Mar 3rd 2011 4:00PM / by Andrea Leal If you're feeling all kicky and reckless, it may be time to try a kid activity for $10 or less per person. Yes, I said $10 ... I did mention recklessness, didn't I? Sometimes you just have to go for broke. And if you are a parent, then being broke is your destiny. Don't try to fight it, just accept it. It'll be easier on everyone once you do. Run Plus Fun: This clean indoor playground (pictured at right) is a good place for kids to let loose, no matter what the weather is like. There are slides, ball pits and an area reserved for babies and toddlers. For parents there are couches and free Wi-Fi -- win-win! Day pass, $8 per child 10875 S. Eastern Ave.; 702-272-2255 CSN's Planetarium and Observatory: Ma...

I am 8 months pregnant this week. That's a lot of months.  And it strikes me how similar pregnancy becomes to old age, especially the closer you get to D Day. And I know about old people. My grandpa lived to age 98, my grandma lived to age 101. And I adored them and miss them terribly. So believe me when I say that I know what I am talking about here. Here are the ways in which, as an super duper uber gestator (is that a word?), I have become like a very, very old person. Napping: Like many old folks, I simply cannot get through the day without a nap. If I do not nap, I find it very hard to get through the rest of my day. I remember my abuelita nodding off in front of the tv for several hours at a time. She would wake up suddenly, surprised that it was 2 hours later. This weekend I told Phillip, "I am going to go lay down for a few." And a few hours later, I woke up to find that several hours had passed and I never even realized it because I was so deeply asleep...

Let's talk babies. Why? Because I have one. In my belly. I mean there is another human being in there, how weird is that! And since I said person is just chillin' in utero, I want to talk about it. It might be boring, but too bad. You are going to have to bear the baby talk for the next several months/years - and you are just lucky I have not drowned you in baby talk before this.  Let's start the baby-talk kickoff with a shout out to my doula. Doula, yo! What up! I am happy I hired you! Her name is Mandie and she is a Hypnobirthing instructor. Hypnobirthing is a self-hypnosis method of dealing with labor. When I first took the class I was preggers with Ivy, and expected my labor to be totally au naturel. This was a cosmic joke because in the end I had a scheduled C section. Ha ha, sooo hilarious, God. With Violet, I did try a home VBAC but had pretty much forgotten all about Hypno, and anyway I had no doula to help me through it. 34 hours of back labor and in the end ...

Here are a couple of slices of our life today. Judge accordingly. Ivy: Mom, I want a bug vacuum for Christmas. Me: Ok, maybe we can do that. Ivy: But I want a kid size one, not a big one. I want to catch bugs. Me: Ok that's fine. But you know, you have to let the bugs go when you are done studying them. Ivy: Why? Me: Because you can't keep them, they like to be outside. If you keep them in there they'll die. Violet (suddenly interested): Like Abuelita? She died, right? Me: Yes... she did. Ivy: So is that what happened to Abuelita? Did someone not let her out of a container? *** Ivy is curious about the Civil War. She has been asking a lot of questions about it because we have several Civil War history books with old pictures and illustrations. She has been asking for days about what the different pictures mean. Today she asked me about the people fighting and I explained it as simply as I could. She decided it would be fun to make Violet play Civil Wa...