Can't Travel To The Mediterranean This Summer? Try The Olive & Grape!

These days, I've been reminiscing the days of adventurous travel with my husband. Let's be clear: A two hour flight to San Francisco is an adventure with a baby. But these are not the adventures I speak of. I'm talking about 10 days before Christmas saying "let's go to Paris for the New Year" and doing it... or ... "hey, I have a business trip to Germany, Romania & Poland next week...wanna tag along?"

We hope to pick the days of overseas travel back up in the coming years, but we aren't THAT brave yet. When we have a case of wanderlust, we try to find a restaurant that is new to us with a little more than burgers or pizza on the menu.

We decided to go to The Olive and Grape one late afternoon for a late lunch/early dinner. The restaurant suffered from some fairly severe smoke damage in 2009 and only reopened as The O&G in the last several months. The restaurant is in "downtown" Greenwood (Greenwood Ave N & N 85th St) which is quite walkable with pleasant shops, restaurants, and coffee shops. They serve a variety of mediterranean foods with a focus on Turkish and Italian dishes.

We were pleasantly surprised at the changes to the menu and enjoyed our dinner. If any nursing mamas with a dairy intolerant baby need a dairy free dish, the Gnocchi alla Emiliana (minus the cheese on top) is a warm comfort food delight that I've found hard to come by in my new land of no dairy.

The staff was very at ease with children and while the restaurant is long and narrow, they will help you accommodate a stroller and make room for your small ones with no fuss.

We'll definitely be adding it to our rotation! Be sure to check out their website to see any events happening in the summer months.

The Skinny:

High Chairs? Yes.

Infant Car Seat Slings? No.

Changing Table? No.

Kids Menu? Yes.

Kids Eat Free? No. But reasonably priced meals include milk, juice, or soda.

The Olive and Grape - Greenwood

8516 Greenwood Avenue North

Seattle, WA 98103

(206) 724-0272

Note: closed on Mondays

Bonus: The Olive & Grape is now serving organic D'Ambrosio Gelato

Garden Shopping: Even Entertaining for Your Chickadees?

Believe it or not, summer will arrive. Eventually. Today I watched my neighbors, weary from dragging their tomato plants in and out of the sun room every other day or so, finally dig the holes and make those plants a fixture in their finely manicured vegetable garden. Shocking reveal here: I'm behind! If you're like me, you have an entire vegetable garden's worth of supplies a few odds and ends to pick up for your herb and vegetable garden.

Errands like these are fun, but become a bit challenging when you have a mini-me tagging along. Inevitably, you'll get half way through your list and something happens. A diasplosion (diaper explosion - the kind where you need to abandon your mission and head straight home), hunger that will drive a wild man straight to the psych ward, and of course fear of strangers (or plants that look like strangers - what, that's just my kid?) embarrassing you enough that you just need to scoot out.

Thankfully, there are nurseries out there with exciting entertainment (read: distractions) for

your wee ones. I popped into Swansons Nursery to pick up those *ehem* few odds and ends

and, as always, was blown away with the beautiful flowers! and hanging baskets! and

grasses! and trees! and omg look at the hydrangeas! Oh. Right. Vegetables. Herbs. Marigolds. I'm already pushing the time limit set by mr. impatient.

Sure enough, half way through my debate over which type of oregano I should try not to kill this year, my little man got annoyed. The wind was blowing (one would think the wind was wickedly poisoned by the way my son reacts to every little breeze) and I was taking too long. Then I saw a little sign.

Chicks! Baby chicks! Over in the far north greenhouse was a perfect little coop with some little chicks chirping away.

We enjoyed checking out the little chicks and listening to them squeak for quite some time. It sated the little man just enough to finish picking out my future crops (plus a couple of flowers just for me, how can I resist?).

They also have a great little cafe with a koi pond in their south greenhouse. And if your kids are a little bit older, there is a lot of great information to teach them about our native Northwest plants and how to care for them. They might even get excited to help you build a vegetable garden (and you can get some willing help with those dandelions!). I expect in a few years, the nursery will be a wonderful outing for us.

The Skinny:

Swansons Nursery - Blue Ridge

9701 15th Ave NW

Seattle, WA 98117

(206) 782-2543

Note: The chicks may be seasonal, but each season brings something new. There is a reindeer at Christmas time and a great pumpkin patch around Halloween.

Living The Hi-Life in Ballard

After our adventure to Sonic Boom Records, we decided to wander through Ballard to do some shopping and grab an early dinner. Our first stop was at Clover Toys. If you haven't been, go. It's such a great store filled with unique toys and clothes (and hats!!!) that you can't find at the big national retailers. We're huge fans of all of our local children's boutiques. I'm sure I'll be talking about them a lot on this blog.

After solidifying our wish list for Mimi, we wandered down the street and found ourselves at The Hi-Life. We hadn't planned on coming here. We hadn't planned on anything really, it just sort of happened. And we are so glad it did!

The last time we dined at The Hi-Life I was in labor. We were in between appointments at Swedish Ballard and decided that it was too pretty to sit in a waiting room (oh, crisp warmish cool fall days, I can't wait for you to return) so we high tailed it out to The Hi-Life. What a great last meal before enduring the long wait to meet our son! I digress...

The Hi-Life is an excellent all-American kid-friendly restaurant. Seattle certainly has a lot to offer in the way of great restaurants. We have it better than a lot of cities where your only options for dining with kids are the standard chain restaurants with static menus (not that predictability is bad, but sometimes we miss a little variety). We got there right at 5pm, when the dinner menu was ready. We shared an appetizer with some fresh asparagus (three cheers for spring!) while we fed our little man some fresh peas. If your kids are old enough to be eating from the kids menu, this one has a lot to offer. Fresh and healthy options will entice your budding foodie, but some old classics are there if you have a kid with a more specific palate.

American food at it's best, they have some staples that are always on their menu and a great specials page based on what is in season in the area. We are planning on going back soon for Sunday Night's Family Style Fried Chicken Supper.

The staff at The Hi-Life is very accommodating to families, very professional and knowledgeable of their specials making the dining experience a great one. And you can't lose with kids when you tell them they'll have dinner in an old firehouse! I'd highly recommend checking it out!

The Skinny:

High Chairs? Yes.

Infant Car Seat Slings? Yes.

Changing Table? Yes.

Kids Menu? Yes.

Kids Eat Free? No. But very reasonably priced meals include milk, juice, or soda.

The Hi-Life - Ballard

5425 Russell Ave., NW
Seattle, WA 98107

(206) 784-7272

Shockingly Kid Friendly: National Record Store Day

One of my favorite things to do is to watch live music. Traditionally, watching modern live music involves a bar or another non-kid-suitable venue/time/audience. The fact is, I want my child to appreciate good music. Barney does not count. Sorry. Don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place for the Pandora toddler station, but it doesn't have to be all the time.

A few Saturdays ago was National Record Store Day. Loads of Seattle area record stores had live performances with amazing bands. Not an uncommon thing around our fair town. But not something most of us think about when we're cleaning the intricate valves of a sippy cup or trying to scrape who-knows-how-old-oatmeal off the floor, couch, table, chair.....

My husband and I decided if magic happened and our son napped in perfect time, we'd hop down to Ballard's Sonic Boom Records to see The Head and the Heart's performance in honor of the special day.

It happened to be a little dose of perfect sunshine, happy Seattleites, and excellent music. Our six month old really enjoyed the time out. We stood near the door so we could hop away if he got rambunctious, but you know what? Kids LOVE music. It captures their attention. As long as they aren't running around or screaming, they are a welcome sight at a record store performance. The venue does not really suit a super loud performance, so you're almost always in a position where you don't need to worry about damaging sensitive little ears (and if you are worried, you can stand further back or just outside the doors and still get the performance). There were dozens of children there that Saturday. Most strapped to their live-music-hungry parent's back. Others standing with their parents. All very happy and no one minded their presence.

It turns out a lot of record stores have live performances for no charge in their store when a band rolls through town (or a local band has an upcoming release, show, etc). Now, I certainly don't want to be responsible for ruining record store performances, so you should know if your kid(s) can handle such an event, but as I say, live music does capture the attention of kids. Teach them something and get yourself a dose of quality music! Before you go, make sure you know the event is "all ages."

We had a great time and picked up the THatH's first album + their autographs for our music wall at home.

Check out the listing of in store performances from some of our local record stores:

Sonic Boom Records: http://www.sonicboomrecords.com/

Easy Street Records: http://easystreetonline.com/calendar

Silver Platters: http://www.silverplatters.com/

Welcome to Kidding Around Seattle!

It's Monday morning. Your "usually sleeps through the night" 6 month old woke you up at 4:30am. Is it the top two teeth coming in? Is it because you drove up to Mt. Vernon to see the tulip fields and subsequently made a "quick" stop at the outlet malls in Marysville, accidentally bypassing TWO naps yesterday? Ugh. Probably.

You've decided your usual Monday morning routine could wait and crawled back in bed when he went down for his first nap. Suddenly, it's 11:00 in the morning and you've not showered, not cleaned up the house from the weekend, it's pouring with 60mph wind gusts outside and now you've also missed the free reading at your neighborhood library. Now what?

I'm not the only one am I?

Those are the days that I peruse the Internet during naps, hoping to find something to do in Seattle that isn't too expensive, is a little unique, and gets us out of the house. I've had some difficulty coming up with a comprehensive and personalized view of that for the area. I hope I can create just that right here at Kidding Around Seattle!

I hope you decide to stick around and find some interesting things to do with your kids around Seattle (get it, Kidding Around Seattle?).