Having Fun as Mr. Mom
Posing with a real live Clydesdale
To save money while I was looking for a new job I started watching both kids full time instead of sending them to day care. Besides saving about $1400 per month, I had a great time with the kids.
I tried to take them some place fun each morning. I got a parking pass to Grant’s Farm and the Zoo and we went to each location at least once a week. We would usually only stay for a couple of hours and head back home for lunch and nap time. Besides being free, both of these place are fantastic for kids.
The Zoo is cool because there is so much to see and do. If you get there when they open you can park close on the street for free. Once inside, most of the paid exhibits are free the first hour. There is so much to see that we did not see the whole zoo until our 4th visit.
Grant’s farm is a smaller location and it is easy to see the whole park, a show and take your time doing it in 2 hours. The tram ride into the park is my favorite. You get to see plenty of animals up close. Ivan would point and say “Ooh” whenever one was close to the tram. We usually caught the elephant show first thing, walked around a bit and headed to the beer garden for a kids snack and free beer samples.
Fun at Chuck E. Cheese
Believe it or not, I kind of like Chuck E. Cheese’s. It’s not too bad if you go early in the morning and if you sign up for emails you can get some good deals on tokens. They keep it clean and have some nice games and rides for the little ones. We only went there a couple of times because it costs more, but it was a fun time.
If the afternoons we would usually hit a park and/or do some shopping at Target or Aldi’s. Aldi’s is the store I love to hate. They are cheap and have great deals. It makes it hard to pay full price at the regular grocery store after shopping here. On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of the cardboard boxes and bagging your own groceries.
Thankfully I got a job with Total Hockey, but I really enjoyed spending so much time with the kids. It was fun while it lasted.
