Weekly Happenings To Keep in Mind!

A parent of a toddler that is a very busy bee my husband and I always have a Plan A, B and C to make our day go smooth. These are our plan C's ( our steady rock solid standbys). When all else fails and we cannot think of anything else to do these are our fallbacks that we know are always going on. We are huge library goers, our daughter struggles with the sitting for story time frequently, we are always reintroducing the library to her ( she finally sat during a story time for three minutes outside of the song and rhyme time last month!). As a pre-school teacher and observing friends children ( as well as my own) all children's interests are different and I suggest following their passions. Also, take into consideration the child when choosing events ( temperament, energy level and daily schedule). There are many events my husband and I pass up because we think it may be setting our daughter up for failure. A prime example was there were free goat snuggle sessions in Westbrook coming up -- something our daughter would love. When I showed interest a friend said she waited in line for up to an hour to get a 2 minute session with a baby goat on top of the two hour drive down and back at some point that day. That would be setting my two year old up for failure and disappointment. In theory that sounded perfect, in reality we would struggle in line for an hour or two for two minutes of bliss to have that ripped from her later resulting in a meltdown in our car until she eventually fell asleep on our two hour car ride home. There are many times my husband has opted out of story times knowing my daughter needed to get out and run. This is okay too. On the other spectrum I have had friends tell me their kids gross motor skills were their for the bounce house or they didn't enjoy them. As far as schedules are concerned I have friends whose kids are down at 6:30 for the night and others at 8:30 depending on the naps and needs for the child and parents. Nap times are things to take into consideration when choosing destinations.These are the places my husband and I frequent with our daughter. You may have some you want to add in comments that you frequent/ know good friends host or have heard good things about!

Bangor:


Bangor Public Library

• Mother Goose Story Time: Wednesday @ 10:15 ( newborn to 24 months)
• Tiny Tots Storty Time: Wednesday @11:00 ( 2 to 4 years old)

Briar Patch Story Time: Tuesday@ 10:30

Maine Discovery Museum 

• Messy Art: Wednesday @10:30 ( schedules change in July & August for camps)
• Clay Play: Friday @ 11:00 ( schedules change in July & August for camps)

Playgrounds and Parks: Chapin, Fairmount, Little City, Downeast, Broadway, Hayford, Vine St., Howard St. and Second Street.Plus, all elementary school locations. Sunrise to Sunset.

Walking trails: Bangor City Forrest, Prentiss Woods, Essex Woods, Kenduskeag Stream Park, Brown Woods, Walden Parke and Northeast Penjajawoc. Sunrise to Sunset.

Family Fun Bowling Lanes -15 Hildreth St. ( Bumpers for little ones and affordable)

Mcdonalds Playplace: Broadway ( for those rainy days or freezing winters)Tip: best to go when older kids are in school and we get fruit for our daughter to snack on there as a healthy alternative.

Brewer:


  Brewer Public Library Pre-schooler Story Time: Tuesday and Wednesday @10:30 Sept. - May

Playland Adventure Toddler Time: 10:00 a.m. daily $5 for children 2 & under plus adults play for free. $9 for 3 to 9 year olds with adults playing for free. We call this toddler time since only parents of toddler go during the school year ( Sept. - May) during the day. Summers get crazy when school is out so we avoid it to dodge the school age kids ( they aren't so good about following the toddler inflatable rules so much).

Playgrounds and Parks: Brewer Riverwalk , Fisherman's Park , Sunset park, Fling Street Park, Indian Trail

Brewer Children's Garden

Hampden:

Eydthe L. Dyer Community Library

• Play and Learn ( ages 3 months to 6 years) Mondays @ 9:30
• Pre-school Story Time ( ages 3 years to 5 years) Tuesdays @10:30
• Toddler Time ( age 2) Thursdays and Fridays @ 9:30
• Story Time in Japanese Wednesday @10:00

Lura E. Hoit Memorial Pool:

• Monday- Friday Open Swim @ 12:30 to 1:00
• Monday- Friday Family Swim @ 2:30 to 4:00
• Wednesday and Friday Family Swim @5:30 to 6:30
• Saturday Family Swim @ 3:30 to 5:00

Parks and Playgrounds:

• Dorthea Dix Park

Old Town:

Old Town Public Library:

• Toddler time - Monday & Thursday Mornings @10:30 to 10:55 
• Brown Lunch Program  ( summers only for 4 &5 year olds) 

Old Town YMCA Costs:

Gymnastics: Family $15/ Members $20/ Non-members $25

• Mommy + Me Gymnastics ( ages 2-4 years) Mondays @ 2:00, Tuesday & Thursday@ 9:45, Saturday@ 10:00
• Pre-school Open Play ( 8 months to 4 years) Tuesday & Thursday@ 9:00 
• Pre-school Movement ( ages 3-5 years)

Swim Lessons: Members $25/ Non-Members $40

• Parent/child ( ages 6 months to 3) Tuesdays@ 3:30 and Saturdays @ 10:10
• Pike with Parents ( ages 2 to 5) Thursdays @ 3:30 and Saturday @ 10:10

J. Franklin Witter Teaching & Research Center ( farm) - Weekdays 10a.m. to 4:00 pm

• Sheep
• Cows
• Horses

University Bike Trail- University to Witter Farm to Perkin's Avenue

University Forrest- Outer College avenue to Sewall rd.

Parks and playgrounds: Perkin's Avenue and Main st. ( both have free water parks, playgrounds and fields to play in)

Old Town Bowling Center

Landtrust: Bennoch Rd.

Mcdonalds Playplace: Stillwater ( for those rainy days or freezing winters) Tip: best to go when older kids are in school and we get fruit for our daughter to snack on there as a healthy alternative.

  

Orono:

Orono Public Library

• Infant and Toddler Story Time- Thursdays @10:15 
• Toddler and Pre-schooler Story Time- Thursdays @ 11:00
• Pajama Story Story Time ( one Thurday evening a month Sept.-May)

Parks and Playgrounds: Webster Park, Goodridge Dr. and Browns Beach

Land Trusts: Bennoch rd., Water St. Lupine Path and Orchard Trails

University Resources:

• Roger Clapp Garden
• Littlefield Greenhouse
• New Banlance Rec Center ( $5 a child and $8 an adult)
• Planetarium ( suggesting ages 4+)
• Merril Hall Infant/Toddler Program ( Starts in Sept. contact Margo Brown for information)
• Mainebound Adventure  Thursdays- $2 night 3 to 10 pm and Family Night Saturdays @3 to 5
• Free Skate At the Alfond - $5 an adult and kids under 5 skate for free!
• Class of 1944 Hall- music lessons at times. 
• The Mall in front of the library 

This is all I am posting for now within my comfort level as our Plan C's. If you live outside of these areas in Penobscot County let me know and I can try and find something closer to you. But, I find many of these places are central to most surrounding towns. 

Introduction To Penobscot Parenting

I choose to call this penobscot parenting since:

A.) I want Mainer's to know this is for you specifically in our area.
B.) Parenting is way more inclusive than Mom since Dad's are ( or ideally should be) involved as well.

About Me:
I am a pre-school teacher that is from Bucksport/ Bangor that married a man from Milford/ Orono and had a child. With that said, we are well connected to the Bangor, Hampden Orono, Veazie, Old Town, Milford and Bradley events in their communities. My husband and I have the unique situation where we take turns and shifts being with our 2 and a half year old all day long 7 days a week working opposite shifts. My husband has her during the day and I have her at night.

Why start this blog?
We often hear from a lot of friends asking about things we do with our daughter and how we heard about the events. We never realized how much we knew about events until we noticed others were not showing up to them. A good friend of mine that has twins, Amy, encouraged me to start this blog and with support from other friends that are Mom's in the area I got the courage to start this blog ( Katy, Julie, Chelsea and Nadia). I will try my best to send out event happening.

Mission:
The ultimate outcome is spending the least amount for the most amount of fun. I would like to keep this a positive. As a forewarning I am not willing to spend copious amounts of money on anything, so I try to limit all outings to $15 or less for a family of three ( those are special occasions). I am aiming for posts 2 to 3 days a week on events and tips to keep your infants, toddlers and/or preschoolers entertained. I want families to be as happy as can be! I don't like the days when i go to bed and wonder was this a good day for her? I try to make every day a good day for her!

Disclaimer:
I apologize ahead of time for poor grammar and the occasional misspelling. Also, I am an insufferable optimist and always look at the "flops" in life as a learning experience. Some of the things I may post are sheer opinion based on personal experiences in the past, you may have different experiences and that is okay too. Overall,I hope you enjoy and you find this helpful! Also, occasionally I follow up on an event and we show up to find the webpage was not up-to-date or the event was cancelled due to rain or unexpected events. So I am only passing along public information that I have to my access. Please don't get upset at the messenger. I try my hardest to keep up on the latest events, alas I am not perfect. I am a mere pregnant mother to a toddler working 40 hours a week, have a little empathy.