I try to do my best to support small local business and love taking advantage of my walkable neighborhood. Today we decided to walk up to Phinney and check out some new places. Linus impressed me and walked/ran all the way up the hill to our first stop, Starbucks. Not only is it about 10 blocks, but it is a very steep hill. We then walked along checking out some consignment shops. When I could hold him back no longer, I finally let Linus go into Green Bananas.
Green Bananas is new and a pretty cool place. The 99 Monkeys part of the business sells gently used toys that have been cleaned and re-packaged using green materials. They had an impressive collection of Care Bears. They were mostly smaller toys, with lots of play mobile and Thomas. They also had some cool vintage toys. I found a Tinkerbell comb, brush, and mirror set (in original packaging!) from the early 1980s. I swear my neighbor had this when I was a kid.
Green Bananas other feature is that it is a drop-in art care facility--that is to say that you can drop your child off for up to four hours and someone will read stories and do art projects with them. We saw in a flyer that the theme this week was Riki-Tiki-Tavi. Being a fan of snakes, this is one of Linus' new favorites. Green Bananas was doing a special art project where kids got to make their own sock puppet mongoose. Eileen and I hung out in the store for awhile until Linus told us it was okay to go. We ran a few errands and came back to find Linus engrossed in art and reluctant to leave. We came home with a sock puppet, felt snake, water color, and drawing. He is already talking about going back.
As a stay at home mom, it's nice to know that I have another option for brief childcare when I need it. Unfortunately, they currently don't take kids under 2.5. Kids don't have to be potty trained. It's $9.50 an hour and $6.50 for each additional child. Right now they are running a special where new clients get the second hour free.
I hope this place sticks around. I think it's a great resource. I'm looking forward to doing a purge of our toy room and taking them in to consign.
No comments:
Post a Comment