Mamas and papas-
Thinking ahead for our second son's second birthday. With our older one we had friends and family at our apartment and a monkey theme for his second birthdays. I am not interested in having it at home. Don't want the clean up, food and decorations prep or the clean up afterwards.
DS2s birthday is in January. We did his first birthday at an indoor carousel. The handful of toddlers and the kids up to age 10 who are part of our circle of friends and family all enjoyed it.
Any suggestions for what we might do this year? It would have to be indoors, able to accommodate up to a dozen kids, be agreeable to both the little kids and the older ones.
DS2 is an agreeable kid who pretty much likes everything from his toy dinosaur to splashing in the tub, doing art, pushing cars, kicking balls and climbing the playground and carrying a silly amount of things all at once. He'd be happy with anything we choose.
Thanks for your ideas.
F. B.
I was also going to suggest gymnastics and indoor bounce houses, so it seems to be there theme here already! There are also places that are bounce house/climbing places like Monkey Joes, etc.
You could also do Build-A-Bear, which does get a little pricey, but is perfect for the toddler crowd. We did it once and limited the choices on bears and only one accessory and all the kids loved it.
What about an indoor bounce out place. Or you might be able to find a gymnastics gym that does parties. Little ones like those types of things.
The Jim Henson Exhibition at MOMI has a schedule of related events, if your son likes Muppets?
He might still be too young but "Shipwrecked" is a fun pirate-themed indoor miniature golf course in Red Hook (even I enjoyed it for *my* birthday, lol)...although that means traveling to Brooklyn and I'm not sure how your friends feel about that! ;-)
(Or, for a low-cost variant on Jim Henson, take the group to Times Square to watch Elmo battle a Desnuda and get arrested...it seems events like that are becoming regular shows!)
Maybe a place that has toddler gym classes? Our YMCA has a party setup that it great for little ones and the equipment can be used by younger kids.
Another option could be an indoor pool that has a really shallow end. There is a daycare center near us that has a great indoor pool. The shallow end has a section that is really just a wading pool, maybe 6 inches deep. Perfect for little ones to sit and splash. Then the next section is a regular shallow end, then there is a deep section for jumping and lap swimming. We did a couple of winter birthday parties there (my youngest is a January baby too) and going into a warm pool house was a real treat in the midst of winter.
Our local indoor trampoline park (Sky Zone) has a toddler zone and then the bigger kids can jump in the main area. Sky Zone has added American Ninja Warrior obstacles to a lot of locations and that can be a blast for the bigger kids.
Fun Filled Birthday party ideas for two-year-olds.
https://www.parentcircle.com/article/birthday-party-ideas...
I'm thinking indoor bouncy place/with toddler area too or a swimming pool with toddler/small children play area.
As far as organized, play place parties go, all my kids liked the gymnastics ones the best. Ours had a trapeze, huge trampolines and a rock climbing wall which truly made it fun for all ages.
