Play Center -- Guest Post by J.

K.i.t.e.T.a.i.l.s Play Center of North Kingstown, RI, is a place to Explore, Discover, and Create.®

Picture a Gymboree or a Play Gym. Now, remove all the fancy Gymboree obstacles and replace them with a hodgepodge of toys gathered from recent* local yard sales. Add some costumes and lots of moms checking their smart phones. Voila--you've got K.i.t.e Tails Play Center.

For $6 a visit (or less with multi-trip discounts), you can bring your kid to a whimsically decorated house full of kitchenette play sets. In the back, there's a bumper-car ring of tricycles and go-carts.

While I'm gently mocking the center, Aiden loved it. He and some of his newly-made friends hid in a plastic house outside, while I pretended to be a monster trying to break in through the windows. He held his own against the bigger boys. (In their version of cops-and-robbers, the boy riding the Little Tikes Police Patrol car was supposed to smash full speed into the boy driving the Fisher-Price Cozy Coupe.)

After playing outside for 2 hours, we sampled the toys inside. Aiden decided to don a pirate costume and then stroll his "pirate baby" back and forth between the fake cupcake station and the giant ladybug tent. A teenage employee dressed as Cinderella said, "How cute! I've never seen a pirate taking care of a baby."


Also, there was free cake, but we didn't eat any.


*Actually, I'm not sure about recent. One of the Big Wheels looked just like one I had as a kid. I turned it over, and sure enough, found my initials (JFB) etched in faded black marker on the bottom. It even had the dent on the side from that time I ran over Matt's head back when we were both four.