Halcyon Nights: W. C. Handy Blues Festival

Davina and the Vagabonds bringing down the house. photo credit, WC Handy Blues Festival @HandyBluesCrew

Yesterday evening, when Jim and Ranger got home, I woke up our napping girls and pushed everyone out the door.

The rainy, cloudy day was clearing, turning into a perfect night for sitting in a park on a blanket watching the sun set and the moon rise.

After a short drive to Henderson, Kentucky, we arrived at the W. C. Handy Blues & Barbecue Festival at the city's waterfront Audubon Mill Park.

Even in the parking lot, my reluctant crew started dancing to the irresistible magic of Davina and The Vagabonds. The potent energy of live (wailing) music and early summer evenings caught us all immediately and held us long past normal bedtimes.

I'm not able to write anything about Davina and the Vagabonds that successfully captures the energy and brilliance of their performance and music. Please listen to her newest album, especially Flow, which I hope my kids will love as much as I do.

John Nemeth & the Bo-Keys, photo: W.C. Handy Blues Festival

We're really lucky to live near one of the best blues gatherings in the nation. The only thing more astounding than the line-up and the gorgeous setting is the festival's deep community commitment. The Handy festival is totally free and open to all.

Davina and the Vagabonds yielded the stage to John Nemeth and the Bo-Keys with Percy Wiggins who carried the evening's allure into enchantment with new roots music like "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It."

Barges on the river slowed their pace to listen longer and periodically raised their horns to greet the crowds. Fireflies and children danced as sunset turned to twilight to moon glow.

Cool breezes from the river carried the music to the splash park fountains.

It was a gorgeous night. A night to remember, and a night to repeat.

What opportunities will you seize this summer?

 *** Baby Toolkit is the sporadic story of a couple geeky Midwesterners and their kids. Though we benefit every year from the miracle that is the WC Handy Blues & Barbecue Festival, we have no fiscal relationship with them that they don't offer freely to everyone else. We're Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase through our Amazon links, a small portion goes to us and pays our domain fees every year (thanks!).

House of Shade and Water: Screen House as a Pool Shelter

Summer is here, and it is a scorcher.  Ranger and Scout (the toddler formerly known as the Raptor) want to be romping outside, while I am driven to stay in the shade.

Our backyard gets full sun most of the afternoon, so I've been reluctant to put out the wading pool and endure the relentless sunshine while the kids slowly boil in the pool.

In a recent bout of cleaning, I rediscovered a SwissGear Screen House we bought two years ago for $20 (as opposed to its MSRP of $130) and promptly gave a few cubic feet of our garage.

My clever friend mentioned putting a canopy tent over her kids' pool, so I decided our screen house might provide an oasis of shade.

The tent itself was a snap to set up with two adults (though it had been a laughable fail with our earlier toddler, preschooler, and one adult construction team).

The screen house not only offers shade and limits bug exposure, it also keeps the beach balls from getting away.

Though I think we may now need a bigger pool.

What summer solutions are lurking in your garage?

***Baby Toolkit is the unsolicited opinion of a couple pasty (rumored to be cave-dwelling) geek parents with boisterous, outdoorsy kids.  We have no fiscal relationship with SwissGear, but we are Amazon affiliates, so if you make purchases through our Amazon links a small portion of the proceeds power our family's secret Large Hadron Collider.  Okay, they just help pay our monthly Internet bill, but maybe someday...

Ease that Itch: Zanfel Poison Ivy Creme

We're unlucky when it comes to poison ivy, oak, and sumac.

During a river clean-up, I leaned against a thick poison vine and ended up with a looping vine-shaped rash from my right shoulder to my forearm. It was such a 3-dimensional dark red rash that friends though I'd had my arm branded. The marks lasted for months, and I was relieved not to have lasting scars.

Jim reacts even worse than me. A small exposure can rapidly turn to sprawling discomfort. This is a problem in our area where even urban and suburban yards can easily become infested with poisonous weeds. One patch of English ivy in our yard is notorious for harboring poison ivy.

Then Jim found the website for Zanfel. Their claims sounded extreme to the point of improbability; especially after disappointing experiences with water-free after-exposure washes like Technu.

But pricey Zanfel ($38 for a one ounce tube) works as advertised. For well over a year neither Jim nor I has suffered a major poison weed outbreak even though corners of our yard are full of the stuff. Jim (who maintains our yard) has only had a few mild spots after exposure thanks to Zanfel.

We keep a spare tube on hand (though one ounce lasts a surprisingly long time) for the inevitable day when Ranger decides to explore the ivy patch. Zanfel is a smart addition to any first aid kit in poison ivy prone areas and also a good item to include in your camping gear.

Now if only we had a good solution for lurking mosquitoes!

Backyard Reconstruction: Go Outside

Yesterday, Uncle Punk helped Jim reinstall the slide on our remaining playset turret. About half of our magnificent swingset (including the part with the swings) was destroyed by falling trees in a 2005 tornado long before Ranger was big enough to play on it. The well-built remainder is a single tower, stairs, and a sandbox which we're hoping to convert to a platform because neighborhood cats and snakes.

Ranger already loved sitting in the tower, but him playing there alone left me with a lonely feeling. After the slide was installed he got to play on it last night in the limited glow of our small worklight, but today was the true inaugural run. And it was lovely. He took Cheerios and water up in the tower and laid down on the platform when he was too tired to play any more.

I got to lay in the greening grass and enjoy Ranger's play and the Spring sunlight. It was a revelation to savor the yard when before it triggered memories of loss and anguish. Toddler enthusiasm and Springtime both offer renewal and hope.

Thanks Uncle Punk and Jim for fixing the slide- and thanks to all our family, friends, and neighbors who helped us clear that nightmare tangle of smashed trees.

To quote my mother (circa 1980) "Go outside and play."

Monkey On My Back: Kelty Backpack Carriers

During one of the warmest, most expansive months of my pregnancy with Ranger, I found myself in Oakbrook, IL- home of a great REI store. When I walked into the store I only needed a watch with lap timers for swimming, but I desperately wanted to buy something exuding family fitness. Just a couple days before I had been diagnosed with insulin-dependent gestational diabetes, and I wanted to prove that I was actually more concerned about my health than the little bottle of insulin in my hotel room seemed to suggest. In retrospect, my motives were completely silly but, in all honesty, buying this specific piece of gear did make me feel better.

REI is a great place to test a backpack carrier. They have a stuffed bear in the child carriers area that is weighted to match a small infant. Definitely test babypacks with the bear in them. It's a very different feel from an empty pack. Sure, the bear is sometimes off-balance, but this is realistic as your child will at times work to be off-balance as well.

We bought a Kelty Pathfinder (for aroung $200), and it's a great carrier for older infants and toddlers. I'd definitely categorize this type of high-end pack as luxury gear rather than necessary gear. Maybe it's the hellish heat and West Nile mosquitoes of Southern Indiana talking, but we tend to use this more when traveling than at home. That doesn't prevent the carrier from getting a lot of use. Quite a few of our friends (pictured here- nope, that's not us!) have been stomping around in the woods with them on hikes or letterboxing adventures.

[I say them because I got incredibly lucky and scored a well-maintained Kelty Tour (a lighter and cooler variation on the Pathfinder with mesh panels against your back and no chest strap) for $35 at a great consignment sale.]

For a lot of families, this would be a good item to borrow from friends/lend to friends unless you'll be using it every weekend. This summer our packs have kept up with the schedules of two pretty active families in addition to our own, less motivated, schedule.

This type of frame backpack carrier requires an infant with ample experience sitting up unsupported and holding up their head despite jangling. We put Ranger in shortly after he could sit and hold his head up and the spring of our steps bounced his head in ways that looked uncomfortable and made him cry. When we tried again a few weeks later, he loved the bounce and the perspective.

In ideal weather, the Pathfinder is my favorite pack. Its chest strap makes for a fabulous fit for the long haul. But the weather isn't often ideal here, and that's where the Tour model comes in handy. The ventilated back panel is a great feature on hot, humid days.

The real "I love this gear" epiphany moment for Jim was at the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival (think German Octoberfest). The festival, at one time was hailed as the second largest free, outdoor, food festival (after Mardi Gras). While this festival occupies a geographically large area, it's crazily congested with people from lunchtime on. At night, it can be impossible to traverse with a stroller. The few people who bring strollers usually end up carrying their kids while their companions push the strollers because the kids either freak out at being completely walled in or the kids get banged into so often you wish your stroller was armored.

A lot of parents use front carriers at the festival. This works really well for small, sleepy infants, but can be backbreaking when they're over 15 pounds and still keeps the baby's view pretty limited to body parts (yours if facing in and everyone else's if facing out). These views, coupled with noise, lines, and the distinctive smells of sauerkraut or funnel cakes, don't make for happy little travelers.

So there we were, strolling along with Ranger perched comfortably high on Jim's back. No one's hands were occupied with baby nor gear (there's a diaperbag backpack on the Pathfinder for supplies). We were streamlined, so we could move casually through crowded places. We could get out our wallets to pay. We could carry food.

But, it wasn't the sheer convenience of the pack that sold Jim fully, it was the envious looks of all the other dads carrying kids (with or without frontpacks) as their stroller prevented them from moving more than one or two feet in any direction without having to ask someone to let them through. In parent world, this type of pack is definitely trophy gear. It was fun watching parents point out the backpack to each other. And I think Ranger loved the attention too. He was effervescent as we walked around the festival well past his bedtime (though that may have been the lemon shake-ups).

The Kelty's have a surprisingly long period of use with youngsters and they are made to last. The packs can hold a child up to 40 pounds (which is a still few pounds lighter than Jim's college packpack).

*Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of Jim and Adrienne Jones at babytoolkit.blogspot.com. We have received no materials or compensation of any kind from Kelty KIDS or their affiliates. We just love to write about baby gear.