The D-Note was D-lightful with kids!

Photo courtesy of http://www.uglidog.com

My husband and I took the twins (~14 months at the time) to the D-Note in Arvada recently.  We heard it was great if you had little ones who just wanted to roam around while the parents enjoyed a beer and perhaps some food on a Sunday.  That’s all we really knew about the place.  Going in mostly blind to another activity yet again. It’s always good to have man-to-man coverage in “blind” situations like this (2 adults vs. 2 babies).  You never know where one baby will escape to, while the other is pulling someone else’s food off the table and eating it off the floor.  These things always happen at the exact same time.  One of Newton’s lost laws. Or maybe it’s Murphy’s?

Upon arrival we discover it is a bar; a typical bar with the serving bar near the back and a small stage off to the side.  Music is playing over the speakers.  Madonna maybe? 80s for sure. I immediately notice all the wires and speakers for all the sound equipment. Hazard warnings go off in my head.

Babies in arms, we truck off to claim a table with our gear.  It’s about 3:00 on Sunday afternoon, not many people in the decent sized room.  There are a couple other kids playing on the stage without parents.  There are numerous plastic toy instruments and noisemakers scattered about the stage.  Some work and some seem to be lacking functioning batteries. We’ve claimed one of the many empty tables and head to the stage to see what the babies will do once set loose.  Baby B has been walking for a couple months, though still wobbly.  Baby A has yet to really take those critical steps; thus a crawler. I notice the floors of the stage, floors of the bar: pretty yucky.  Not any worse than a normal restaurant, but I don’t usually let my babies crawl on those floors.  Pretty yucky. But all those articles about how great exposure to dirt and germs is for my kids, has to be my mantra these days. If it doesn’t kill ‘em (let’s just say ‘make them sick’), it’ll make them more awesome. I repeat this to myself and let them go play.

The babies had a great time.  We weren’t the cool parents, relaxing, enjoying a beer while their kids ran around screaming.  We stayed close-bye so neither toppled over the edge of the stage, or stuffed the plug of the speaker (or that weird reddish squishy thing in the crack) in their mouths.  After some playtime we got the babies set up in high chairs and ate the pizza we ordered.  Which was excellent pizza. Babies even enjoyed it. We did our typical thing of eat really fast, gulp our beer, catch the flying berries and cheese that the babies still find fully entertaining, and just try to survive another outing.

We did it.  And we’ll go back. The staff was very nice and very understanding. More and more families arrived, as it got closer to dinner. More kids having a great time, while the parents ate and drank at leisure.  “Some day that’ll be us,” I tell my husband as we gobble up the last of our butterfly pepperoni pizza we ordered for the babies, clean what we can off the floor, scoop up our family, and head home.

To Note:
www.dnote.us has a calendar of live music, events, menus, yoga classes, and baby boogie (which is almost always at 2:00 on Sundays – sometimes with live music) – 7519 Grandview Ave – Arvada, Co – 303.GO.DNOTE (303-463-6683)

Adrienne Yoshihara is a mystified SAHM, teacher on a break, wife and loves her dog to the moon and back. She is always looking for activities to do with (and without) her fantastic toddlers. 

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