The Five Best Places in Denver to Lose Your Mind

. . . and how to come away feeling only slightly lobotomized instead.

Every parent knows these places. The ones your kids love, the ones they've been to during friends' birthday partys, the ones they BEG you to take them to. They'll plead, and look at you with those puppy-dog eyes, and even thoughyou know better, you'll give in. Maybe you'll even take a gaggle of their friends for their own birthday. And when you do, you'll find yourself swearing on everything you hold dear that you'll never do it again, even though you know you will. And when you achieve that alpha state that you can only find at a rave, a yoga retreat, or an enclosed area packed with tiny bodies and strobe lights, you'll wonder why there aren't more places geared toward the entire family -- I mean, if They Might Be Giants can move from "Your Racist Friend" to "Fibber Island," surely a restaurant can find a way to synthesize parent/child recreation. But instead of giving yourself over to that despair while someone elses' preschooler bounces thawed pizza crust off of your head, consider the following techniques for surviving with our sanity intact.


5.  Chuck E. Cheese:

Do you remember when you were a kid and could not wait to head to the animatonic-populated pizza/video game parlor?  Little did you know the hell you were putting your parents through.  These days Chuck E Cheese has nibbled away at the competition, leaving them with the monopoly on big mascots that scare the living bejeeezus out of your kids and give nightmares to your toddlers.  I feel your pain, which is how I know that these three things will pull you through.  First, remember your coupons; they have these things in your mailbox every other day, except when you need them.  So plan ahead and keep every one of these coupons from now until the end of time. No point in paying for a paying good money on losing those brain cells.  Second,  let them loose. Jjust take a deep breath and have faith that they won't fall off those 18-foot tubes.  They can't actually escape from the confines of the enclosure, and can randomly oscillate to their hearts' content for hours.  And, finally, remember that they serve beer and wine there too.

4.  Boondocks, Fat City, and Nathan's:

Here's a fun game for parents -- find your wandering child!  Nothing is greater fun than letting them loose in a 5000 square foot stressville, where kids, adults , drunkards, and the local paintball team all converge on your hapless child, who just accidentally wandered out of the laser tag game you were playing together and is now hiding in the staff basement bathroom.  Maybe you can use loudspeakers?  They don't work over the blare of country tunes and kiddie songs blaring right overhead where you were trying to get set up for the birthday table.  Anyway, it's even more fun when these places throw Event Days, like the Easter celebrations where they bring in Petting Zoos and the population rivals downtown Tokyo.

Next time,  remember there are other bastions of play, where your kids can run and squeal, play tag and be goofy with each other, even get into waterfights and extreme sporting events.  It's called your local park - and most kids won't even feel the difference.

 
3:The 16th Street Mall:

Soon your kid will turn into a Pre-teen, and those places where you used to take them just won't cut it.  The pre-teen wants freedom!  The pre-teen wants independence! Soon they will stop clamoring for the joys of animatronic rodents (and thank whatever diety you believe in for that, because those things are about twenty different kinds of wrong), and start clamoring for the glow of  Van Halen guitars and big burgers, followed by a buying spree at Billabong and Hot Topic.   If you're lucky, the not-so-little ones won't know about the video game hell at ESPN zone, or you'll have to dole out unimaginable funds in coins while pretending to be interested in the college bowling game (or whatever) blaring on their televisions. About a couple  hundred dollars later your kids and their couple of friends will have tired themselves out and realized that walking around the mall is not nearly as much fun as they thought it was.  Next time, when they beg and plead to just act like a teenager and hang out with you in tow, show them what fun is to be a teen con parent, and take them shoe shopping at the local Payless.

2: Any Place Where the Cover is $20 (or more) a Head, like Eliches, Lakeside, et al:

What better way to tell your kids you love them than spending $300 on a big birthday bash!  Sure, they're only four, but it'll be an experience for them to remember for the rest of their lives -- as long as you remember to take lots of pictures.  Every once in a while it is fun to splurge, though, as long as you remember to have fun yourself. Practice these words: "Honey, can you look after this lot for a minute? I'm going on the Carousel. By myself."

1: You saw it coming -- Casa Bonita.

You know what it says over the gates of Hell in The Inferno? Yeah, enough said. Just take my word for it and don't go when you're eight weeks pregnant. I tell you what, birthing a ten-plus pound baby was more enjoyable than that. But you'll go, you know you will. And my only advise to you is, just give in to that alpha state. And ponder the mysteries of the universe, like why Dante didn't warn that there would be a Mariachi band in the ceasless winds of the Second Level.

Plus, they serve alcohol too.
 

Topics: kids , Denver , Culture , kids' activities , Games , Food