Are your kids climbing the walls and jumping from couch to couch? When it's too cold for your favorite park there are plenty of places to blow off steam indoors in Northwestern New Jersey.  Many of these venues offer open play or classes geared from little ones to tweens and most offer birthday party packages as well. Each is $10 or less per child and most offer group rates. The mommy bonus of indoor open play? Bring a box of joe and some juice boxes and make your own party- without the clean up!

This time of year, I am always ready for the arrival of spring.  I know, I know...we haven’t REALLY had winter this year, but still!  February vacation is coming to an end, the groundhog has come and gone, the Superbowl has passed….time to bring on Spring!  And to kick off Spring in this family, we like to pack up our car take a day trip to New London’s Connecticut College for an early season lacrosse game.

Why Connecticut College, you ask?  Well – for several reasons.  Their New London campus is right on the water, and nothing makes me feel like Spring more than an ocean breeze blowing.   Plus, the convenient New London location makes it an ideal spot to meet up with Boston friends who might be heading south to catch the game.  

Until this past weekend, one of the casualties of parenthood in our family was skiing. Of course, if I had been a true skiing fanatic I would have moved "Teach Child To Ski" higher up the priority list. Indeed, if I were a serious skier, I may even have felt qualified to teach said child to ski myself. Instead, I have vaguely contemplated the family ski resort options near LA each winter, and then realized that I have not made it to one each spring. After six seasons without skiing, I decided it was time to take the child by the horns and get someone to teach him to ski.

Don’t miss your chance to see the Harlem Globetrotters 2012 World Tour right here in Hartford this Saturday! For over 80 years the Globetrotters have been entertaining hundreds of thousands of fans around the world. The line up for Hartford is Special K, Flight Time, Tiny, Too Tall, Firefly, Slick Willie, Jet, Spider, Hammer and Airport! Players are subject to change.

This year my kids have gotten into basketball so we are going to this show. I get to mark it off the list of things I want to do with the kids before they grow up! Join us - and even better - get a discount on your ticket by using the code listed below. That is if you don't win the 4 free tickets, of course!

As fans of movies from Studio Ghibli, particularly those directed by anime master Hayao Miyazaki — Ponyo, Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky so far — my daughter Violet and I were excited to see The Secret World of Arrietty (opening today in 9 NJ locations). Arrietty is written and supervised by Miyazaki, but directed by first timer Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The film's glorious color palette, attention to nature, and charming details are enchanting, particularly since Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler) is a Borrower, and very tiny. The pair of earrings used as climbing tools, sticky double-sided tape for scaling a cupboard, and rain drops that cling to Arrietty's clothes like snow globes, are quite captivating, as is Arrietty herself, with her scrappy personality, cute dresses and Julia Roberts' hair. The story, however, never brings the magic.

Is it just us, or is the lead up to the three-day weekend going really slowly? We can honestly say that we're looking forward to the holiday even more than our kids (who, let's face it, have more fun at school than we do at work... oh how I wish I could have recess).

Not that we didn't have any fun this week: We continued our focus on Jackson Heights with posts about great places to eat and play in the neighborhood. And in anticipation of next week's public school break, we rounded up the best things to do over midwinter recess.

Outside of NYC, our New Jersey site is giving away a family four-pack to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's brand-new circus spectacular Dragons, which is playing three tri-state area venues. Our Connecticut site rounded up the best indoor play spaces in Hartford County. And all of our sites have roundups of great activities to do over Presidents' Day weekend in case you do a day trip.

If you want to stay on top of everything that's going on in New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut, Boston or Los Angeles, you can subscribe to our free newsletters. Read on for everything we covered on Mommy Poppins NYC this week.

Long Island's museums provide lots of entertainment for the kids this weekend: At the Long Island Children's Museum, there's a puppet show and a great Black History Month program; the Children's Museum of the East End has its LEGO club; and the Nassau Museum of Art has its Family Sunday. There's also a fun program at the Sweetbriar Nature Center.

Valentine's Day has come and gone, but showing your kids how much you care is something you do every day. Just think of all the times you've missed watching Modern Family so you could read your children a bedtime story. Now that's love.

So for our February Little Lions post, we decided to focus on books about the unbreakable bond between parents and children. NYPL senior librarian Auria Morales, who recommends books in Staten Island's Todt Hill-Westerleigh Library’s Children’s Room, shares nine of her favorite love stories.