I took her out. It was a Friday night.

Amy has been inundated with requests for babysitters as our business grows, and she's only to happy too oblige. As long as a sitter is available, that is! Weekends have become our busiest times yet, with Friday evenings and Saturday mornings leading the pack of our most-requested days and times. Nothing turns our smiles upside down more than turning down a parent in need, especially when the little Explorers we sit for are so darn cute to boot. To that end, beginning in April we are instituting regular weekend drop-off babysitting at our playspace in Prospect Height sat 186 Underhill Ave. On two Friday nights, April 16th or April 30th, make reservations for your little one(s) for one of our Movie Date Nights. Go out for dinner and a movie while you tot stays in with us for the same! The $40 fee per child includes a pizza and juice dinner, supervised play in our playspace, and a G-rated, family-friendly movie viewing, all in the comfort of our Prospect Heights space, and under the watchful supervision of our Bag of Tricks Babysitters from 6pm-10pm. Bring your peanut in pajamas and pack a sleeping bag for an especially drowsy tot! Then stop by on your way home from your date to pick your child up from his! Saturday morning options include April 10th and 24th, and run from 8am-1pm. The $40 per child fee for Saturday mornings includes a bagel breakfast, Saturday morning cartoons, and admission to our playspace, again under the close supervision of our wonderful sitters! Siblings are always %25 off of all of our programs. Unfamiliar with our sitters? For a chance to meet them prior to scheduling your weekend drop-off sitting, attend our Meet the Sitters event this Thursday, April 1st at 7pm. Stop by 186 Underhill for a chance to get to know some of the ladies and gents who care for Brooklyn's cutest, and to book a sitter of your own. Contact Amy Yurcan at (718)809-6486 or ayurcan@nycityexplorers.com for details!

They are the dancing queens, young and sweet, only...

... 2 or 3! You haven't seen cute until you've seen our Tuesday afternoon Explorer's Club tots don tutus and pirouette into the bright and spacious studio of Brooklyn Ballet. Last Tuesday's class, which began with each child being gifted a container of bubbles, reviewed the basic dance positions and taught the little ones to arabesque in a way that would put Martha Graham to shame! The tiny tots skipped, twirled and leaped their way through the dance moves as they pretended to pop bubbles in the air, grow bubbles bigger with their arms and gallop like a Pegasus. Little Reza, who is such an involved participant in Explorer's Club that no one would recognize him as the baby who cried his way through his first month with the crew, gets a little shaky when confronted with the noise of the trains running underneath the studio. While he did twinkle his little toes to the music here and there, he spent the majority of class listening to the engines running underneath him and keeping an eye on the action from the sidelines, leaving little Lev to be the lone danseur for the bulk of the session. Judging by the tutu around his waist and the smile on his cute little face, Lev didn't seem to mind one bit!
It's never a surprise for Brooklyn kids to be natural performers, and considering how many of our Explorers' parents are artists themselves, it's no wonder these little babies are especially talented! Looking for your culture fix this weekend? Keep it in the NY City Explorers family and show your support for Lili's and Simone's dad, Alexander Gorlizki, as he celebrates the opening of his new show, "The First Time I Heard You Blink" at the Greenberg Van Doren Gallery. For details, see: http://www.artnet.com/Galleries/Exhibitions.asp?gid=79&cid=189353.

And the award goes to...

...Keyanna Murrill, for excellence in business ownership! Well, not exactly. While Keyanna does an amazing job as co-owner of New York City Explorers, along with her old college roommate, Kisha Gandsy, the real prize came late last week when she was the recipient of the Congressman Elijah E. Cummings Congressional Achievement Award!
Keyanna, who participated in the Elijah Cummings Youth Program as a high school student, was presented with the award by the Congressman himself for being a "Legend Among Us" amongst her peers in the program. As a member of the program, which is designed to cultivate leadership, Keyanna participated in workshops in leadership development, donated countless hours to various community service projects in her Baltimore community and participated in a trip to Israel. In Israel, Keyanna's leadership training continued with lessons in group dynamics, appreciation of cultural diversity, and team-building, even as she and the other future leaders enjoyed tours of such sights as the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.
As a successful business owner in New York City, Keyanna epitomizes the program's values. Congrats to the lovely and talented Keyanna on her accomplishments and on receiving this honor!
Our Explorers may not be as accomplished as Keyanna yet, but we have no doubt that they will be soon! What they already are is bright, cute and artistic, and at the end of any given day of the week we still adore each and every one as much as when they arrived in the morning. That level of adorable deserves just as much of an award as any of Keyanna's accomplishments do! To that end, on April 2nd we will honor our Explorer's Club tykes with a Jazzy Tea Party, complete with our very own awards ceremony. Grab your tot, pack him or her a fancy-pants outfit, and join in the fun. Festivities begin at 4:00 pm for all Explorer's Club members and families.

Here's the sunshine!

A generous dose of beautiful weather energized Brooklynites last week, making up for some of the time change-induced exhaustion that seemed to have taken a toll on Sunday and Monday. As kids piled out of the apartments they had been nestled into all winter long and streamed into the city's playgrounds, it was also time for all of our Explorers to head into some fresh air.
The 2: Cool for School Crew arrived on Wednesday morning in plenty of time to embark on the morning's trip. Even Tommy arrived bright and early, if only to gobble some of Blue Marble's delicious chocolate chip banana bread, which he had been promised by his father in exchange for heading out the door with a quickness. Amy, with the help of Yamileth and Anderson's chaperon, Lisa, lightly bundled the tots and led them out the door for a walk to the Brooklyn Museum. Since Amaya, Thelonius, Tommy, Anderson and Jackson arrived with their teachers before the doors were even unlocked, they had plenty of time to explore the exhibits before snack time, including Egyptian jewelry, African funeral rites costumes and a display of children's artwork in the education wing.
While the 2s were ensconced in the ancient world, Gayla, with the help of Bag if Tricks Babysiter Melissa Bayer as a chaperon, treated the cutie pies at Explorer's Club to a more modern morning at the Transit Museum. The museum, which was closed for renovations over the winter, has finally reopened in time for the warm weather that brings crowds of little ones with it. Their fellow New Yorkers from Upstate may enjoy monster truck rallies and hay rides, but the city slicker tots in Explorer's Club can't get enough of the underground transit system!
The boys and girls in each of our enrichment programs love going on neighborhood trips, but soon they won't have to go far from home base to get a taste of the outdoors: our backyard at 186 Underhill Ave will be spruced up for the season and open to all of our visiting Explorers any day now, so check our website at www.nycityexplorers.com for details, grab a Stevia-sweetened iced tea from Blue Marble and head out to the ( safely fenced-in) great outdoors. A tree does grow in Brooklyn after all!