Hurricane Ike and the Attack of the Bored Kiddos

Short people all over our great city are coping with post-hurricane boredom, as Houston area schools remain closed and millions of homes are still without power (read: Wii and World of Warcraft juice). So what's an un-air conditioned parent to do with a houseful of booored kids?

Glad you asked, here are some Houston spots that are open for just this kind of thing:

Children's Museum of Houston (1500 Binz)
The Children's Museum has opened to their regular hours, has a cafe full of food to serve and is even celebrating Talk Like a Pirate Day tomorrow (Friday, September 19th). If you DO have power and want to save gas, your kids can upload photos of wacky facial expressions online for an upcoming exhibit.

Discovery Green Park (1500 McKinney)
Sure all of this week's events are canceled, but if you're looking for a green place to let the kids run off their cooped up energy that lets you surf online via your laptop, this is the place to be. Discovery Green's restaurants are open for business too, so between AC, Internet and good food you've got it made here.

Houston Libraries
Check out the Houston Public Library site (www.houstonlibrary.org) to get the details on what branches are open -- and what Mobile Express Labs will be in your area here -- to let your kids escape in a good book and give you a chance to catch up on your emails in their computer labs.

Let your kids catch a flick (and maybe you can catch some air conditioned zzzz's?)
Keep an eye on the Chron's open movie theater listing page and drown your post-hurricane sorrows (and popcorn) in hot butter and salt.

Glazed Over Ceramic Studios (14627 Memorial Dr.)
If you're over on the West side, grab the kids for an afternoon session of painting crap while you enjoy some AC and cold drinks. Also, there's a Spec's literally 2 doors down - so there's that. Ahem.

For a really extensive list of kid-friendly outing ideas check out the Chron's MomHouston Blog here. Pouty kids photo thanks to Flickr user radioflyer007