Leesburg, VA

If co-sleeping, baby wearing, cloth diapering (CD), extended nursing, or gentle discipline (GD) are terms that ring a bell for you, and you are in Loudoun County, then the Leesburg attachment parenting meetup group might be a good fit for you.

This local group — the name says Leesburg, but there are members from all over the county — is still relatively new and definitely has room for more active members.

The Leesburg/ Ashburn Stay at Home Moms Meetup Group is fantastic. I have connected with wonderful mothers who I admire in all of the groups I have joined over the years, but never before did I see so many in the same group sharing with and supporting each other. There are moms of all ages and all parenting styles in this group and the group has a great energy…. active, friendly, and easy to jump into. Kudos to the dedicated (volunteer) organizer and the many active members and assistant organizers for all they have done and continue to do to keep this group’s momentum. I am so glad to have found you!

You’ll find this series on our community calendar. My fondest memories of our first summer in Leesburg were moments filled with music on these Saturday nights. The concerts are always family friendly, and children often gather to dance and frolic near the stage. The concerts are free so you can spend your money on gelato and/or iced coffee drinks at Market Street Coffee.

Eagletree Farm & Vineyard
15126 Harrison Hill Lane
Leesburg VA 20176 (map it)
(703) 777-5954

Loudoun Valleys Office of Rural Economic Development says:

Eagletree is a private setting with a personal touch.

These folks are right. Located off Rt. 15 north of Leesburg — you turn off 15 like you are going to Temple Hall Farm and then follow the U-PICK signs — the setting is so private that I at first felt like I was trespassing in someone’s back yard, but that is exactly what makes the picking experience so wonderful.

Eagle Tree’s pick your own blueberries are $4 per pound this year and worth every cent. They are tasty and the experience of picking is perfect. I have been twice and both times it was a serene experience. No chaos, no crowds, no shortage of blueberries… just a nice little family experience and some yummy blueberries to boot.

If you are looking to round out your blueberry picking experience with some literature for little people, check out Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal. It’s been a favorite since my childhood… so much so that I feel I am shortchanging my children if I don’t manage to hunt down their little metal buckets so that they can hear their blueberries go “Kerplunk!”

A local mom shared a site with me that could prove useful given all the upcoming summer movie screenings. kids-in-mind.com reviews movies and rates their appropriateness for children. I have looked over the reviews of a few movies we have seen recently and they seem to be accurate and thorough.

Summer Family Movie Screenings:

Regal (throughout the US including Ashburn, Alexandria, Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Manassas, Sterling and many other VA locations) See free movies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 10am. Show up early to get a seat! Click here for Maryland locations, including Frederick.

Tally Ho (Leesburg, VA) $1 Family Classics on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 11am

Please drop us a line if you are aware of other theaters that have similar programs.

ETA: You can also check your local library for summer movie showings. I know LCPL has some scheduled. 

21085 The Woods Road
Leesburg, VA 20175 (map it)
(703) 669-0316

Banshee Reeks is another one of Loudoun’s secret treasures. When I first heard about Banshee Reeks at an EcoStewards Alliance event a few years ago the name threw me a bit. Banshee Reeks? Sounds kind of wild and scary…. Truth be told, due to its nature preserve status and limited hours Banshee Reeks does feel a little wilder than the regional parks we explore more often, and that is a good thing.

Driving to the preserve this morning we passed a wild turkey and while walking we saw frogs or toads of various sizes. We also saw lots of poison ivy and finished the hike by removing ticks — more than I have ever collected from a single walk — from ourselves and my dog. We barely even had to look for them this time as dozens were in plain sight. Only one of the buggers got past my initial check and needed to be removed with tweezers. If that’s not a successful tick check then I don’t know what is.

I am a Master Naturalist Program dropout, and while I did not stay in long enough to learn all the local species and volunteer along side all my cool classmates, I did stay long enough to get a sense of how important the nature preserve status is. As a result of that orientation I feel compelled to treat visits to Banshee Reeks a little differently than our other romps in the wilderness. Banshee Reeks exists not for our entertainment and exercise, but for the land itself, for the plants and critters that dwell there, and for the folks who learn from it. As parents and caregivers it is our job to teach our kids a leave no trace attitude, to really commit to staying on the trail and following the leash laws, and also to think about things like how the noise we make while exploring may affect the wildlife and other visitors.

I think the preserve used to be open just one weekend a month, which kept me from going for a long time because it was too much work — talk about a lazy mom — to keep track of which weekends it was open. Now it appears to be open every weekend from 8am-4pm, but is not always staffed. This simpler schedule will definitely lead my family to visit more often.

407 E. Market Street
Leesburg, VA 20176 (map it)

If you’ve been in the Leesburg area for a while Douglass Park is not big news, but if you’re new to the area or new to the park stage of parenting then it may be new to you. I think Douglass Community center playground is the biggest playground in Leesburg. The play area looks a bit dated compared to some of the newer parks, but it has separate areas targeted at different ages all contained in a smaller (and thus easier to monitor) space than some of the slightly more impressive playgrounds in other parks of Loudoun (e.g. Lovettsville Community Center, Potomack Lakes Sportsplex in Sterling, Ashburn Park, and Trailside Park in Ashburn).

We like Douglass park because

• it is tucked away from busy streets.
• it is just off the W&OD trail.
• it is next to a creek (though some people dislike it for this same reason).
• it has cool pokie things (actually, seed pods from sweetgum trees) that 2-4 year olds love to throw — again, some people dislike it for the same reason.
• it is the site of some of my best ever parenting moments: talking the smoking teenagers into putting out their cigarettes or leaving and a crazy grab-the-toddler-and-roll-to-the-ground before she gets hit by a swing maneuver.
• it has picnic tables and porta-potties. (I apologize for using those two words in the same sentence.) I believe you can use the real toilets in the community center too.
• it is across the street from Pei Wei.
• it has some trees and therefore shade.

Points against the park:

• The fencing is not especially childproof. Gates open easily, so the fence can give a sense of false security.
• Woodchips/mulch gets eaten by babies and sneaks into our crocs. (That happens at most parks around here!)