A few weekends ago, I was having a bad morning. Edie hadn’t slept well and Lou was whining for canned whipped cream for breakfast. I was trying to cook unwanted scrambled eggs while Edie simultaneously demanded to be held while wiggling to get down. The house was a mess, the cats kept jumping on the counter, Lou was standing on the tops of my feet to get my attention, and I could feel myself coming undone. Intuiting my subtle behavior (I was a borderline monster), Rob neutralized the situation with an episode of Paw Patrol and suggested I take two hours to go do something for myself.

It turns out his acknowledgement was enough. Suddenly, having the choice to leave or stay opened me up to readjust my mood, and that slight adjustment was enough to buoy me back to homeostasis. I felt grateful to have a partner who recognized the need to take a beat, and that made me want to hang back and finish making eggs for him while our children picked Cheerios from between the sofa cushions. In the end, I stayed and enjoyed a slow morning with my family. But it got me thinking about all the amazing things we parents can do for ourselves in two hours. It’s the perfect amount of time to get out of the house and do something alone without carrying the guilt of leaving your spouse a man down.

Here are a few places where you can spend an hour of your time (with travel time and a stop for coffee built in) and restore your peace or body or sanity or whatever else those barnacles have taken from you.

Intuitive Wellness: I seriously almost didn’t include this one because its such a special, perfect place and I’m selfish and didn’t want to share. But who am I to deny the achy, stressed people of Baltimore their 60 minutes of holistic, healing, heavenly massage? Book an appointment at this Roland Park sanctuary and win the battle Legos have waged on your feet.

Movement Lab: Have you ever taken a sound bath? Or hung upside down like a beautiful bat? Or jumped so hard on a trampoline that not peeing yourself a little feels like a miracle of physiology? Movement Lab offers really diverse classes in an incredibly inclusive, accessible environment. I walked into my first anti-gravity (!) class thinking I’d be carried out by paramedics, and by the end I was trying to catch glimpses of myself in the mirror because I needed to see how cool I looked hanging upside down. (I actually looked pretty terrible but I was still wildly impressed.)

The Ivy Bookshop: Get a coffee, take yourself to The Ivy, and strike up a conversation with their staff. Let someone who knows and loves books guide you around until you find the perfect one. Remember that the internet is convenient but the algorithms telling you what to buy haven’t actually read the book. Use the remainder of the hour to read in your car with the heat on.

Lake Montebello: Do a lap or two. Parking is easy, the path is flat, and the lake is pretty. Get out and move your body while listening to a podcast (might I suggest Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend?). I’m also really interested in getting into roller blading, so maybe you could buy a pair and do that, and I can decide if you look cool enough for me to invest in the sport as well.

B.Willow: This is one of Lou’s favorite places so I feel a little bad going without him, but whatever. It’s a very calming space (they just opened a new Canton location, which I’m assuming is equally tranquil) and it’s so nice to wander around, choose a plant, dig in soil, and bring something beautiful into your home.

A bar: I have the great fortune of living within walking distance of several lovely food and beverage establishments, and have no shame in taking myself to a bar stool and enjoying a drink like a damn adult. Order something pretentious like a craft beer in a special glass or a cocktail featuring a mostly irrelevant garnishes. Pull out the book you picked up from The Ivy during your last jaunt, and pretend to read while spying on all the 23-year-olds complaining about how tired they are. Refrain from commenting because getting into bar fights is not what this restorative two hours is all about.

Our kids are now 3 and 1, which means one of them has a slight idea about what’s happening on Christmas morning and the other will just be excited to watch her brother rip at wrapping paper and wonder why we’re all so busy so early. The holidays are only starting to be a big deal at our house (especially after years of not having kids or any sense of Christmas spirit), so I’m trying to get a head start on preparation.

I’m also committing to only buying gifts locally this year (and no, Amazon’s Dundalk fulfillment center doesn’t count), so each of the suggestions below are here in Baltimore. So go! Shop! Be festive! And do your best to spend your money right here in town.

Amuse Toys

My love affair with this store began immediately after our son was born and has only grown over the years. The toys are beautiful and require imagination, and the shopping experience is fun and well-informed. And, because kids love nothing more than playing with toys they’re 100-percent sure you didn’t spend money on, the Amuse Toys Quarry Lake location offers open play a few mornings a week. Grab a coffee, let them go nuts, and take a slight break from the holiday madness.

The Book Thing of Baltimore

My kids develop deep, emotional obsessions with books and just when they’ve broken my spirit and I’ve consigned myself to a life of reading nothing but Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day, they lose total interest and find something else. Capitalize on this irrational behavior by clearing out your shelves while simultaneously choosing new-to-them, free books to give to your family.

Baltimore Chef Shop

Edie and Lou are still in the stage of life where food is optional at best and, when properly mashed, table art at worst. But if you’ve survived the early childhood years (good for you!) then perhaps an afternoon spent at the Baltimore Chef Shop would make a lovely gift for your kid who loves The Great British Baking Show. (And if your kid loves that show, again, good for you!) BCS is a beautiful kitchen in Hampden offering classes for 8-17 year olds and their parents on making donuts, dim sum, pasta, cookies, and other important food groups. There are also summer camps available if you’re the kind of long-term planning gift giver tweens love so much.

SIDESHOW at AVAM

Is there a more incredible gift shop in the world? Every inch of the shop is filled with fascinating, beautiful, useless, important, and affordable stuff. On a recent trip, I found cool rings and laser-cut wood earrings for $2; beautiful art coffee table books for under $20; a tiny drawer filled with plastic babies for 50 cents a pop; and a t-shirt offering an apology for the president in 14 languages. I highly suggest taking an hour (sans kids, if you can swing it) to wander through. You’ll check off most people on your list and walk out with the ultimate stocking stuffers.

Worthy Threads

Over the last few years, locally owned Worthy Threads has been popping up in Baltimore’s social media and retail worlds. Our friends gave us a sushi-printed pinafore dress (Sushi! On a dress! For an infant!) for Edie when she was born and it was so wonderful that I eventually cut the elastic in the waistband to eke out a few more weeks of wear. These clothes aren’t cheap, but they’re the kind that you treasure and begrudgingly-but-lovingly hand down to your favorite friend’s little one.

Shananigan’s Toy Shop

Similarly to the SIDESHOW gift shop, this is a store that will put your head on a swivel. It’s filled floor to ceiling with toys and games for all ages just as you start to get overwhelmed by decision fatigue, their knowledgeable staff swoops in and leads you right where you need to be.

Hi! Hello! Come in, friend with whom I spent 57 percent of my 20s, but now just text Mary Kate and Ashley GIFs back and forth with while we wait for our schedules to align. It’s so good to see you and really nice of you to agree to come to our filthy home for a drink instead of a restaurant or bar so that I didn’t have to hire and pay for a sitter. I left work early and spent 45 minutes cleaning in preparation of your arrival but I will lie to your face and tell you I just got home because it’s still incredibly messy. Here, let me put your belongings on this coat rack so that our cats don’t make a nest out of your jacket.

Please sit! But not there—that’s where Lou peed yesterday and it’s been satisfactorily cleaned for the purposes of our immediate family’s safety, but not yours. Guests can sit over here on this uncomfortable Ikea bistro chair which is high off the ground and made of fake wood and easily wiped down. Would you like a cocktail? Have some cheddar bunnies and watch me impressively make a Negroni for you while my beautiful children quietly play underfoot. Send word to the outside that I Have It All Together.

Actually wait. Our refrigerator has been broken for six weeks and Best Buy hasn’t been able to fit our new one up the stairs despite my husband sawing a portion of the stairwell away and these cocktails need ice. Please sit with my darling babies while I run downstairs for frozen water. Home ownership!

Here’s the ice. And there’s Lou’s butt. He doesn’t like to wear underwear at home, just please finish making these drinks while I convince my 2-year-old to put clothes on. Also, and I hate to bother you while you’re already doing me a favor, but did you happen to see Edie while I was briefly out of the room? Eleven months, walks furiously, looks like a Cabbage Patch Doll? Oh she’s climbing the stairs? Okay well please return to your safe area and sip your drink while I figure out how she escaped the gate again.

So anyway, how are you? How is your relationship/career/family? Please tell me because I miss you and really care but okay hold on because I just realized it’s 6 p.m. and my kids haven’t had dinner yet. I’ll turn on The Magic School Bus and, while I’m waiting for the water to boil for the mac and cheese, you can catch me up on your life. I am nodding and laughing and agreeing that I, too, can’t believe your sister/husband/coworker did that and Lou! You peed in the potty! Here is your jelly bean reward, please go grab the potty so we can clean it out before your sister gets to it except she’s already dumped it onto her legs and is playing in a puddle of urine.

You’re probably right—cleaning fresh pee off a baby in our kitchen sink isn’t super hygienic but I’ve fallen asleep with Lou breathing post-vomit breath into my face so I think we’re past formalities. May I offer you a glass of wine and the rest of this luke warm mac and cheese? I was going to eat it while standing over the pee sink later, but you’re the guest so you can have first dibs. Oh you’re going to dinner after this? Like on a date? Please tell me more about your decision to not have kids and what that lifestyle looks like because I know that three years ago we didn’t have kids but I can’t be more specific than that because I don’t remember. Your reservation is for EIGHT THIRTY on a WEEKNIGHT? That is wild, man.

Thank you so much for coming over and trying to take Lou seriously while he stood really close to you in only a hat, shirt, and shoes and told you about an air conditioner he saw from the car last week. He’s right, it was gray and could have been off or on. I’m pretty sure that in two years, when my kids are 3 and 5, I will be 15-20 percent more present in conversations that occur when they are around so please just keep being supportive and cool and willing to dive into the crazy with me—it means a lot. And here’s your jacket, I don’t know how the cat’s got it, but I took the liberty of putting a lint roller in your bag.

I am a worrier. A serious, anxious, sky-is-falling, doomsday scenario level worrier. Worrying is probably an important, biological emotion for parents to help save small children from themselves, but being a worrier in 2018 is pretty brutal. If you have an internet connection and access to social media or a news site (and I know you do, because this column only runs online), you run the risk of reading horrible, seemingly impossible stories about ways kids can get hurt.

Because of the World Wide Web, I know things that can’t be unlearned, like that toddlers can crawl into front-loading washing machines, close the door, and get stuck inside. Or that babies can fall head first into the toilet and not be able to pull themselves out. Or that button batteries are shiny harbingers of death, and the only way to combat them if swallowed is to feed spoonfuls of honey to your child while you race them to the hospital—but in your haste don’t forget that babies under 12 months can’t have honey because of botulism, so just don’t ever, ever let your eyes wander away from your kid.

It’s exhausting.

The mild irony to all of this is that I was not nearly as worried with my first kid. Lou is a pretty low-key guy, and as a young toddler he didn’t get into much trouble. We had a two-month spat of Lou falling directly onto the same spot on his forehead multiple times (resulting in a little divot he still has to this day), but otherwise we slapped a few plastic locks on particularly dangerous cabinets in the house and moved on.

Our daughter, however, is a nut. She’s fully walking at ten months, into everything, and has more energy than her three other family members combined. She’s illuminated household dangers we never considered during Lou’s babyhood. Our gas fireplace is filled with small rocks about the size of a toddler’s windpipe and we didn’t notice this until last week when she started pulling them out. I threw a blanket over them, making a mental note to remove it in December, but Edie outsmarted my complex solution by dragging the blanket out and returning to her rock gathering.

We also weren’t aware that the heavy, bulky stool in our kitchen might be a danger until she used it to pull herself to standing (at six months) and cracked her cheekbone as she and the stool fell in tandem. It’s very subtle, but you might notice the shiner in the picture below. As her doctor was leaving the exam we heard him say to the nurses, “Did you see the black eye on that kid?”

This child has forced my abstract fears into actionable items. We’ve done the obvious things like remove as many tiny toys as we can find and install a fenced-in area for the times we have to do things like cook meals or pour a fortifying glass of wine, but there’s more work to be done. Here’s a small list of items that will help protect your kid and ease your weary hearts, at least until the next story breaks about how baby-proofing will turn your child into a serial killer or guarantee low ACT scores.

Corner protectors
Protect your furniture and your kid’s eyeballs. We’ve stuck these on every right angle in the house and they’ve already downgraded multiple injuries from “Hospital Trip” to “Here’s A Popsicle You’re Fine”.

Toilet Paper Roll
Not only is this an easily obtained toy for babies, it’s also a free metric of toy safety. If your kid is playing with something that can fit inside of a roll, take it away because it means they can choke on it.

Portable Play Yard
As previously mentioned, sometimes you need a moment to yourself. The Summer Infant play yard is super light weight and can be pulled out or closed and shoved back into the corner in seconds.

Masking tape
This one isn’t super safety-related, but it’s another weird household item trick so I’m including it. Take a piece and roll it sticky side out, then stick it to your kid’s foot. If you’re lucky, they’ll find themselves in a fully-immersive ten minute crash course on how adhesives and chubby fingers interact, and you can tidy up or solve world hunger or do whatever it was you did before you had kids.

Play Mat
Ikea has a reasonably-priced version (and this fancy mat promises to not poison your child with unpronounceable chemical horrors if you care about that kind of thing). Play mats are squishy but firm and perfect for babies who are learning to crawl and walk. If your home has wood or tile floors, you might also consider interlocking foam tiles.

Door jams
Save tiny fingers from tiny splints.

OutSmart Locks
What I appreciate about these is the decoy button specifically designed to make your kid think they have a shot in hell at breaking into the cabinet and going to town on your Tide Pod stash. Take that, babies.