Grooving and Moving With Hip-High Hipsters

Parents Pleased With Play Date That Features Adult Beverages

She was tearing up the dance floor, spinning while the flashing green and hot-pink lights bounced off a disco ball and "You Should Be Dancing" boomed over the sound system. Then, curly haired dance diva Peyton Campbell broke it down, old-school, to "Brick House."

Then she took a nap.

That was the scene yesterday as 2-year-old Peyton and other tiny dancers burned off energy at one of the hottest shows touring the party circuit, Baby Loves Disco. Sold out weeks ago, it was a 300-person play date that mixed Bud Light and ba-bas, sequined halter tops and Huggies.

Once a month, the latest in I-don't-wanna-grow-up parenting hits the District at the edgy nightclub of the moment, the Rock and Roll Hotel. The H Street Northeast club, which had been booze-soaked and packed with 20-somethings just hours earlier, was triple-scrubbed, festooned with balloons and padded with colorful foam floor tiles yesterday afternoon to host clubbers who are twentysomething inches.

"No more Barney!" Ivie Higgins roared as he hoisted a glass and twisted to "Superfreak" with his 20-month-old daughter, Isabella.

"I know, I know. It's more for the parents," said Higgins, who came to H Street from Silver Spring and described himself as "coming on 40" years old.

"But it's so nice to be here and do something different with my daughter for a change," he said.

Parents who are tired of the birthday party-park-pizza place-Gymboree circuit and determined not to give their lives entirely over to their pint-size dictators are flocking to the Baby Loves Disco tour. Tickets are $12 for all walking humans. They often sell out minutes after going online.

"It's one of those things that works for everybody. And especially, we see lots of dads. It's an interesting thing, the dads coming," said Susannah Monteith, sister-in-law of the co-founder of Baby Loves Disco and the local mommy host.

It began in Philadelphia in 2004, when Heather Murphy Monteith, a mom, rented a club one weekend and realized her vision of a cool place for kids and parents to have fun. Andy Hurwitz went to one of the parties, thought it was fantastic and partnered with Monteith to spread the idea to New York.

The circuit now covers nearly 30 U.S. cities, from Honolulu to Boston, and eight foreign countries. The founders search for nightclubs that are open to being associated with children (not all clubs want to taint their hip factor), have a good venue with play space and "chill-out" rooms, and will strive for parent-approved cleanliness, Susannah Monteith said.

"The clubs are triple-cleaned," she said. "Then I come, like, two hours before the event and clean some more. And we put plugs on all the outlets, that kind of stuff."