Top 25 New York Mom Blogs

Admittedly I am a sucker for these contests, so let's take my angst with a grain of salt here.

Some kind soul nominated my blog for the Top 25 New York Mom Blogs.  Very kind indeed and much appreciated.

So, I posted the link on Facebook, begging my family's and friend's forgiveness for the annoying request to vote.  And my family and friends kindly complied and voted.

But then they can't vote.  It says they already voted.  When they didn't vote. I of course sent a nice inquiry to the Circle of Moms asking about this little dilemma and they advised:

"In order to protect against ballot stuffing, we limit the frequency of votes from a single network. So if you're connected to a network that shares an IP address (like in an office), you will be prevented from voting if another person in your network has already voted. This is one of many precautions we've taken to prevent cheating and protect the integrity of the competition."


Apparently the Circle of Moms people think Saba is like an office instead of an island.

Does this look like an office to you?

Nope!  Not an office. 

Since all but about 27 members of our family lives on Saba, the restrictions imposed on the voting is basically disenfranchising the fine people of Saba.  OK, well maybe "disenfranchising" is a bit extreme, but you get the idea.

So, if you are so inclined, you can go HERE and look for "Life With Eliza Grace" and vote for a Saban whose own people can't vote for her because Saba is being treated "like an office."

What I Did On Eliza's Summer Vacation

Eliza is pretty fascinated with art in all of its mediums, acrylics, water colors, oils, ceramics, pastels, fabrics and plain old crayons when nothing else is on hand.  

Of late she has been on an origami kick.  Or, more accurately, she has forced me to make origami animals, flowers, cups, bowls, boats ... the list is endless.  Since Eliza's fine motor function is not up to origami just yet, yours truly gets to make them and Eliza decorates them (not that my fine motor function is much better)..

I have to say that when I read about making origami it sounded like it would be this relaxing zen-like experience and that I would suddenly want to burn sage incense and chant a bit.  Not so much.

What I have learned is that (a) construction paper sucks for origami and (b) I cannot read Japanese instructions.   So after some failed attempts at construction paper-indecipherable-instruction origami making, Eliza and I headed off to the craft store to get some proper paper and some instructions in English.  The English instructions were about as useful as the Japanese instructions since you have to rely on a set of arrows and squiggles and trial and error.  

But we had some success!

I will not force you to guess what these are.

Tulip:

Cat:

Penguin:

Cup:

Rabbit:

Horse:

Carp:

Pelican:

Much to Eliza's dismay (and my relief) we were not able to find instructions for Pokemon origami.  But I am sure Eliza will hunt those down if I ever let her surf the internet.

Oh and if you've made it this far through this post, please hit the "vote" button for the Top 25 NY Mom Blogs 2012 over there on the upper right.  All this origami making deserves at least some moral support :)

Compassion and Empathy in Children

Compassion and empathy may not win your kid an Olympic medal or a seat on the NYSE, but it sure does make for easy parenting.

I don't know if compassion and empathy are genetic qualities or things that are learned.  But I am glad that Eliza has these qualities in abundance.  If you are a Face Book friend then you know of Eliza's recent thoughts about her mason jar.  As a reward for Eliza eating she gets quarters for eating.  Yes I know this is probably not the best feeding "protocol" but it works, so too bad for those in the feeding therapy community who disapprove.  Any port in a storm is my theory.

Eliza gets 5 quarters for each real meal she eats (she is a cheap date).  I keep the quarters in a large mason jar and then give them to her to put in her smaller mason jar. When her jar is full she can use half of her quarters to buy a game or a toy and the other half go in her savings account (she takes great delight in handing the teller a bag of quarters and filling out the deposit slip).  A few days ago she asked why the big jar (my jar) was empty.  I told her that I had given my quarters to her because she had done such a great job eating her eggs.  She was very concerned that there were no quarters for me to get a treat for myself, so put back some of her quarters into the bigger jar so I could get a treat.  Yes, I cried.

Then yesterday we were having our nightly bedtime conversation.  Before she goes to sleep each night, she often asks pretty complex questions about life, people in her life, what they are doing, how they are, where they are, etc.  She had asked me to stay in bed with her and I told her I had some work to do but would come back to bed soon.  Eliza asked why I had to work and I told her that mommy needed to work so we could have a good home, visit Saba and have quarters in our jars to get treats.  She got very quiet and clearly was pondering this theory.

After a few minutes, Eliza said she had a solution that would allow me not to work.  She said she had a really, really big heart and that within her heart were twenty smaller hearts.  She would give away ten of her smaller hearts so that I could stay home with her and not have to work.  I asked her how she could give away so many of her hearts and she assured me that since she would have ten hearts left, that was more than enough to make one big heart.  I cried again.

Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all would be willing to give away some of our hearts to make life better for someone else?

I hope Eliza never forgets that sharing her heart is one of the best things she can do in life.

Dino Day

Deep in the heart of Secaucus, New Jersey lies Field Station Dinosaurs.  Who knew that someone tried to recreate Jurassic Park right where Jimmy Hoffa is said to be buried?  Well for about $50 admission for one adult and one child, you too can experience life in the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Triassic Periods all in one place!  Given that the Mesozoic Era covered about 186 million years, that's a lot of Dinosaurs to pack into one park.  

The T-Rex has the best view in the house, with the Manhattan skyline in the background.  Clearly a hologram of  Northwestern North America from about 65 to 100 million years ago was not in the budget:

And if there was any doubt that this was a life-like T-Rex, notice his fearsome open jaws:

Although Eliza and her 3 best friends seemed to enjoy themselves, the photos tell a different story:

There was quite a selection of dinosaurs though.  We saw a Quetzalcoaltus, which is not something you want to wake up to, even in Secaucus:

An Ankylosaurus:

And an Argentinasaurus (I think).

If you are lucky and live in Canada, you might be able to get the same experience of visiting the set of Dino Dan :)

One great disappointment was the gift shop.  Like any self-respecting you must exit via the gift shop.  Since Eliza and her pals are dino experts, they were deeply saddened by the quality of dino-related toys and gizmos in the gift shop.  It was so bad, two out of the three kids (I won't name names) pronounce the selection to be "crap." "Crap" is not one of the words on Eliza's summer "Word Wall" but I am sure her teacher will be pleased nonetheless that her vocabulary and list of sight words are expanding.

Despite the abject cheesiness of the place, it was a fine way to spend a day.  

I never did find the Jimmy Hoffa.

Saba Summer Fun

Our annual summer trip to Saba was quite the whirlwind of activity this year.  We started off with our cousin's wedding shortly after arriving. 

Eliza and her cousins had a great time waiting for the wedding to start.

But as we all know, kids are not the best at sitting through wedding ceremonies to finish up and after the initial fun of seeing the beautiful bride, groom and bridal party, a little boredom set in.

Luckily, there is a nice patch of grass right next to the church and it came in very handy for the cousins to play in while the bride and groom said their vows.

My mother seemed to enjoy being the elder stateswoman at the wedding and kissed about everyone in sight.

A week or so after the wedding, Saba's annual Carnival began.  This was Eliza's first Carnival and we were party of the Carnival Group "Black Pearl Jam."  I was coaxed into a pirate wench costume and Eliza and her best buddy Maya were our Mermaids.

We even had some cousin-pirates fly in all the way from Beijing to join the festivities.

Glenn was our official pirate captain and he took great care to keep his Mermaids entertained.

Our group of pirates were a pretty friendly bunch and so no invasions of foreign nations took place.

The pirate wenches were lead by cousin Wilma, who can be credited with getting me to join my first Carnival  about 2 decades ago.

It is extremely important that pirates have a worthy seafaring vessel.  Ours came with a full bar.

After Carnival, Eliza and I spent the rest of our time swimming, visiting family, barbecuing with friends and family, exploring, attending a couple of birthday parties and some good old fashioned driving in the back of a truck (but don't tell my mother).

We already miss our porch and our view and are plotting our next return trip.  Maybe next time we'll take a pirate ship instead of JetBlue to get to Saba.