Coast 2 Coast Mom

United Nations Foundation Shot@Life App Launch

The United Nations Foundation recently celebrated the launch of an app for their Shot@Life program, an initiative to protect children worldwide by providing life-saving vaccines. The lovely ladies of Trumpeting Media invited us to attend the event and donate to the program, which we happily did.

The UN Foundation worked with the American Academy of Pediatrics to launch the Shot@Life app to help parents track children's milestones while raising awareness of the need for life-saving childhood vaccines worldwide. The premise behind the app is that 1.5 million children die globally each year from a disease that could have been prevented by a vaccine - like polio, diarrhea, measles and pneumonia. The parents of those 1.5 million children don't get to celebrate the usual childhood milestones like a first smile, first steps or losing a first tooth.

First Visit From the Tooth Fairy

This weekend brought an unexpected surprise: the Kiddo lost his first baby tooth! He was sitting on the living room floor late Saturday morning when he used his tongue to wiggle and push something out of his mouth (I assumed that it may have been a bit of walnut stuck in his teeth from our Hawaiian pancakes earlier in the morning), but alas, it was the loss of his first baby tooth and a first visit from the Tooth Fairy. Truthfully, c2cDad and I didn't even know his tooth was loose.

Jeopardy's Man vs. Machine: The IBM Watson Challenge

I think this is so cool. To give you some background, the kiddo and I watch Jeopardy every weeknight we're home. Every. Night. It's really one of very few shows on at 7 p.m. that are kid friendly, unless we go to the kid channels. 

The Kiddo's such a smartie, that I don't know why I'm surprised anymore when he knows an answer on Jeopardy, and he usually knows at least one every episode. (Yeah. At five. I know. <Sigh>) The last episode he knew that Mary Poppins was the correct answer on a Broadway category. He usually gets something correct in a travel, music and definitely animal category too. Even if he doesn't know the answer, it becomes a bit of a competition for him to see if I'm going to be right or not with whatever I blurt out. It's our thing.

So we think it's pretty cool that starting tonight, through February 16th, Jeopardy will be airing a historic Man vs. Machine: The IBM Challenge with Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter and IBM's Watson computer. Most people know Ken from hearing about how he's the "most winningest" player in Jeopardy history, breaking the record for the most consecutive games played by winning. Brad has won the most amount of money playing Jeopardy between his original appearance and subsequent "Tournament of Champions" wins.

Watson is the computer, named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, and developed by a team of IBM scientists trying to create a computer system that can answer questions in human natural language - including irony and riddles - quickly and accurately.

I'm excited to tune in and share the experience with the kiddo - maybe c2cdad will get home in time to join us for an extra special Valentine's Day dinner and Jeopardy viewing. :-) There's actually a book, Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything by Stephen Baker, that will be released on February 17th that will provide the background story and details of how The IBM Challenge came about and what was involved with the process.

ER visit while traveling with your kid? Been there. Done that.

With only one child so far, there's a wealth of situations that I know c2cDad and I won't ever encounter. Like Bill Cosby mentions in one of his comedy specials from the '80s, with one kid, you don't have to go through the rigmarole of discerning who it was that broke something. With one kid, you know who did it.

I was hoping we'd also avoid many of the middle of the night scares and ER trips with just one, but this holiday season proved me wrong. A trip to the ER while traveling? Check.

NYC Marathon Goes Green with the LEAF

Tomorrow is the 41st running of the New York City Marathon, and continuing the theme of a healthy and green lifestyle is a not-so-surprising sponsor of this year's event: the Nissan LEAF. The LEAF is the official pace car of the 2010 ING New York City Marathon, and for the first time, the front runners won't be breathing in a trail of car exhaust. . . because this year's car is 100% electric.

 

I unfortunately was unable to make my appointment today to get a personal overview of the Nissan LEAF at the pre-marathon health and fitness expo; however, I've been so interested in the car that I thought I'd share a few details with you:

• The LEAF has a range of 100 miles per charge based upon US EPA LA4 City cycle
• The SL model has a photovoltaic solar panel rear spoiler
• It comes with CARWINGS™ - an in-car telematics system that displays battery power, nearby charging stations, and allows for remote connection to the LEAF

You can have a chance to check out the car as it makes its way through a multi-venue tour and receive some free merchandise courtesy of the ING NYC Marathon partners, and even enter to win a sweepstakes for a chance to win a new LEAF! For each day's location, follow @NissanLEAF on Twitter.

Spectacular Macy's July 4th Aboard the Norwegian Epic Cruise Ship

WOW.

It's July 6th and we're still coming down from the high of our super swanky Fourth of July night. We were so excited about the event that we cut short our vacation in Michigan to awake at 3:30 a.m. on July 4th and drive back to NYC to make the party. Oh, and we splurged on a new DSLR camera so we could take better photos of the fireworks (so excuse the abundance of photos here, we had to practice!). You see, Macy's, Inc. invited us to celebrate the Fourth of July right on the Hudson River aboard the brand spanking new Epic cruise ship, the newest and largest ship to set sail from Norwegian Cruise Lines. DOUBLE WOW!

Needless to say, it was a night to remember. The combination of the freedom of a night away from the kiddo, the crystal clear summer sky, the balmy yet breezy air, our front row seats for the fireworks and the eighteen stories of luxurious merriment for us to explore left us feeling like we were kids let loose in a high-end resort.

Waking up in Cleveland

The snow and wintry weather made our drive back to New Jersey difficult, so we stopped in Cleveland to stay for the night. Thank goodness for my Hyatt Gold Passport points so we had a free stay. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Cleveland at The Arcade right smack downtown, and had a very nice stay. It was snowing on our drive in past Progressive Field and Quicken Loans Arena, though the holiday lights in Cleveland's Public Square was still cool to see (we'd never seen that many red or blue lights at once before!). It was our first time in Cleveland, and it was fun learning bits and pieces about it during our brief stay. (Seriously - the first things that came to mind before when I thought of Cleveland were: 1-LeBron James, 2- Grover Cleveland and 3- the movie Howard the Duck.)

For example, the first indoor shopping mall in the U.S. was opened in Cleveland in 1890. That's what it looks like today up above. The Hyatt is attached to the mall, and the mall looked beautiful as we came in from the snow. We learned about the 57 floors of the Key Tower on Public Square which was beautifully illuminated in holiday colors, and was the tallest point between New York and Chicago when it was built in 1991, until the Comcast Center went up in 2007 in Philadelphia.

Before we took off in the morning, we walked down the restaurant row on 4th Street to Erie Island Coffee Co and were glad we ventured out before climbing back into the car home. We all split the French Toast Crush and the Applewood Bacon Crush - a crush being a mix between a bagel sandwich and a panini. c2cDad LOVED their Ivory Mocha, Li'l Boo enjoyed his whipped cream and kids hot chocolate and I had a very nice Chai. Because everything was so tasty, we took a strawberry smoothie to go (trying build up our Vitamin C reserves).

East 4th street looks like a fun summer hot spot, and a place we plan to explore when we return to Cleveland. Oh, we'll return alright - to check out the Great Lakes Science Center, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo (with the largest primate collection) and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and maybe see Progressive Field up close and continue Li'l Boo's tour of baseball fields this summer.

No Idle Hands, a Chris Pine Movie Marathon and What We Did For Thanksgiving . . .

I've been lax on blogging and Twitter over the Thanksgiving holiday, but our family needed the time together. One of the negatives to being busy and having cool opportunities and experiences is that it comes with a price. We knew before moving to the NYC area that we would not likely see my husband during the week and that he'd become a weekend dad by nature of his job, the industry and the commute to/from NYC itself. (It takes 30-60 minutes for him to get to/from work each day, depending on traffic, bus and train schedules - typical for suburban life.) We just don't spend time together at all, as even over the regular two-day weekend I have a honey-do list that takes usually one of the days, plus I want some time sans kiddo to just think, and for my hubby to spend time with Li'l Boo 1:1, so that doesn't leave much time for my husband and I to chat about important decisions or plans or goals. We have most of those discussion via text during the week. I hate it, but it is what it is. So although we travel a lot, the times we travel are literally the most time my husband and I are together, and by then we're stressed and tired. So,  we chose to spend this four-day Thanksgiving weekend home with just the three of us - and even with all of the amazing things we've done this year, this was the best time all year for us as a family. No crabbiness, no arguments, no guilt, no stress - we haven't had a truly relaxing and completely enjoyable time as a family since I can remember. I miss our family afar, but know that just because we have the time off from work doesn't mean that we have to take off to visit. Our families can just as well come to us. So paradigm shift in our planning, and my New Year's Resolution for next year: spend more time HOME together as a family.

So . . . what've I been doing? I kicked off the holiday by taking Li'l Boo to see Peter and the Wolf at the New Victory Theatre on 42nd St. We LOVED it!! I wanted to expose Danny to the story and music, and to more live theater in anticipation of taking him to see The Lion King next year. (I wanted to make sure he would remain attentive, interested and quiet for the show - and he did! :-) ) We then met C2CDad for dinner at one of Li'l Boo';s favorite places in midtown - Ted's Montana Grill. Li'l Boo gets such a kick out of the buffalo head on the wall and always refers to this place as the buffalo place. Then we toured the midtown department store holiday windows and lights (like Rockefeller Center, Barney's, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks', Lord 'n Taylor and Macy's; see my piece and recommendations from our tour on NYmetropolista.com) 

We skipped attending the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in-person this year, and watched instead from home as we ate brunch and I knit. I'm knitting up a storm in advance of the holidays, and if I'm not on my laptop, then I'm cooking/baking, or knitting. My hands are never idle and I fear I'll develop early arthritis as my hands can't catch an idle break these days. We cooked our first whole turkey ever, (yeah, we've always traveled to distant family for Thanksgiving or ate out) and it turned out perfectly thanks to Ray from Fairway's advice! Then, because we live in Bergen County and the laws prohibit stores and malls from opening prior to 7 a.m., we went shopping on Black Friday as a family - heading to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase my Tassimo Titanium, stopping in Best Buy for the new Carrie Underwood cd, and a portable hard drive - where Li'l Boo exhibited an uncanny ability to play the drums with the Beatles Rock Band display. (Must be all that time he spends playing Tap Tap Revenge on my iPhone.) Then we made our way to the mall and bought some holiday clothing gifts. C2CDad made out like a bandit clothing-wise. We spent the rest of Friday at home and made Hershey kiss cookies as a family and I went through my stash of to-file recipes, freeing up a whole new shelf on our bookshelf. Ahhh . . . Oh, and we took in a Chris Pine marathon movie weekend, watching Star Trek and Bottle Shock both over the weekend via Netflix. (Hmm . .. wonder how that happened?! ;-) )

Saturday we relaxed, organized some more, finished painting the stairway and hallway (phew!), and went out for Thai food so Li'l Boo could get "chicken on a stick" (chicken satay). On Sunday we finished up a lot of our work, stocked up at Costco and ate out at The Cheesecake Factory (since we were taking a vacation from our normal life, it wouldn't be complete without a trip to a vacation restaurant ;-) ) Then we put up the tree, decorated it and pulled out our Christmas and Hanukkah books, cd's and toys. For us, it was a perfect Thanksgiving weekend. . . now back to blogging and knitting. Well, who am I kidding? It's Cyber Monday - I'm shopping!

Radio City Christmas Spectacular Through the Eyes of A Four-Year-Old Boy

Last night I took Li'l Boo to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes for the first time and it was just as magical and exciting as I expected it to be. From the second we saw the white pre-show lights in the sky along 6th Ave beckoning us to Radio City Music Hall, Li'l Boo practically ran to the will-call line to get our tickets. The Christmas decorations and lights outside the hall are so festive and add to the excited energy of the crowd before you even enter the doors. People in the crowd were dressed anywhere along the spectrum of casual jeans all the way to suits and formal dresses.

We located our seats - in row double P, and Li'l Boo thought it was funny that we were walking down the aisle looking for PP. ;-) I can hear the questions now, "Uhm, c2cmom, you took a four year old BOY to see the live show?!" Ahh . . .yes. And he loved it!

The orchestra band started to play in their festive red box at the rear of the stage, sliding forward to the front of the stage and then down to the orchestra pit - and my son was glued to the edge of his seat, craning around the adult sitting in front of him to not miss a thing. He was enthralled looking up and around at the use of lighting along the ceiling and walls to imitate snow or expand the show from the stage, and LOVED whenever Santa or the performers appeared alongside or among the audience. Li'l Boo enjoyed the 3D video flight around NYC, whisper-shouting "The Rockefeller Tree! And the Ice Rink! We just saw that. Time Square! Mom - we've been there!" etc. Li'l Boo was mesmerized by the tapping, dancing and kicks to Twelve Days of Christmas, and when they toured NYC on the double-decker bus.

When I asked him his favorite parts of the show this morning, he said "when the toy soldiers all fell (insert your own Li'l Boo enactment here) and the guy in back by the pillow was standing with his arms out to hold them all up and fell down too" "My second favorite part was the bear dance and the polar bears threw snow balls at Santa." "And the sheep and camel on stage, and the camels chewing their food." "And when the second kid was flying with Santa." I asked him if he liked seeing the pretty girls and his response was to use his litle hands and show me that "they weren't THIS beautiful (six inches apart), they were THIS beautiful (two feet apart)" So I guess on the little boy spectrum, that's about as gorgeous as you can get. ;-)

When I realized nearly an hour into the show that there would be no intermission, I started asking Li'l Boo if he had to go to the bathroom or wanted some cotton candy (I grew anxious that if we walked out in the crowded rush to exit the building and he glimpsed any of it, he'd throw a temper tantrum since it was past his bedtime, and I did NOT want to deal with that). However, Li'l Boo was enjoying the show so much that he did not want to head back to the lobby, for fear he'd miss something! So there you have it, even a little boy can enjoy the Radio City Christmas Spectacular show.

As for take-home reminders from the show, there are programs for sale ($20, and include a Christmas music cd by the Rockettes); spinning Rockette toys and light sticks are for sale too. Of course, what kid can pass up cotton candy (comes with a Santa hat too! Li'l Boo said he would wear the hat and be Santa for Halloween next year. Hee-hee.), or popcorn in a large Rockettes cup/tub. . . I'm looking at the popcorn tub as I sneak bites of day-old popcorn while I write this.

One last note, I mention a lot of places and people we are impressed with, or enjoy meeting on our adventures, and well, one of them blew me away recently. I mentioned how Li'l Boo and I enjoyed meeting one of the Rockettes, Alyssa Epstein, when I shared our experience at Radio City back in August, and she dropped me the nicest email recently. Seriously! Could she BE any more thoughful? Is being beautiful not enough? ;-) A real class act. I can only imagine how Li'l Boo will feel once he's older and realizes what a cool opportunity he had to hang with such lovely ladies and see the show . . .

For your own behind-the-scenes tour of the show, check out some of the vignettes on the Radio City Christmas site: http://radiocitychristmas.com/newyork/videos.html

Get your own tickets: MSG Entertainment is running a promotion if you purchase your tickets by this Sunday, November 22nd.

 
Full disclosure: I was provided tickets to the show by MSG Entertainment when I took Li'l Boo to help kick-off Christmas in August a couple of months ago.

Big Apple Circus Is An "Annual Must-Do" for Family Fun in NYC

Li'l Boo had the opportunity to experience his first circus at none other than the Big Apple Circus last weekend! He was so excited that we had to sing the song from the Big Apple Circus commercial over and over on the ride into the city. 

"Seats are never more than 50 feet from the ring, So even if you're really small you won't miss a thing . . . Big Apple Circus is YOUR circus, Big Apple is back in town!" (Then Li'l Boo would shout "Again!") 

Once we arrived, it was hard to miss the huge yellow tent and walkway next to Lincoln Center. . . and we were greeted by a photo crew taking commemorative photos of our experience. There was a stroller corral just inside the tent, and concessions (hot dogs, bottled waters, sodas, popcorn, cotton candy), so we grabbed some snacks and headed into the tent where we were escorted to our seats just like at the theater. True to their word, you get a great view and are not more than 50 feet from the ring.

c2cDad and I were surprised how much WE enjoyed the circus performance  - perhaps just as much as Li'l Boo! Bello entertained us with his antics and ability to play off the crowd no matter what happened, and Grandma the Clown came up into the crowd near us for photos during the intermission. The performances were based on family humor, tricks and acrobatics. Some of our favorite acts were the "Wheel of Wonder," the man standing riding horseback on TWO horses at the same time, the juggler (he juggles ping pong balls several feet in the air using his tongue!), the contortionists, the ariel silks, the trapeze . . . uhm, everything pretty much was entertaining! The part I was MOST impressed with was that the music is LIVE. As in, the Big Apple Circus has their own band playing music for the acts. It added such a nice touch to the performances, and the band was flexible enough to follow Bello's cues and act no matter what he did impromptu with the crowd.

We were invited to attend the Big Apple Circus with other local bloggers to experience it for ourselves, and I have to say that for our family, it was a hit! We found ourselves smiling and there was certianly no containing my son's excitement and wonder during the "Bello is Back" show. We happily plan to attend again next year, and make it an annual family tradition.

When scanning the program, it made me feel good to learn about some of the community outreach programs the Big Apple Circus organization participates in: Circus After School (to give at-risk children the opp to develop life skills after school); Vaudeville Caravan (performs at nursing homes and long-term care facilities ); Circus of the Senses (performances for vision or hearing-impaired children with sign-language interpreters and play-by-play audio descriptions of the action as well as braille and large-print programs); and Circus For All (discounted or free tickets for economically disadvantaged or physically challenged children).

Go visit the Big Apple Circus yourself while it's in NYC, now through January 18th, save up to $30 per performance with this code:

• Online: http://bigapplecircus.org/mommy.aspx and submit the code MOMMY10 in the Promotional Codes box
• By Phone: CALL 888-541-3750 and mention code MOMMY10
• In Person:  Big Top Box Office  from 10AM–6PM daily. No service fee. Bring a copy of this blog.