Category Archives: Conversations with Eli

The Granade Family vs. the World

You may remember that, a while back, Liza fell and had to have stitches in her lip.

A week later, I rolled my ankle while exercising. It swelled up like an angry pundit and I spent the weekend with it propped in the air. Even now I am wearing this crazy ankle brace which, if science [...]

This week in photos

I always love my Tuesday nights with the crafty gals. This week was no exception. We has some serious crafting!

Eli created Super Mario characters to do battle on our kitchen table. Stephen caught the whole drama.

The end of the battle:

Liza showed her super remote skills:

Lastly, my finished crochet stash. It seems to grow larger by [...]

Creativity Crisis Solved with an Alien City

Newsweek’s article on the “creativity crisis” has been making the rounds lately. It fits the usual template of such stories: extrapolation of a trend leads to prognostications of vague gloom. In this case, it’s that US kids’ Creativity Quotient scores have been falling since the 1990s.

The article is talking about a specific flavor of creativity, [...]

Eli’s Kindergarten Graduation was Very Wet

Last Thursday we celebrated Eli completing kindergarten.

Some schools treat this as a full-blown graduation with caps and gowns and all kinds of formality. I am not down with that; I appreciate marking Eli’s transition from kindergarten to grade school, but it’s not really a graduation. Fortunately, Eli’s school didn’t do that. Instead, after everyone got [...]

The Light! The Light!

We live near the eastern edge of the US’s Central Time Zone, which means we get light earlier in the morning. I’m sure it has something to do with relativity and perhaps warp drives. The upshot is that, in the summer, sunrise occurs at 5:30 in the morning.

Eli and Liza care nothing for arbitrary time [...]

Perhaps He Will Be the Next David Cage

This morning Eli spent a fair amount of time inventing a new video game. The game starred a Lego version of Perry the Platypus, from the cartoon Phineas and Ferb.

For reference, here’s what Perry looks like in the cartoon. Man, that’s one sweet hat he has.

Anyway, in the game Perry has to dodge bad guys [...]

Eli Loves Technology, while Liza Gets Specific

I’ve joked before that Eli is a child of technology. For instance, he doesn’t understand why only some TVs can serve up hot and cold running Imagination Movers. He does read books, but he views even that activity in a computerized light. He was engrossed in a book one morning, and I had to tell [...]

To Eli on His Sixth Birthday

It only took us three years, but we finaly found the best place for your birthday party: Kidventure. It’s an indoor playground with an inflatable slide, a climbing wall, skeeball, and a pirate ship. We had the entire place to ourselves, and they let us bring in our own food, which meant that the parents [...]

Billions and Billions

The other Sunday, after Eli got dressed for church, I realized that he looked like someone.

If I get him a buff jacket, maybe he can appear on the Tonight Show like Carl Sagan.

Everything is Different Now

As usual we spent our Christmas vacation in Arkansas. You may recall that Liza had her first milkshake last year in Arkansas. Her reaction?

We didn’t go back to the Purple Cow, but we did go to Cheeburger Cheeburger, another retro diner that serves milkshakes. What was Liza’s reaction this year?

At least Eli did different things [...]