Ramat Gan safari park officials worry that the grandmother, La Petite, is interfering in mom and baby elephants' bonding.
By Ruth Schuster for Haaretz
Congratulations to La Belle, the Asian elephant who on Friday gave birth to a 200-pound baby girl at the Safari Park in Ramat Gan!
At least that weight is the best guess of officials at the Safari Park, more officially known as The Zoological Center Tel Aviv - Ramat Gan. They also think the dewy-eyed cutie is about a meter tall.
"We didn't measure her in order not to interfere – it's very important to intervene as little possible," explains Sagit Horowitz, Safari spokeswoman.
Newborn Asian elephants are typically around 100 kilos, Horowitz says, but this one is on the small side, as is her proud mother La Belle, 7, and also her diminutive grandmother, La Petite, 25, who – as the pictures show – both hover lovingly over Baby.
And here lies a rather large rub.
1. Yussel’s Prayer retold by Barbara Cohen: The story
of a young cowherd and his simple Yom Kippur prayer. When my children were
small, we read this every year on Yom Kippur night. 
Struggling to get your kids to eat their veggies? How
about making their meal something fun? Meals With Kids is the pet project of
Maor Bar, a Bezalel graduate of the Visual Communication department. Bar manages
his own interactive studio that makes games and mobile apps for major brands in
Israel and abroad. The blog began as a side project because of his oldest son,
Yatir, who is a very picky eater. 
At first Bar uploaded pictures to his Facebook page,
and when hearing from friends that it worked with their children as well he
decided to begin the blog to help parents he didn’t personally know. A Meals
With Kids Facebook page has also garnered a community of parents who even post
their own work. 
My daughters are 4 1/2 and 3, and other than their
short stature, penchant for screaming rather than brooding, and a total
inability to write snarky notes to each other, they’re basically teenagers.
They’re in that unpredictable phase where one minute they want to be treated
like grown ups (i.e. 8-year-olds), the next minute they want to snuggle on your
lap and suck their thumbs, and God help you if you pick the wrong one. 
Three months ago, my husband and I were playing with
our 4 ½ month old when it became quite apparent that it was time to sing “Poop
Monster” (to the tune of The B-52s, “Rock Lobster”). We’ve pretty much created a
song for everything involving our daughter: “We’re Not Gonna Cry Now,” (“We’re
Not Gonna Take It”), “Rolling on the Carpet” (“Rolling on the River”) and “Food
Glorious Food…” that one needed no editing. 
I have dozens of childhood memories that include me
and my siblings waiting in the car for our parents. Most notably, I remember us
waiting at the bank and my little brother, probably preschool age, backing the
car into an adjacent lot. The story is told in jest now, and my mother was most
definitely a helicopter parent of her time. That’s just how it was.