How do we describe what it is like in the Chen household these days? Just look at the picture of Curie and Elia in their striped Dr. Seuss pajamas mugging for the camera. And for Curie, she has started posing with her cheek to her shoulder as her go-to pose.
While there are still the requisite “that’s mine!” or “no Elia!” the kids are playing together now all the time now. Curie will jump off the couch, prompting Elia to do so also, they both stand and hold the back of the recliner and rock vigorously on it singing “Row, Row, Row your Boat” at the top of their lungs. When they are excited they make the seventies “whoop whoop” disco noise together – usually at around 11 PM when everyone else is asleep. They are having a grand ole time together, and (for now) where Curie leads, Elia follows.
As with most kids, Curie will clear a space for a stage and tell us she is going to do a show. She tells us to say “no one is on the stage!” After which she will run on from her “backstage” to say “ladies and gentleman, I’m Curie” then in a stage whisper tells us to say “hi Curie!” Which we do and are entertained by ballet, or dancing, or Frozen. Recently though, she has come on and said, “I’m Curie, and this is my assistant,” to which we are supposed to say “hi Curie, hi assistant!” The assistant is of course Elia who will run on stage with Curie, watch her holder sister out of the corner of her eye hold her hands just above her head and twirl with Curie. At night, when Elia is fussy and tired, Curie has moved from “shh, shh, shh” ing Elia, to singing “Rock-a-Bye Baby” to her in a quiet let’s-copy-how-parents-speak-to-babies falsetto. Curie gets sad if Elia won’t give her a hug before they go to sleep but is most comfited when Albert makes it back up to bed after being a night owl to wake up beside her.
Curie has been taking her big sister role very seriously; Elia went upstairs to “Twos” this past month and was in Curie’s old classroom. Curie took it upon herself to show Elia around, “here are where the toys are,” “here is the potty,” “here is the gross motor play room,” and more.
The kids waited and waited in anticipation of snow before the snowzilla storm last month, not to “build a snowman” nor to make snow angels nor to eat fresh snow cones, nor go sledding (all of which we did); no the kids wanted to spread calcium chloride and shovel. We already mentioned in the storm post that we took the opportunity to teach them about community and had them shovel other people’s walks. The kids with their friends Lucy, Nora, and Navi, also took it upon themselves to ambush the parents after school with snowballs without any prompting.
Curie has been telling her friends that she is learning to be considerate because she wants an Elsa doll, and while we have been loathe to buy a doll, she has been less whiney and able to exert some self control if not too tired because “I am beautiful inside.” At the Busybees indoor playground, Curie was trying to play with two much older girls, one queen bee and one friend who was following queen bee around. Queen bee was blowing off Curie, but the friend made it a point to ask Curie’s name and included her. We waited in bated breath to see if Curie would be more swayed by queen bee, or if she would recognize the importance of kindness and reward that with loyalty. Curie chose loyalty, and played with the friend instead of following queen bee, and the friend started playing more with Curie to the point where queen bee started following Curie and her new friend around. The loyalty to the nicer person rather than the queen bee made us feel really good about how Curie was developing, so after months of stalling, Curie finally got her Elsa doll, though in the store she almost chose Rapunzel instead. Little did we know…
Erin hates Barbie and similar dolls, so this was a big step, and immediately Curie took Elsa’s dress off and wanted to put another one on. And of course she asked Erin to help her, then a minute later, she needed to be dressed again, then we lost her shoes at a restaurant (though we found them again later), and the braid came out and the hair got messy and the dress ripped so that Albert had to buy a glue gun to put it back together. She didn’t have a crown so Albert bought some FIMO clay to make some. Whew. We told Curie we would not be buying her another doll, and you know what? She was okay with that (for now). Elsa has been toted around everywhere, but in some ways we are okay with that, in our family she symbolizes something Curie worked hard to achieve, and that is pretty cool.
Curie has gotten even more sophisticated with diction like “first, second, and lastly.” She tells knock knock jokes as one of the many crazy car games we play like “what color is that sound?” and “let’s make Elia say a word.” She found out that she likes the dark meat pork chops better than the tenderloin. She sings the “This ol’ Heart of Mine” gospel to herself while she plays alone with clippy dolls. She likes “real eggs (real YouTube)” more than “kids’ eggs (kids’ YouTube), and refused to let Erin see any Star Wars merchandise because she wanted to draw Erin a picture of “Mommy’s favorite character” as a surprise (she ended up picking out an Itsy Bitsy Rey doll and Rey balloon as Erin’s present). She is a four year old still learning to be considerate, and less whiney – with mixed results, but also learning that heart and caring are fundamentally important. Oh, though she is more sophisticated and quite the little girl, the other night while next to Erin, she said aloud in her sleep: “thank you Mr. Elephant” laughed, and drifted back to sleep dreaming who knows what.
Sorry about the late post this month. Happy Year of the Monkey to you all.