As we begin our move, we are working with the kids about the change and there have been a few reactions that have been emotional for us. After all, this is the house that the girls were born in. Now we are not selling the house, on the contrary, we are renting it out, but we will be in our new house, a rental so that Curie and Elia can have a better education than the school near our old house.
At first Curie didn’t like the idea of moving. Inside Out didn’t help matters, though a Sesame Street app did make it easier to talk about it. Albert spilled the beans before Erin could prepare Curie (Elia is going with the flow). It wasn’t until she found pink curtains in the house that we ended up with that she started liking the concept. We intentionally talk about the new house in very positive terms and the kids have loved running around the empty house and getting used to it. They have given our friends tours, and we have brought in a neat sheet and had a picnic with McDonalds in the dining room. Our saddest part is going to be the door jamb where we marked our kids growth.
There has been a lot of change recently with Albert’s new job, the move, registering Curie for kindergarten, but there is a lot that stays the same, our caring for one another, our friends, we aren’t going that far, Erin still loves her job. For Curie, she has begun sleeping in her Thomas Tent bed more regularly now, and she sees it as a place to have Mommy to herself now. It also means that Erin has to change beds at least once a night as Elia still sleeps in the big bed.
Curie is more cognizant of the time with each parent, wanting to have play dates each day with Erin before going to bed, or spending time with Daddy. Elia of course just wants what Curie wants, so we often end up with one parent and both kids and have to take care to play with the other when one is with the one parent. Curie continues her work on self-control after pushing her boundaries again. She is learning that she gets more with talking than whining, which is something we have to actively support since it is easy just to react to the whining and grease the squeaky wheel. First Break All the Rules talks about working with your strongest people, it is interesting that the same works for parenting. in that you work with the strongest behaviors.
This month we met up with Bernard’s friends from MIT, Shane and Anna and their kids on Easter Sunday, and went to the Udvar space museum and Meadowlark to see the flowers. The kids had a great time together playing freeze and unfreeze a la queen Elsa. I think the fact that Sienna is two years younger than Cali offered an opportunity for Curie to bond with her more, kind of like with Dylan in her cousins. Anna said it is perhaps that Sienna still plays in a place of imagination more. We all ate at MOD pizza and Curie ate all her pizza because her friends did also, it was a very nice time. We did not go all out on Easter eggs this year since we have so many from last year, not to mention that it is Kinder eggs and chocolate eggs and surprises that Curie, and now Elia, really like, that we do not have to wait until Easter to appreciate them – consistent with Albert’s feelings about holidays in general. The kids do love Peeps though.
We took time out of our moving to take the kids to National Harbor after Albert got back from Bloomington, Indiana. We rode the merry-go-round, where Elia loved the horses, ate at Nando’s and rode the ferris wheel at night, something that the girls really loved. As we were walking Curie could correctly identify all the letters for National Harbor on the walk except for L, so it seems that reading is just around the corner. She is learning her food groups at school, and identifies foods at dinner sharing her knowledge with us, and loves to count in Spanish though she forgets siete from time to time (Elia forget seven when she counts too, but in English, see her blog for more).
For her friend Julila’s birthday we went to Flight, a trampoline park which both girls absolutely loved. We also spent time playing superheroes since we were all dressed in our Superman shirts. Both girls love to play superheroes which is probably brought on by our influence, but also because ‘Bella, the Hoagland’s daughter and now our babysitter, is willing to wear her Batman mask to lunch in public with us and play superheroes with both girls. It was fantastic and adorable to see them flying around the new house.
So we are moving, and the work to make this happen is no small feat. In the beginning Curie didn’t want to leave our house, then she loved the new house, now she does not want anyone living in our old house. It is heartbreakingly adorable. She thought she would have to leave her toys behind, but now that she knows the toys are going with us, it seems okay. The house is just a house, and the home moves with us. But the house represents the memories we built here, the moments we shared and cherished and so saying goodbye to our old house will actually be harder for us than the kids. I don’t know what it will be like when we actually say goodbye, but right now Curie is okay with it, and Elia is happy if we are all happy.