In fairly stressful times it is always nice to know that if you sit with you child for a while and appreciate the moment, that you will forget the outside for just a moment and live in the bubble with your child.
Elia continues to blossom and is finding her identity in the family. She is territorial about her food like Dylan was but still wants the same things that Curie wants. She loves watching “eggs,” and wants to pick what we watch first “me pick!” And will even cry if she is not given the chance.
She is adorable and funny, almost not realizing she is funny. We asked the kids who has the best sister? Elia said “Jie-jie’s best sister” which could be interpreted as I think Ji-jie has the best sister, me, or Jie-jie is the best sister, either way, very cute.
We went to California in June and Albert, Elia, and Curie played on the beach while Erin worked. Elia and Curie loved it and loved getting her feet wet. When she would kneel down to feel the water her pants and diaper would get soaked. Well, we were walking along and for the most part Albert was holding their hands to keep them safe, but Elia slipped and fell in the surf getting drenched and getting water over her face. She was pretty distraught, and we quickly got her out of the sand and out of her clothes. We have a picture of her covered in just Albert’s shirt. In any case, the next day, we went back to the beach and whereas the previous day she wanted to let go of Albert’s hand, Elia was firmly holding on the entire time.
We got to see the Bernard’s family and “the cousins” and had a great dinner at a steak place. Albert’s parents came too; one of the best parts of going to California is to have Albert’s mom spend time with the kids, Albert’s mother and Elia get along very well and Elia lets her pick her up without a warming up period. In fact, when Elia was very young, “Ah-ma” was one of the first names she could recognize from Albert’s mother’s picture on the phone. Curie and Elia drew with Albert’s mother and afterwards, Elia said,”Ah-ma draw me!” Meaning, “Ah-ma taught me to draw!” So cute.
Elia had a rough time going home, she hit her head in the bus pitching forward when the bus stopped short, and then fell off a bench in a bus shelter in economy parking hitting her head again. On the flip side, Elia is now older than two so she gets her own seat. Curie and Elia could both fit in one seat, but Elia was very proud to have her own seat. We introduced her to flapping our arms during take-off.
During this time we bought Elia her own little backpack from REI. Curie has had her purple one for a while and Elia loves bags like this, so she started carrying it to school with Curie following suit. “Ma Bakpac!” She says. It is so cute. Along with the backpack is her CamelBak water bottle, an elephant one like Curie’s panda one that she loves to carry around. Funny thing is that she appropriated Curie’s Star Wars R2D2 water bottle too so her bag can be very heavy “heavy!” She says. So when we went to the airport this time instead of towing the Mickey luggage, both girls wore their own backpacks – most of the time. To be honest they were so full that the girls sometimes had trouble balancing. We ended up eliminating a duffle bag as a carry-on and carrying their backpacks.
Elia is so funny and cute these days, she has a low scary voice, very exorcist and used it when picking up the Anger figure from Inside Out. “Anger!” She fills her mouth up with food a la Miranda, who used to poke the rice into her mouth so she could fill it with more. She still nurses and calls milk, “mouk”, or “mikky.” The best though is that she is learning to speak in sentences and is very measured when she speaks, she is very careful when she talks and will say “Daddy watch eggs peas,” or other things in measured cadence. It is adorable.
Lastly, we went swimming with the kids at the Hoaglands’ community pool, Elia wanted us to hold her hand, likely a carry over from the beach in California earlier. She started with the infant life vest, but wanted floaties like Curie pretty quickly. she is a little light for them, but did well in them. Elia’s adventurous nature was consistent in the pool as well and she started jumping from the edge of the pool into Albert’s arms. She did it over and over until once she jumped from the ladder and got stuck between the ladder and the wall, which was pretty scary and so she cried for a while. We had her jump one more time from the edge so that she wouldn’t have that as the last thing we did. In the next month she didn’t want to be held in the pool, but that will have to wait until next time…