So a lot happened this month, but we would be remiss if we did not address the bullet through Elia’s daycare class window. Frightening enough as it is, it was more frightening to find out that there were three bullets (still likely a random shooting considering the spread of the bullets) and that the bullet through the window was at child level. It was lucky that the shooting took place at nap time, however, the facility reacted poorly without locking down the facility until asking the police, and trying to downplay the incident to a parking inconvenience. We are still trying to decide if we will stay at the facility.
On a brighter note, it was Elia’s birthday this past month, at three she is 15 percentile for height and 3 percent for weight. She was so quiet at the doctor’s visit until the doctor told her she did not have to get a shot, after which she brightened up considerably.
Elia loved all the lead up to her birthday, telling us she wanted a Star Wars birthday for months until her birthday, the couple days before her actual birthday though, she switched to a Thomas birthday. We had her party at Busy Bees an indoor playground. Erin told Albert that Elia wanted it there, and when Albert asked Elia, Elia outed Erin and said “Mommy says we have at Busy Bees.” To be fair, Erin had given Elia three choices. We had a black out at her actual birthday where initially the owner was not going to discount the party, he did later, but likely realizing that we would tell everyone of the service we received. We bought flashlights for everyone as part of the party, and we gave away IKEA tool boxes for giveaways. Elia LOVED being the center of attention. We caught her singing happy birthday for days later. She also sang in the low funny voice that Curie did back in the day, but had not ever heard it. Amazing really.
Albert’s birthday is the day after Elia’s, his is effectively eliminated with hers. On his birthday, Elia said “my birthday too.” For days, she would say “happy burday to Dada! Happy burday to me!” Albert would say “Happy Birthday Elia!” She would reply “Happy Birthday Dada! It our birthday, we sang happy birthday to us!”
We went to California for the Christmas holiday and went to a hotel the night before the trip on Albert’s birthday. Albert caught pink eye on that day and spend his birthday in the urgent care getting an antibiotic ointment. When talking about the trip, Elia would tell us “I go trip with you,” apparently we have been going away too often that she wanted to make sure she came with us.
At three years old, Elia has the appropriate level of sass, when talking about pink eye, she spoke up and said, “don’t touch dada’s yucky poo poo eye.” And then proceeded to laugh knowing she told a funny.
On the plane she wanted a window seat and when we were split up, Albert and Elia went to the back of the plane to their seats, but that seat didn’t have a window. Elia cried. Eventually she calmed down and flapped to help the plane take off. She had such an excited face.
Part of our trip was going to Disneyland the day after we got there. We went with Bernard and the twins and met up with George and his family. At three (we paid for her to go as a three year old instead of free as a two year old, because we were certain that she would say she was three if asked. It was only two days after her birthday). Elia is at that amazing age where it was all magical. She met Tinkerbell who became her newfound character. We even bought her a doll. She loved, and we mean LOVED Small World, it was set up for Christmas inside and she was amazed. It rained that morning, but it didn’t deter us. At one point when she clapped, we said “what did you do? did you clap?” She said, “yes, I clap like this!” And proceeded to demonstrate with a wild clapping all around her face.
For Christmas all the grandkids got Instax cameras from Albert’s parents, and while the camera was pretty much above her recommended age, she loved it shooting an entire ten frames of Albert’s ear. Since then she has learned that there are limited frames and that if she can see you in the view finder, it will take a picture of you, which is amazing. Santa brought her an entire case of superhero blind boxes which she loved (see picture). Her birthday and Christmas so close together, she loves the idea of presents.
We took the kids to see Moana, and Elia, who is very tempo oriented would bob at all the songs. While Maui was doing his dance, she started saying “round stom stom, round stom stom, doodly doo doodle doo,” while bouncing her fists on each other for the first half and twinkling her fingers for the second part. Her favorite song is “Away away (Aue aue)” and will say “dat my favrite, Dada’s favrite too.” She has been quite the daddy’s girl wanting him to drive her to and from school, likely because he takes her to Target after picking her up. When the song comes on the whole family raises their hand to check the stars.
Elia loves to get her hair cut and we went back to the same Cartoon Cuts for her to get her hair cut again. She asked for the same guy. Very cute. She loves to twirl in dresses, loved to be in matching black with Dada, asks for Dada to pick her up everywhere except recently when Erin kept her home for the day. After that she has started to ask for Mommy again. Each night Erin has the kids say what they are grateful for as part of the bedtime process. She regularly says “I grateful for you, and you, and you (all three of us). The other day she wanted to add: “I grateful for sun” and made slow vague sun gestures, which was hilarious. Then after, she askd to add another thing; she said “I grateful for doctor.” We thought she meant the doctor at her check up, so we said “we love our doctor.” She then clarified: “I grateful doctor take me from Mommy belly – we had made our annual visit to the NICU – still, how sophisticated is that?