A sign of our times perhaps, but one of Curie’s milestones is that she can make Alexa work on her own with voice commands. When we first got the Amazon Echo, Curie would try, but her voice was too high or something and Alexa would not respond. Elia still can’t reliably make Alexa respond. It is similar to the remote control, Curie is proud of the fact that she can turn on, select the kid’s profile, find a show, select an episode and fast forward, reverse, and pause or play her show. We are just starting to teach Elia.
Seriously though, Curie’s reading has really gotten better. Albert has been worried that she just memorizes the books as the teacher reads them and uses the pictures for context, but one day Curie was trying to sound out a word but then held up a finger and said “eagle eye” and looked to the picture to figure it out – it stands to reason then that using the pictures for context is a technique being taught to read. The kids have a book they work with with the teacher and then they are expected to read that book to us and explain what the book is about for comprehension.
Curie’s coloring and drawing have also exploded. She is meticulous now in her coloring rather than just coloring over a picture – meaning she can color within the lines and fill the drawing. Albert though, afraid that she might be limiting herself by coloring in the lines taught her to add pictures to a coloring book page (at Chuy’s) so now Curie asks for Albert to draw extra pictures on a restaurant picture to color (Albert’s parents would tell him that coloring books were not as good as drawing your own picture and coloring them). She is also more sophisticated in her drawing. She drew a bear and a rabbit the other day that were impressive and likes to draw things for Elia as presents.
Curie is very self-aware at her humor. In Elia’s blog we wrote about how Elia wrote a letter to her teacher after seeing that Curie was writing one to hers; in it she described herself as, “I am smart and I am helpful.” After hearing that Elia had written that, Curie smiled mischievously and decided to write, “I ate a lot today” in response; it cracked us up.
She loved discovering that the Woodie Guthrie book was actually a song and so we sing every verse of “This Land is Your Land” when we read this to the girls (one verse doesn’t seem to quite work but that could be that we don’t know how it is supposed to go). Curie also discovered that “Puff the Magic Dragon” is a song and we sing that too, but we do not explain the references to the kids.
Curie has her yellow belt now and during the test we realized that she is still the smallest one testing but now she can bend her elbows with her pads. She can do full-on push-ups and sit-ups and has very impressive form with her kicks. She knows where to go and follows instruction well but most importantly, she is very proud of her accomplishments in her martial arts. During the test she sparred with kids her size and belt, but was also asked to spar with a taller girl with a blue belt twice her size, and yet she did not flinch and gamely attacked and defended. Martial arts has been very good for Curie and Elia in her Belle dress is still ready to begin Tigers (Tiger Tots).
Curie loves buying lunch at school and having money to buy snacks at martial arts wanting to have larger bills than the one dollars she has. She loves pizza day on Friday because she gets to buy but on the occasions we didn’t make her lunch, she has had chicken and waffles where she only eats the chicken. It happened twice coincidentally and she held up her finger and again said “really?!” We will find her with odd snacks or drinks that she buys from martial arts – something that is a good socialization thing where she feels independent and able to do what the older kids are doing. On a teacher in-service day, Curie was going to go with Erin to her work so that she wouldn’t have to watch the movie at Martial Arts Camp which can be scary for her; Albert had talked to her about the scary parts or not watching the movie and had suggested that she could bring the iPad and headphones perhaps to block out the sound. Interestingly, Curie, who had been wanting to go with Erin to work, got upset that she wasn’t at Martial Arts watching the movie, because she wouldn’t get to use her electronics in the back like the older kids. Very interesting!
So she is scared of some shows. Mostly when characters do something wrong and have to face the consequences but also in traditionally scary parts even if she has seen the shows before. It is interesting because she loves to watch Voltron and Ninjago which are scarier than, say, My Little Pony or True. We did got to the My Little Pony Movie which had scary parts so much that Elia shut down and slept and Albert got a nap in.
In recent days, when we are running behind getting ready to catch the bus, Albert will pull the sides of Curie’s hair together in the back in a pony tail variation which Curie really likes – and she doesn’t like to put her hair up at all. So she said “Daddy do my hair, mommy says daddy your job is to do my hair from now on.” The syntax is from some baby talk her friend Etta likes to use from time to time.
Curie turned six and had a Voltron and Wonder Woman party at Flight. She had both pre-school friends and school friends attend. Navi, and Richard, and Liam fought for her attention and she took great pains to take care of Elia. We asked for no presents, but she got some anyway, and the big thing she got from the family was a fully transforming Voltron which she let Elia have the blue lion because (spoiler alert) Elia loves that the princess pilots it after season 3. And that is just it, Curie, on her day had no problem that Elia wanted her own cake complete with blowing out candles at the same time. She defends Elia from other kids, shares when Elia seems unhappy (as long as Curie is not tired), and though will find it unfair if Elia gets something she doesn’t, recognizes that to be beautiful is to be kind not only in her mind, but in her actions as well.