The longest stretch that Elia wanted to wear her Belle dress was something like 45 days with a few gaps in the middle when it was not practical like birthday party at a jump place or trampoline place (BTW the only other outfit that she would choose to wear was her Batman one – teachers say for Elia every day is dress up day); we talked about whether we had to do something about it but decided that it was a phase and she would decide at some point to change her mind. Much like Curie with Natalie and Chloe driving her flamingo dress to be Elsa, the friend dynamics really influences what Elia wants to wear – and her friends. By letting Elia wear the Belle dress, other parents have had to let their kids wear other dresses, most notably Samira wearing her Cinderella dress. So one day, Elia says that her dress doesn’t twirl so we put her Moana dress with a tutu on, she goes to school and it must have been a hit because she has asked for the Moana dress more often.
Lately Elia has a rotation of Moana, a new Minnie dress that twirls, Elsa, and Belle. oh, and Batman too. She also has a full belle gown that she can’t wear to school, but likes to wear at home when playing with Curie (Curie wants her purple dress all the time, so they are wearing their favorite colors).
Elia is fully potty trained but went through a bed wetting phase, once even deliberately going in front of Erin, but with coaxing and reminding her to go right before bed, it has not been very often lately. She does wake up crying on occasion and wets the bed, but we realized that she wakes up needing to go but can’t wake up enough to go and is crying because she is holding it, so Albert will take her half asleep to the potty to go and she will calm down.
Elia has taken to sleeping with Albert in the guest room while Erin and Curie sleep in the master bed room. Elia had been sleeping with Erin and Curie, but would wait until everyone was asleep and then come downstairs to find Albert to need to go to the bathroom one last time or see what he was doing. She would ask to go to the potty three times before bed, so Albert began taking her to the guest room and laying with her until she slept. We have had to buy new mattresses in the guest room so that it would be more comfortable (sorry guests from before).
It is perhaps that Albert is up or that he is part of her driving routine, but Elia has been wanting Daddy a lot lately. It used to be that the girls would want Albert when they were rested, but Erin when they were tired, but Elia has drifted to Albert in the past month and will drift again we are sure. It is hard when a child prefers one parent to another and even knowing it is a phase doesn’t help a whole lot in feeling left out. Curie, perhaps in response, has been asking Erin for play dates and school visits. Albert does let Elia do things that Erin had not, like letting Elia push the last two digits on the security code at school and the pound sign, or letting her sign herself in. Albert lets the kids sign the credit card machine and lets Elia scan items at Target with the hand held scanner. In fact, Elia prefers the purple car to the yellow car because she associates it with fun going to Target and Safeway when Albert drives them home.
Here is an off color tidbit, Curie once noted that she pees before she poos (pee comes before poo), Elia tends to poo a little bit when she pees, so learning to wipe has been harder. She also notes what color her pee is since we tell the kids that if it is yellow that they need to drink more. She says her pee is white and she doesn’t need to drink as much or says it is “lello (a la Curie)” and saying she does need to drink more.
We mentioned in our last blog post that Curie has been able to make Alexa work, Elia made Alexa work too (a rite of passage) but can’t do it reliably yet. As with Curie, she loves reading and singing This Land is Your Land, and is hilarious when she reads books to you. Right before the last page of Pout Pout Fish, she says, “you know this is my favorite page, are you ready?” flips the page and says “I love it! Ahh.”
Elia is finding her boundaries and shaping her opinions, she likes cold water and likes white Kit Kats, she like Sprite and chocolate milk (but really likes the water more), she likes french fries and likes ketchup. Some of her tastes follow Curie and other decisions are explicitly the opposite of Curie’s but she is finding what she likes.
The following are recaps of things we posted to Facebook about Elia of note:
Albert says to Elia, “Come here, Do you know what makes you so pretty? Its your beautiful smile. Do you know what makes you so beautiful, it is all of the wonderful things you do. Come here, it isn’t the dress you wear that makes you so great it is everything you are that makes you wonderful.” And Elia’s beaming smile is priceless.
Servio, yesterday Elia showed her frisbee side arm is straight and true (though she can’t throw cross yet) what training does she need? Frisbee golf? Just kidding.
Elia (age 3) picked out her bedtime stories for tonight. In order of her preference, they are:
1. Ender’s Game
2. Ender’s Shadow
3. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
5. Catcher in the Rye
In general, Elia is at a fantastic age where she will laugh hysterically at the smallest things, have wonder in what she sees, and hold you close to keep you near. Curie and Elia love the line in Voltron when Hunk says “they keep coming!” and when Lance shoots the door, they will hold up her thumb and say “a ha!” with Hunk at the same time. Elia in particular likes that the Princess became the paladin of the blue lion and has claimed the blue lion as hers (Curie has also let her be the blue lion which was touching and amazing). At Curie’s party, Elia insisted on her “Minnie” party and had a full cake (with a number 2, even though she is three and turning four) along with Curie (again the fact that Curie wanted to share the day was both sensitive and considerate – beautiful). At Curie’s sixth year checkup, Elia insisted on wearing a paper gown with Curie, and our pediatrician Dr. Dierks, who is amazing, pretended to examine her when she examined Curie. We wanted to have someone for Curie to play with when we had Elia (which sounds like we wanted to have a kid for Curie,) but the fact that they are becoming their own people and wanting to be with each other has been amazing.