Category: Curie

So perhaps it is because May the Fourth is around the corner but most likely it is a coincidence, but Albert showed parts of Star Wars: The Force Awakens to Curie (and Elia) this month. We started with Rey and Finn in the Millennium Falcon with Albert holding Curie as he does  playing rocketship and mimicked the movements on the screen. She, of course, loved it; but here is the thing, she loved it even more because the main character was a girl, and strong, and in charge, and as parents, we loved that even more. Continue reading “Curie April 2016”

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. Continue reading “Curie March 2016”

When drinking her lemonade, Erin overheard Curie say quietly, “I’m going to drink my potion now.”

It is a relief to hear such things in a day and age of screen time and unscheduled programming, even if it did seem a little sinister. Just the fact that she is using her imagination is a relief and a breath of fresh air. These days Legos are kits rather than conduits for imagination, but it is imagination that we want for our kids.

Curie loves the wicked queen from Snow White (no she has not seen the movie, but YouTube has told her who she is), but only because she has a pretty crown, so it was a bit of a surprise that she was muttering to herself about potions. Continue reading “Curie February 2015”

How do we describe what it is like in the Chen household these days?  Just look at the picture of Curie and Elia in their striped Dr. Seuss pajamas mugging for the camera. And for Curie, she has started posing with her cheek to her shoulder as her go-to pose.

While there are still the requisite “that’s mine!” or “no Elia!” the kids are playing together now all the time now. Curie will jump off the couch, prompting Elia to do so also, they both stand and hold the back of the recliner and rock vigorously on it singing “Row, Row, Row your Boat” at the top of their lungs. When they are excited they make the seventies “whoop whoop” disco noise together – usually at around 11 PM when everyone else is asleep. They are having a grand ole time together, and (for now) where Curie leads, Elia follows. Continue reading “Curie January 2016”

The night before Christmas, because Santa is over-busy getting presents to the kids who truly need it, Curie spent an hour helping him (no this is not going to rhyme), like all families should help him, by filling up the stockings so that Santa wouldn’t have to do it. She took her responsibility very seriously and put fruit, cookies, and snacks into each person’s stocking, taking the time to be thoughtful listening to us about who liked which kind of snack: “Poppop loves Oreos,” so she put two packs into his stocking and so on.

Christmas morning, she woke up at 7:30 and asked to be carried to the basement to see if Santa had come. Erin made sure not to put out any presents until the morning so that it would be magical. Because Albert’s family had never really done the “big” Christmas, he didn’t really understand the importance of the big reveal until he saw the look on Curie’s face with all the wonder and magic that you presume in a Christmas television special. Elia’s own wonderment fed off of Curie’s excitement. The magic of the moment (intentionally not captured on film so that we could experience our children’s reaction without having to see it through a view finder) was worth the trouble. And what Albert realized was that magic and the actual opening of the gifts were more important to Curie than any toy that she actually received.

This month, was all about the anticipation of Christmas for Curie, learning to sing “Rudolph,” then watching it, pointing out trees decorated with lights, and insisting on colored lights (for the first time for us) because she didn’t like white lights for decorations. Curie took it upon herself to turn on and off the Christmas tree lights every day as her responsibility.

On Elia’s birthday, Curie was so excited for her, however she did feel a little jealous of the attention and wanted to open a few presents of her own. Fortunately we did get her a little present of her own, and Elia was generous in letting Curie “help” her open her presents.

One of Curie’s “best friends in the whole wide world,” Bella turned 13 this year and babysat (with her parents) Curie and Elia this month giving us one of the first date nights since Elia was born to see Spectre in the theater. It was weird, but they had a great time. Bella also babysat the kids to let us see Star Wars on opening weekend (Erin is obsessed with Rey, BTW). In any case, on Christmas Eve, we saw it again at the Udvar Hazy Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in IMAX 3D on the 6 story screen with Erin’s family. We did it in two shifts so that we took care of the kids. While there, Curie was amazed by the space shuttle Discovery, reportedly commenting on how big the wings were. She even corrected her aunt Julie’s choice of “space man” with “astronaut.” After the movie, we went to the gift shop and Curie gravitated toward a plastic model of the Discovery. She said to Albert, “this is so cool,” and though she played around with many toys, she kept coming back to the model; four times. So we bought it for her. When your daughter expresses an interest in space and math, you just buy it right?

At home we ended up watching episodes 4, 5, and 6 (boycotting Episode 1 and subsequently its brethren after a few minutes of watching it). While we were watching them, we were eating snacks and Curie was eating the Cheez-Its. Erin’s mother loves Cheez-Its and asks us not to buy them because she will eat a whole box in one sitting. So Erin’s mother decides that she wants some Cheez-Its, and asks Curie for the box. Curie, who had stopped eating them at that point looks around the room. We thought she was looking for the box. Instead she says, in perfect timing, “where is my light saber?” And proceeds to find it, open it and protect the box from Erin’s mother. Best line of the night for us.

Other things in passing: we discovered the reason that Curie doesn’t like grape flavored candy even though Curie’s favorite color is purple. She was able to tell us that it was because it tastes like the medicine we give her when she has fevers, which is grape-flavored. This is remarkable because you usually are too young to remember the association and only know that you don’t like it, much less articulate it. Another thing is that she has begun telling Albert that his belly looks like he is having a baby, and tells him he should exercise (BTW “daddy’s big tummy” is a phrase from Peppa Pig used as a secret password in an episode and now used instead of “please” when you say “what do you say?” When she asks for something). Not only that, she then says, “you should play racquetball with Uncle David,” matter-of-factly. And yes Albert could stand to lose a few pounds.

The remarkable part, outside of outing Albert’s lack of fitness, is that the following morning when Curie had woken half-asleep and crying that Albert was able to recount her conversation with him about his big tummy and in a rational discussion, was able to instantly calm down to where she told explained to Erin that Albert needed to go play racquetball to exercise because he looked like he was having a baby instead of what you might expect: not remembering the conversation at all, being emotional and wailing that Daddy shouldn’t go. She is at an age where she throws micro tantrums and whines when she wants something, but there is also a very rational young lady in there that is learning and testing and discovering. We will only know that we did it right when we are 80 (okay Erin will be 80, Albert may never know) but just that glimpse of her rational self makes us hopeful.

BTW there are two versions of the collage for December. One used in the grandparents’ photobooks because they were made early in the month and this one.

Oh, and the head tilt is one of the poses that she learned from the photographer at school after which she showed Erin how to pose for pictures.

There was an article recently in the Washington Post on what to do when you think the world is a terrible place and number 2 is to watch kids play;  when we are down, watching Curie and Elia play is an astonishing salve for the soul (and those of you without kids can come over and spend time with ours), and gives us some perspective.

Curie is growing up a lot, you don’t see it as much in the pictures as you do with Elia, but she is becoming more sophisticated and endearing. We saw “Inside Out” at a theater that serves food and shows older films. Elia fell asleep, but Curie, having seen it before and knowing it was Bella’s first time watching it (Bella is 13 mind you), held Bella’s hand at the scary parts and hugged bella when Bing Bong died. At the beginning of the movie, we were afraid it might be too much for Curie, so we asked her to take care of Bella, and even though it was Albert’s suggestion, she did, she took the responsibility to take care of her friend and held her when Bing Bong died. How amazing is that?

She loves taking care of Elia and one night asked Erin to tell her when Elia woke up crying because she wanted to take care of her little sister. She kept trying to stay awake waiting for Elia to cry but ended up falling asleep next to her. Another time, Albert was having a bad day and though we try not to burden our kids with issues they don’t need to carry, they can sense when something is wrong. Albert was sad, and Curie came up to him, spontaneously gave him a hug and asked why he was sad.

She is still very much the four-year old though, learning to somersault, jumping down three stairs at a time, pretending she is a frog and shouting “ribbit!” The frog is particularly cute because she sets up with her hands in front of her before making her leap each time.

At Thanksgiving, she worked very hard to keep up with her older cousin’s play, and they were great for the most part in including her. With their help, she won at bingo, played Tenzi, and judged the drawing contest with her Ah-gong. When the family went out for a walk and run, we split up onto two groups, with us being the walking group and Bernard and Agnes and the older kids being the running group. Somehow as we got ready, Curie was playing and ended up running with the running group. Agnes said that when they started Curie bolted at full tilt for two blocks, making everyone take her pace, before she ran out of steam. She took charge of the Frisbee and threw it quite a bit, and on the playground she did not hold back playing. When the kids did not put her name on the list for the ping-pong tournament, she went to Erin sad, but when Erin put her down as the special helper she was elated, and told everyone.

At the Thanksgiving meals, beautifully hosted by Ed, Suephy, Jared, and Dylan, she discovered that she loved ham and baked potatoes in addition to turkey and steak, and of course pumpkin pie. She had learned that she loved turkey when she and Albert spent Thanksgiving lunch at her school together. One of the best parts of Thanksgiving for Albert’s mom was to spend time teaching Curie to draw. Curie was patient and responsive and they learned to draw rainbows together. Albert’s mom was most impressed that Curie not only knew her colors, but in what order they went on the rainbow.

Curie still gets frustrated and whines as a four year-old  might, but she is learning, becoming more patient, and discovering she can do new things. She is proud that she can do Velcro for instance, something that we thought she knew, but she made it a point to show us. She and Erin learn a new word each night to write and is delighted when we show how proud we are of her. Someone on a blog on Facebook wrote that children just want to see that you are delighted to see them, and that is true. She wants Julie to babysit, she saw Tangled, and Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo. Oh, and she saw Frosty the snowman at Thanksgiving.

And then, she is funny in other ways. We have this restaurant we like called Pho Factory near us which opened when Curie was born. Curie loves the owner and always wants to go to “Andy’s restaurant,” which refers to Andy’s other restaurant Eden Kitchen instead of Pho Factory because there is a waiter who loves Curie, but talked too much to her and made her uncomfortable. Well that waiter is no longer at the restaurant and though we told Curie this, she still refused to go. Then one day when we were deciding where to go, Curie suggested Pho Factory because she knew it was Andy’s restaurant and close. She was nervous about going but told us she wanted to go anyway’ that was particularly sophisticated to us.

Maybe its because it was just Thanksgiving or perhaps it is because of the challenges of the year, or simply its the holiday blues (or perhaps it is because Susan Sarandon said there was going to be a segment on it on NPR through PRI), but the idea of gratitude has really hit home as of late.  There is no mistake that life can be seen as finding our way through suffering but the concept of gratitude really drives home the idea of joy and peace. In our times of angst, we often think that if only we had “x” or “y” then we would be cured or saved, when in reality it takes a fundamental change in your heart to effect that change. Each and everyone of us has a different support structure that could be pets, or friends, or faith, or community, for some of us with kids, it is parenting and the idea of parenting – and as a result the appreciation of having been parented. Before this becomes too preachy, suffice to say that our lives have been greatly enriched by Curie and Elia, and it is remembering all these little things that happen that drive these writings and how long they have become. Thanks for reading.