Category: Elia Months

We’re working to get caught up in our blogging. At this time it is May 17, and we are nine blogs behind. We have never been this far, and for history sake we should explain that Albert’s job is in existential concern, and the start of the pandemic has made it hard to keep everything going. In early March Erin fell and got hurt which also lent to just doing the minimum to have enough brain space to get things done. We have not updated our picture gallery since November also, which will have to wait until we get caught up in some writing. The worry is that we keep not remembering because we are always behind. One plan is to write the current blog and catch up slowly on these. We have not started that yet.

Continue reading “Elia January 2020”

“It’s snot, It’s not. It’s NOT! It’s SNOT! It’s not snot, It’s NOT! It’s SNOT!” This is Albert and Elia’s conversation for almost 20 minutes in the car driving Curie nuts, driving Erin nuts. “It’s snot….” Peals of laughter goading each other on. “It’s not…” Doesn’t matter where or when, they will start and get frustrated protests from the other two. If Elia is upset or crying or anything, Albert just has to make a potty joke and she will burst out laughing. And if you say anything like “It’s not funny…” Watch out because you may just start them off again. Continue reading “Elia December 2019”

It takes time to blog and often you find yourself months behind in the work. The end of the year is weird for Elia’s blog as you will find Halloween in her November blog, Thanksgiving in her December blog and her birthday and Christmas in her January blog. Perhaps it is time to cycle the blogs together but for now this is how it is. For Halloween, we had inclement weather so we took the girls to Pentagon City Mall to trick or treat. Elia was Jasmine and Curie was Cinderella/and the Fairy Godmother. We had a great time actually (except forgetting that we don’t like the Chinese street food restaurant there) with most stores participating and being good sports. The best was the Lego store but the kids got a pretty good haul. Continue reading “Elia November 2019”

We may need to rotate Elia’s blog to the beginning of the month or at least title it differently since Halloween is at the end of October and will show up in November’s blog. We are also so far behind in blogging that it doesn’t matter as much to try to write a blog every 15 days. In any case, Elia continues to define her personality and her self. She tries hard to be funny, and can largely laugh at herself if she is laughing already. If we tell her she is cute or funny though, she can give us a “doo-doo face.” She likes to tell you to “look at my booty,” or say “a’ight” for “all right.” She continues to have a facility for dancing and loves to sing to songs on the “radio.” Continue reading “Elia October 2019”

So Elia starts kindergarten. We pause for a moment and recognize what a big change this is for her. When Curie went to kindergarten Elia cried when Curie got on the bus because she couldn’t get on the bus. Elia was nervous and Curie told Elia that she was nervous when she got on the bus the first time, something she never told us. But Elia was a trooper and had a great first day. Albert wrote in Facebook that on the drive to work that he was sad that Elia wasn’t in the car anymore and that he missed her. Both of us had tears in our eyes as the bus pulled away. Tears of pride and sadness as the girls grow up and continue to grow up.  Continue reading “Elia September 2019”

So August for Elia stretches from July 16 to August 15, so though she starts kindergarten in August, it won’t be until her September blog that we’ll write about it. The summer went by so quickly. The days are largely about the different camps at Congo, followed by weekends that we try to make meaningful as much as we can. Elia has grown tremendously and has learned to go from camp to camp and learning with the change. She loved being in Great Adventures even more than being in specialty camps largely because she got to spend time with her pre-school friend Ezra. 

Continue reading “Elia August 2019”

Elia’s catch phrase is “doo-doo face.” It comes from when she makes up words when she can’t think of words to say, but has evolved into whenever she wants to be funny and will tell you you have a doo-doo face or she has a doo-doo face. A doo-doo face is what you think it is, revulsion at a food you don’t like, frustrated face, angry face, a face of annoyance, or of disgust. It is a grimace and a contortion usually followed by a burst of laughter. You can say it to her when she is frustrated and it will make her laugh, Continue reading “Elia July 2019”

Elia’s June was all about graduating from K-Prep at Bright Horizons. Erin’s parents came up for the event and we took pictures and video for Albert’s parents. Unlike Curie, who we kept in pre-school up until she went to kindergarten, Elia will be going to camp this summer with Curie. We have some misgivings since Ms. Chelsea is really doing a better job than Ms. Ariel did preparing the kids for kindergarten, and we worry whether or not the repeated changes will be too much for Elia. On the flip side, learning about the changes and adjusting to them is not a bad thing either. In the end she will be okay, but Albert remembers the days at camp feeling awkward and alone. We also discovered that Elia won’t be with Curie at camp as the kindergartners go to the little school rather than the big campus at Congo Camp (spoiler, it is July and this all works out). Continue reading “Elia June 2019”

Elia is growing up, she is getting longer and bigger, heavier to lift, but still a little girl. She is five, and we forget how little they are until they go outside and are around other children. She is about the same as her classmates at school, but that is because she is the oldest of the children there. It is almost graduation time and it is pretty incredible. Just this month, she went to kindergarten orientation where she got to play with toys in Curie’s old room, she is ready to ride the bus, she tells people she is going to go to camp with her sister. We had Curie in preschool all the way until kindergarten started. It helps that Curie has been through this before and Curie is telling her all about what to expect at school, on the bus (Elia gets to get on first, and ride in the front seat), and after school at EMA.  Elia is so excited, and though we know she will work through the new things as we all do, we are so proud that she is looking forward to all of this rather than worrying about it. Continue reading “Elia April 2019”

So kids, as we write this it is already July 6th and we are 5 blogs behind, so in the interest of getting caught up, we will focus mainly on what happened and try to include a few funny sayings as we go. The more we fall behind the less we will be able to capture those funny things, so we want to get caught up.

At this point Elia has not yet finished Bright Horizons and we are worried that she will have a hard time adjusting to camp and then again to kindergarten, that the number of transitions would be a lot for one summer. As we worried, she worked in Ms. Chelsea’s class toward graduation and learned the lines to the Gruffalo play. She actually learned the other students’ lines before learning hers, or rather liked saying the brown mouses’ lines to us as she showed how much she remembered her lines. Continue reading “Elia May 2019”