Category: Elia Months

On Feb 6, Elia says “love” for the first time in the form of “love you dada.” Granted, it sounded more like “Louu Daddai,” but it was still there. Elia has then progressed to “seyou,” which means “see you soon,” followed by “Louu Daddai!” She is conversational with: “Dada, fix mama phone,” or “Mama, snow falling outside! There’s snow.” And every time she walks outside she will say “Wow! Snow!” She will even call Poppop by herself and have a full conversation with him, albeit, that she will answer yes and no questions. She likes to call us “guys (dai’s),” and knows her colors now through green and orange (green used to be white). She can also count to 10 by herself (credited to Curie and Jake and the Neverland Pirates).

She has her own personality, opinions, and temperament, so much that she has been practicing her eye roll. She loves playing “Row, row, row, your boat,” riding Curie like a horse when they play train,  and kissing you on the lips by holding your cheeks so that you can’t turn away. Continue reading “Elia February 2016”

Elia turns two; she’s 22 pounds, two feet eight inches tall, proud, and opinionated. The transition from bundle of joy to dynamite in a small package has been no more apparent than in her communication and her desire to be represented in every facet, whether it is taking a turn at whatever Curie is doing (regardless if she is too small) to wanting to eat what everyone else is having. If she can’t have it she will let you know with everything from “pease?” to her angry dance which can only be described as the “Jack Black dance” where she rocks her whole body from side to side as she stamps her feet. Continue reading “Elia January 2016”

So Elia kind of exploded this month, she went from single word diction to two word sentences; Elia started to string words together on December 4th: “Dada, up,” “hi Da,” “off mine,” “bye Da.” Then on December 7th, started chaining three words: “mine, shoes, on.”

She now calls herself “Yeh-yeh” for Elia, and will call herself “me” on occasion – a sophisticated turn of events. Another sophisticated change: she asked “why” for the first time when I said we needed to change a light bulb. At the beginning of the month, all colors were “yellow,” but now she says “blue,” and “purple” (and “yellow” has become “wellow”). She loves to pull a pillow up onto her chest and say “night!” As if it is a blanket. And over Thanksgiving, she learned to count with her Ah-ma, Albert’s mother; if you say “one,”  she’ll say “tu!” Then on December 8th she said three, though it sounded more like “door,” but it follows one and two each time.

And the vocabulary keeps coming. With Curie we wrote down every word, but Elia keeps saying new things that we can’t keep up. One of the car games we play to limit screen time is to see what word Elia will say if you say it (an Elia claps for herself after every word). Curie loves it, and so Elia will repeat many words that she is just learning, but she is definitely making the association.She picked up a noodle and said “noodo,” and now when we ask her what she wants to eat, she says “noodo,” or “rice.” When she is hungry she says “eat,” when she wants to take a bath she says “bath” and starts to take off her clothes. She holds the camera and says “cheese,” and sits on her bike and says “bike.” In the morning if you say “good morning,” she will say “morning.”

She loves buses, and will say “bus” when a bus, van, or train comes by, and then follow it with “mine,” meaning that she loves them we think, or she actually believes they are hers. When she sees a train, she pumps one fist in the air and yells “tu-tu!” At school, she apparently says “not nice,” when something happens that is not in her favor. We hadn’t heard it at home, so it goes to show that there are things that she doesn’t like at school and is expressing herself – in fact the teacher said that she says it all the time. Now, Julie says that Elia is ahead of the other kids at school, and Elia does sit more quietly and behave; Erin saw this at the Thanksgiving lunch where Elia was the only one not knocking over her milk and plate.

Our favorite game is in the car recently. Albert will say “are we there yet?” And Curie and Elia will yell “No!” Every time. Even when we are not in the car, if you ask “are we there yet?” They will yell “no!” It makes for great pictures. If you receive our Holiday Card, that is how we got her to yell in Santa hat picture. She talks on the phone and calls Poppop, Erin’s dad by finding his picture on the phone and pushing it. She will say “hi papa,” answer yes and no questions, then say “bye, papa.” Erin’s dad has been a trooper taking the calls.

And it is not just her vocal development. She loves to dance, copies somersaulting from Curie, and loves to clean up after everyone after dinner, and wants Albert to toss her in the air and help her do flips.  She started scooping rice with her chopsticks at HotSPot, didn’t need to nurse on the plane, and loves to peel oranges (clementines). She is also not as afraid of “Speck,” the Hoaglands’ great dane as much as she used to be. She is more opinionated and will want to choose her food and will say “no,” when you suggest something she doesn’t want to do. Oh and she wants to wipe her own bum too.

Last month we reported that Elia’s favorite film was “Feast.” the other day Elia put took her bowl from the table and wanted to eat on the floor like the Winston in the movie. She pretends to be a dog and Curie pretends to be a cat.

Elia is the youngest cousin on Albert’s side of the family, and Erin’s sister has not had any children yet which means that the closest in age on Albert’s side is 8 years, and a minimum of 4 years on Erin’s side we estimate; so she is a bit in no man’s land for people to play with. Erin does have a cousin whose youngest is a year older than Elia, but the last time they met, that cousin took toys away from Elia and uncharacteristically pushed her down (admittedly this was when Elia was a one year old and could probably hold her own better now). Her parents said that the cousin normally doesn’t have kids smaller than her so it was an interesting circumstance.

Another thing happening is that Curie received a lot of gifts and toys that have become shared toys in the house. Elia has a slide, a bike, a car, etc…. and she does not hesitate to claim things as hers. But there are few things bought just for her. She has become aware of equality in gifts too, not in value yet, but in what she receives she was aware that Albert bought Curie a clippy doll and Elia the dried strawberries she loves, and while Albert was getting things that each loved, Elia was very aware that she did not receive a clippy doll (that had to be rectified later). So Curie got a play kitchen from IKEA when she was one, and a guitar when she was two. Elia did not get an iconic gift at one in the same way and we did not really know what to get her for her second birthday coming up. Then at Thanksgiving we were visiting Ed and Suephy’s house who were hosting this year and Curie fell in love with a rocking horse that while a little pricey, is totally worth it to see the joy in her face as she rode it. Since then, she has tried to ride the little white horse stuffed animal (smushing it, but undeterred she continued to ride it), and will point out horses in videos and stores when she gets a chance. So yes, we have a daughter who wants a pony.

Albert gets the winter blues because while people are taking the time to remember to be kind and caring, he wishes that it doesn’t take a holiday to make us remember. Another friend has the blues because trying to be thoughtful to everyone is like having everyone’s birthday on the same day and it is hard. We have tried to ask our friends and family to focus less on gifts and more on the spirit of the holidays. We are trying to move away from the commercialism, being caught by the obligation to buy to let people know they are important to us, paying much more for rush shipping to hit this arbitrarily magical day, we want to teach the values of kindness and caring year round, but we want the holidays to be so magical also. Curie is very much into Santa Claus and while this is an Elia blog, we want to share what we told both of them about Santa. Before we were married and before we had kids, we talked about whether we wanted our kids to believe in Santa, and the same concern applied: we didn’t want it to be about gifts, but we did want the magic to be there. So we decided this: Santa (person or concept) needs help to get to everyone because there are so many people, and because there are people who are not as fortunate as others, we (parents and kids) have to help Santa get the gifts and spread the holiday spirit. The other day we explained this to Curie, and you know what? She wanted to help Santa get gifts for our friends and more importantly said that she wanted to help Santa get the rocking horse for Elia’s birthday. Curie is more excited to give Elia the rocking horse than we are, and almost as much as Elia will be when she gets it. Most of the things you presuppose when you don’t have kids yet fall to the wayside when you do, but sometimes it works the way you planned. Happy Holidays.

What a remarkable thing to have your youngest daughter begin to have conversations with you. Elia will respond to questions and ask for things. An example might be when Curie asks to watch something and Elia will chime up with “mine!” meaning “how about me? Where is mine?” We respond with, “Elia would you like to watch too?” to which she says “yes.” “Would you like to watch Harry the Bunny?” She replies “Baby!” meaning “Babies (the French documentary which is her favorite movie – it was Curie’s too at a similar age),” or “Roh roh,” meaning “Feast” or “Ret Roh!” Meaning “Frozen.” She says “yea,'” “What do you say? Say ‘please,'” “P’eas.” “Okay, here you go, say ‘thank you,'” and she says “tu-tu.”

She says “mama” for “Ah-ma,” her maternal grandmother, and when Ah-ma says “do you know I love you?” Elia says, “yes.” She can say “Pa-pa” for “Pop-pop,” and “Anma” for “Grandmom.” She can repeat any word you say, she was yelling “cannonball!” when jumping into her playpen from the bed because Curie was yelling “cannonball!” while doing the same. We play a game in the car called “make Elia say a word,” where you say a word to try to get Elia to repeat it. Her vocabulary is approaching 50 we think.

Her conversation and communication has grown more sophisticated and specific as well. She will go up to Curie and make deliberate eye contact and ask her to do things “ji-ji, jump.” Or she will walk up to Curie and hold out her hand to hold hands when we ask them to while walking. She identifies the little blue push car as hers and the tricycle as Curie’s. When Albert got up at one point to get something, she held her hand out to catch him and push him back down and said “Da, no.” She is attached to Dada lately (Curie went through this phase too, Curie would stand at the top of the stairs and yell “A-Da!” For Albert, just as Erin would) and calls for “Da-da” a lot or will look at Erin and as “Da-da?” To ask where he is.

She is a daredevil still with no fear of any slide. While in California, she would slide down the steepest slides even when other older kids wouldn’t. And after coming down the scary slide she would have a scared look on her face and then ask for “mo” to do it again. Her favorite thing to do on the playground though is to climb up and down the stairs and walk across the bridges and shaky parts independently. We would follow her around the playground to spot her but she just wanted to walk up and down the stairs on her own.

As we said, for Halloween she was dressed up as Elsa like Curie and we would tell people that she was dressed up as Curie. Albert has taken to dressing them up in the same outfits which is something he was not going to do before we had kids. Elia uses more sign language than Curie did because her language development is more normal but because it is more normal, she is starting to act up a bit more as she enters the ‘terrible twos,” a time where kids get frustrated at not being able to communicate yet. Still it is pretty cute, she throws her tantrums flinging herself prostrate on the floor. She blows bubbles into her drink even though she is not supposed to because it is fun. If she doesn’t like a food or drink she has tried, she will just open her mouth and let the food slowly fall from it. She continues to take one bite of each thing and puts it back. She will push Curie down the slide at home if Curie sits too long at the top of the slide with her hands or her head, and she has to be warned not to try to climb up the slide and go around time and again as she tests her boundaries.

At 20 months she has learned to jump to get some air and then land on her butt. She learned to do this on the trampoline but will do it on a bed, or a couch, or a floor with equal abandon. And because Curie has started jumping off stairs Elia does as well – okay one stair but still scary for he parents. Both Curie and Elia like to sit on top of our couch which has a high back and fling themselves off to land on the seats. It was very scary at first, but it is now commonplace for them to do. When Elia would land Erin would make some remark of concern and she would cover her mouth with both hands and laugh rocking back and forth. This was so cute we had to make a video of it.

We should have taken more video and need to take more video. We do a good job documenting our children’s lives through photographs and entries (though we need to go back and write more for Curie’s early ones), but when we unearth a video from even a few months ago, we are reminded of the joy in the timber of their voice and the reactions in the split seconds as they encounter new things. We have a clip or two from here or there (and we know we have lost more than a few), but we need to do a better job capturing some of these memories, or soon all we will have are pictures and unreliable memories to go with them. All of this is because we know that when you have kids, it isn’t so much the beginning of family, but a twenty-year block that you get them, and then they become their own people and have their own families and after that you are alone with each other again and all you have are appropriate, and hopefully often, phone calls and visits, your memories captured in whatever way you did and however you saved them, and, of course, the love in your hearts.

By the time Curie was 22 months, we were already pregnant with Elia. There is not another bun in the oven and that does make us a little sad. It is with that eye that we watch Elia’s growth with that much more sense of holding on.

They say that when kids hit 50 words, their speech explodes. Elia is just at the cusp of this and will repeat almost any word you say to her almost as if she is trying it out. And every new word she learns is an achievement that she indoctrinates with hand clapping and repetition. Just the other day she learned “yellow,” not “lellow” like Curie says, but fully articulated yellow and could identify it as a color. Her face completely lit up and when she knew she had it right and immediately identified a yellow car parked near by. We gave a few more colors, “blue” and “purple,” but these she just repeated without the same depth of understanding.

Curie was speaking at this point, so when we interact with Elia, it is different; there is an amazing and heartwarming mix of non-verbal and verbal communication, somehow more intimate, that makes Elia even more remarkable and cute.

She loves to identify “Jie-jie,” “Mama,” and “Dada,” and when you ask her she will point to them and will point to herself when you ask her to identify “Elia.” Her favorite word is still “My! My!”meaning mine and repeated like the seagulls in Finding Nemo. “Thu-thu,” thank you, “bubbo,” bubble, “mo,” more, “mo-mo” milk. Says “neigh” for horses, “mao” for cats, and “cack” for what ducks say.

Elia knows when we give Curie something first and we have to work on not making her feel like a second class citizen. When we give Curie an iPad, Elia will chime up and say “mine? Mine?” until we give her her own. She asks for “wuff-wuff,” the Disney short Feast, or “Ah-ah,” for Anna or Elsa for Frozen, and asks for “Moue” (the same way Curie used to say it) the most, Mickey Mouse (she can do the little games in the Mickey Mouse Road Rally game). Her favorite show though is Harry the Bunny, which is a little sensory show a couple minutes long that ends with “bye-bye Harry the Bunny, bye-bye funny bunnies,” where Harry waves. Elia waves with him and will run to the TV to point at the icon to play him. Her other favorite show is Play with Me Sesame, which she calls “E-mo,” for Elmo. She will follow Ernie’s instructions looking up and down or raising her thumbs, and she loves clapping along with Grover.

Elia’s “yesh” for yes, has transformed into a “yawp” for yup recently which is accompanied with her single head nod. She understands so much more than before, she loves to clean and will take your plate away from you to put in the sink even if you are not done eating yet. If you tell her to throw something away, she will put it in the garbage. Her OCD makes her ask for napkins every few minutes to clean her hands as she eats, but it does not compel her to use her fork or spoon necessarily. When Erin went on a trip she cried inconsolably, but when we told her “Mama is on a trip,” and she replied “ohh!” as if it was a new thing to comprehend. She understands talking on the phone now instead of someone in or behind the phone.

Elia continues to be fearless, standing on chairs and lowering herself off of high places. She loves to ride on our backs and shoulders, Mama, Papa, and Curie too (well not on Curie’s shoulders). She is fearless on even the tallest slides, and wants to go wherever Curie goes. She IS afraid of dogs though, even though at the same time she will go out of her way to see them. She has been walking into doors and falling a lot recently. She fell off the bed, off a slide, off a chair, the little mark on her forehead is not a shadow, but a bruise that seems to be ever-present.

We waited until the day Curie turned three to give her a hotdog and popcorn, but Elia has already hijacked Curie’s hotdog at 21 months and will eat the entire thing, when Curie will only eat half. She wants her own things now and wants parity if Curie gets something. This has meant that she has claimed the little bicycle in the living room as hers and Curie’s Minnie Mouse jacket as well. At Great Country Farms, when we bought animal food in little sealed cups, Elia needed to have her own which she held like a prized possession. While Curie fed the animals with her feed, Elia clutched the cup in the crook of her elbow and would not give it up. She did not end up using all of her feed.

The best thing recently is when she sings to herself when she doesn’t know anyone is listening. Her favorite song is a rendition of Let it Go that you can just make out. She raises her hand to one side and tries to twirl when she sings, if you catch her she will grin and continue, but when she doesn’t know you are looking, it is positively adorable. Parenting is stressful and you forget to take care of each other as spouses, if you are not careful, you take each other for granted at best and hurt each other at worst. It is balanced by the beauty and joy of children, and we are careful to make choices that protect the family the most. We must practice what we preach – when we tell Curie that beauty comes from within, sometimes that means sacrificing personal ambition and success for the sake of family, and that doing the right thing makes us beautiful right?

Elia has this “hee haw” laugh that is completely unadulterated: “uh hyunh, uh hyunh, uh hyunh.” Not baby-like, not lady-like, more than a snort, all adorable. She often likes to cover her mouth when she laughs with the palm of a whole open hand.

It has been a magnificent month for Elia. At the beginning of the month she began saying “Julie” and “Poppop,” and almost “Grandmom.” She would repeat “merrily, merrily” during Row, Row, Row Your Boat. She was captivated at Thomas Land and would call the trains “tu-tu.” And if it were just that, we would have been happy with her progress.

Something clicked on our trip to New Orleans with Bernard and his family. She began saying “thank you” – “thu-thu” after everything you give her (especially when you are feeding her roasted and cracked watermelon seeds in the car), and most importantly she learned the word “mine,” which sounds more like an abbreviated “main.” Since then, she has become very possessive about everything, though Erin suspects that she has always been possessive, but can only now articulate it. She started to sing “ah town” from Wheels on the Bus for “all through the town,” when we sing it with her, and more impressively, will now sing “Let it go,” to herself spontaneously on her own. She sings a lot of it, but the most recognizable part is “De de doh!”

And Frozen is a funny thing (the worst thing to ever happen to parents according to a father at Curie’s birthday party), you see, Elia thinks she is Elsa too, while Curie thinks she is Anna. So Elia reaches for the same Elsa things as Curie. Also when she says “Ah-ah,” you could interpret it as “Anna,” but she is really saying “Elsa.” When we bought Curie an Elsa dress and t-shirt, we had to buy one for Elia as well; when she put on the shirt she was so proud as she pointed with both index fingers to her belly at the picture on her shirt.

Physically Elia has expanded her dancing to include bouncing with her knees as she dances. She is very musical and will sing and dance at the best times. She also has a great butt shake for “Shake it off.”We are becoming very aware of a second child attention-need thing going on. On our New Orleans trip she loved holding hands with the twins, Eleanor in particular, going so far as to call Eleanor’s name repeatedly when the twins went back to their room.

On the trip, she played with the four stuffed rabbits we brought on our trip by throwing them into the crib as a game, and most interestingly, she was the one holding the little tablet with everyone crowded around her to watch Frozen Fever and loved the attention, so much so that she cried when everyone left. She is able to watch phones and tablets without constantly hitting the screen now, and no longer sweeps food off the table when she is done eating.

Curie’s birthday was a bowling party and we took the kids to the lane to get them used to it before the party. Elia loved it both times. She loves bowling, LOVES the shoes, loves the balls, and loves the video games. She claps and laughs after pushing the ball down the ramp, then bursts into tears when it disappears at the end until the ball shows up again at the ball return and then repeats the whole process. Then again Elia likes playing peek-a-boo, whereas Curie would look at you like, “why are you covering your eyes?”

On Curie’s birthday, Erin’s parents came down and her mother took the kids out to the back to clean the backyard (we still haven’t raked last fall’s leaves) not realizing that Elia is a mosquito magnet, even more than Albert putting her on the low man position when we go out. The doctor has recommended mosquito repellant, but Erin’s mother did not know, so Elia got terrible bites on her arms legs and face. Unfortunately two bites were near her eye where there was a small cut. Despite using hydrocortizone, the next day, Curie’s birthday party day, her eye had swollen almost shut. She looked like Rocky at the end of the first and second and third movies’s fights. We took her to the pediatrician (while still getting Curie’s party going), and got two oral medications, a cortizone and an antibiotic for cellulitis. Poor Elia. The medication is working so she is fine, and she never missed a beat in her good mood. One note, we always have had to fight with Curie to take medicine, but the last time we gave Curie antibiotics, Elia wanted some too, so now that she has medicine, she will take it without hassle.

So it has been a wonderful month. Just the other day she added “yes” to her vocabulary complementing the drawn out and musical “no” she likes to say while she shakes her head. Each new word that Curie hears Curie says “Mommy! She said ‘X,’ that’s her first word!” Which is in and of itself adorable. She is experimenting with climbing stairs while holding hands, she is still scared of the vacuum, she loves taking pictures with the camera. She puts the ball in the basketball hoop, and ate Curie’s hotdog the other day, even though she is not supposed to have hot dogs yet. She loves the shower, she loves the pool, she loves washing her hands. She is so good tempered and it is wonderful to see her and Curie play together.

Bedtime for the kids goes like this. At bedtime, Erin takes Elia up to the room to nurse and sleep. Albert watches Curie, then Curie goes up and wakes up Elia accidentally, so Albert comes up and takes Elia downstairs while Curie goes to sleep. Albert and Elia watch TV together until she gets bored and she takes Albert by his thumb and drags him back upstairs to sleep with Mommy. If Mommy has no yet gotten Curie down to sleep, the process repeats itself. Anyway the point is that at some point Elia will just fall asleep at Albert’s side. She loves to rest her head on his shoulder but there are times where she simply has sidles up to Albert. This month while watching Lilo and Stitch with Daddy late in the night she simply  made sure that her side was touching a part of Albert, and thus secured, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

Elia August 2015. What a great age. Curie sang Elia Twinkle Twinkle Little Star late at night and Elia put her fingers together to do the twinkle then raised them above her arms and sang “ubabubawawahi” which, for those of you non-parents, is “up above the world so high;” it was cute enough to bring tears to one’s eye. We then sang a number of songs where she knew the hand motions, like Itsy Bitsy Spider and most impressively, Wheels on the Bus. Curie loved the song at this age too and did the hand motions, but for those of you who are wont to compare, it was like a first child all over again, because she was just discovering it for herself and the fact that she was so proud made you proud for her. Now, her wheels on the bus is like her “roll it” in Patty Cake, which is as if you were turning a giant set of bicycle pedals with your hands, but not really making a circle – well, more like if she was milking a cow, but for a 19 month old, so very cute.

When you sing or read to her, she wants to do it over and over again. Elia loves to stand on our lap (or Albert’s belly) and hold your hands to sing Row Row Row Your Boat, while she leans way back on each row. She will quietly mouth the words and sing an occasional “woh, woh, woh,” and something that sounds like “merrily.” She still does not talk so much as imitates words or sounds like “bread and butter.” or some song. She does have some new words though, she has added “bye” to “hi” when talking on Albert’s KRZR, and says something like “dada, call,” but we might be reading into it (in fact, Albert has taken to interpreting Elia’s words to whatever they sound like, no matter how off-color). In addition to saying “wuff, wuff, wuff” if you ask her what a dog says, she will say “baa” and “tu tu” for sheep and train respectively. Her favorite book is a Curious George book where she will point out the dog, cat, pigeon, and monkey.

At her last doctor’s visit she is still in single digits in percentile and, while she is okay, the doctor recommended that we add good fats to her diet. She is physically denser than Curie so it is weird to see that she is smaller and lighter. Also unbeknownst to us, Elia’s second group of lower front teeth came in.

Elia’s voice is lower than Curie’s and she definitely wants to do whatever Curie is doing, but does have some of her own things: she loves to play the full piano and will cry when it is time to stop; she will sit in the blue car or on the Kettler tricycle even when it is not moving; and loves her helmet (hats in general) and shoes.

All is not moonlight and roses however, as she went through a biting phase biting both of us separately. Albert on the shoulder and Erin on the neck. She fell down the stairs twice, once head over heels down four stairs and the other down half a flight that Curie saw; she is okay, but what a scare. She has fallen off the bed more than Curie now, and at a restaurant recently, fell off the bench and slipped between the table and the booth hitting her head on the wall. Mosquitos love her even more than Albert (which is amazing) where she had seven mosquito bites on one arm that were inflamed and angry. Elia doesn’t know how to scratch yet, so she would rub her arm like she was trying to take off a long rubber glove.

It isn’t that she is so much the daredevil that she has no fear, she definitely has that, she wasn’t comfortable ice skating (indoors) with either of us until Albert took her out with a hockey stick so she could lean against that in the crook of her underarm pit (Curie used a bucket to push around), so she is definitely afraid, but it might simply be that she wants so much to be able to do what Curie does that she thinks that if Curie can do it, so can she. And so she imitates, and not just Curie; Albert was resting his head with his elbow on the table and his fist against his cheek, and Elia put her own fist against her cheek, albeit without the elbow on the table, to imitate.

Elia loves letting Albert hug her, will climb up in your lap to eat a snack; holds hands with Curie when they walk around; drops (can’t really throw yet) pennies into fountains; bounces superballs – and lets them bounce away until she loses sight of them; picks up bowls and plates half-full of food to clean them up; points to her feet to put on new shoes or socks; points to her head to put on a hat; gives an impish grin, an upturned pout, or simply looks very proud of herself. She understands a lot more than you think, and can close a door, or throw away garbage when asked. She peeks around corners, keeps her fingers from the edge when pushing close a drawer, knows when the oven is hot, and knows how to push the buttons or a screen of a remote or a tablet. She climbs into your lap or up on your chest to rests her head on your belly or shoulder or leg. When she sits eating a popsicle,or watching TV, or reading her own book, she sidles up next to you so that your side is touching her side and without another thought, is very, very, content.

Elia July 2015. What an irresistible little girl. She listens and understands, you talk and she responds, just that little communication has been amazing. The cutest thing has been that she has learned to nod – for those of you without kids, or those of you who have forgotten, nodding is a learned response, and until now, Elia had always shaken her head for “yes” or “no.” Curie nodded with her whole head pivoting at the base of her neck and her shoulders going up when her head went down, sometimes she still does. Elia nods more deliberately nodding with her whole torso with a dip of her chin usually with one single nod rather than the bobbing of the head you would be used to.

Elia’s non-verbal communication has become more sophisticated; in addition to nodding, she points more deliberately: when she sits down, she will point next to her to insist that you sit next to her. She also signs with more meaning: for instance, two index fingers together now means milk specifically.  But it is her verbal communication that is starting to pick up now: she babbles full sentences, and in the most recent days she says “ro ro” for train or rail road, and after her experience in the Beach ball pit, says “ah-bub-ble” for those balls. Upon sliding down the slide, she will say “again, again” or a reasonable facsimile of that.

Most impressive is her musicality. She will sing back little snippets of the Echo song and ABC’s and if you play music she will try to sing along. She pumps her fists to a good beat and has started to twirl to “Let it Go;” at first just holding her hand over her head like a ballerina teetering back and forth, and now in the last few days, will actually turn when the music comes on.

On the Elia Project front: early in the month she started waking up waking up with a dry diaper and waited to potty. She will go if you put her on the potty regularly now and will go reflexively if you put her on the seat. To note, she potties better with Albert than Erin right now, but that could simply be because he spends more time at it than Erin.

Elia has become far more assertive and opinionated now insisting on things and crying dramatically when she can’t have them. She slides down the slide by herself and understands that you have to walk around and go up the stairs again for a second turn, however if Curie is in the way she will try to squeeze by her or if Curie is already at the top of the slide, Elia will push Curie down the slide so that she can have her turn. Curie thinks it is hilarious – fortunately (not so hilarious was their big fight over an umbrella).

Elia’s memory has always been remarkable, but recently we have seen it in action in new ways, she practically flipped out when she saw a merry-go-round in the mall – even though she hadn’t ridden a merry-go-round in months, and when we were in New York riding the ferris wheel in Toys R Us two months after we had ridden it for the first time she pointed with a very worried look on her face while in line at a specific car she wanted to ride (on our first ride we spent the time in line talking about which car we would get). On the topic of Times Square, there are panhandlers there now dressed up as giant babies; this blew Elia’s mind. She pointed very deliberately making strong vocalizations that all was not right with the world.

Elia had to stay home from school with Albert one day recently and the two of them had a daddy-daughter day. After that day, she now loves to be picked up by Albert, and when Curie wants to be picked up by Mommy and she is already holding Elia, Elia voluntarily will reach out for Albert to switch. It is adorable to watch and irresistible for Albert. We spend our times making memories of moments in anticipation of the days when most of our lives are behind us, and these will be left, the pictures we take every day, and the hours we spend writing these moments down document these, the best days of our lives.

Elia June 2015. It’s midnight, everyone else is asleep; we are eating Japanese stacked potato chips watching BBC cartoons in the dark. Elia can’t talk yet, so when she wants another chip she makes the sign for “more” but in her definition it means “I want.” We open the can, she takes two chips from the sleeve in the can puts them on my chest. She takes one and gives it to me, takes the other, leans up against me and takes a little bite. We don’t say a word and once the chips are gone she makes the sign and we open the can for new ones. Little by little, she nestles a little further on my chest and turns her head away from the TV; in moments, she is asleep, and I sit quietly in the dark and appreciate the enormity of my wealth.

On June 14 Elia really started to repeat words like “dog” “woof woof,” the day before she said “water” after seeing a fountain, she says “ah,” when you ask to see her teeth, and “hi” to people, a lot. She sings when she dances with Curie, she dances to any music, and she raises her hands to twirl when she sees Curie do ballet -but doesn’t end up turning. Elia loves to play the piano and cries when you try to pick her up while she is playing it.

She understands very, very, well. She sits when you tell her to sit down. You tell her the pot is hot in the kitchen, she raises her hands and backs away. She communicates with a motion or a look. She points to things she wants, and she cries when she doesn’t want something. Her favorite part of “When you are happy and you know it,” is stomping her feet. Our favorite though, when something is amazing, she claps; and when she the time is right you say “hurray,” and she shoots her tiny fists into the air and shouts “aay!” in return. Hurray!

She loves to drink soup and her spoon work has become amazing. She finally has lower molars, or rather one lower molar and two upper molars, so now can chew. She likes spicy food but will tell you if it is too spicy – spitting it out and wiping her tongue with a paper towel bunched up in her hand. She wipes her mouth and the table with that same napkin. She has graduated from her high chair at home to a toddler IKEA chair, and at restaurants, she gets to choose which kind of chair she wants to sit in. She learned to click a pen, and hold the camera. She works on the keyboard, and loves books. She draws and writes, and of course goes on the potty. June 6 first time on the potty, no. 1, June 10, no. 2; in eight days, five successful events, two blanks, one misfire. She can’t talk but she will point to her diaper and it is time to go or time to be changed.

Ever since we went for the walk with the tandem tricycle, Elia has been sitting on the tricycle in the basement waiting for us to go back out or in the little car that Curie loves so much. She asks to play tent with the covers even though it has been months since we last played tent. She loves trains after going to Strasburg and says “too-too” when riding the train, and says “vroom” pushing chuggers on the carpet. At her doctor’s visit she recognized the nurse from the previous visit and remembered it was the same one who gave her her shots – and was afraid. The doctor saw her pout and begin to cry and was amazed that she remembered. She waves at dogs but is scared of them when she gets too close, the cat at the Hoaglands made her cry. She waves at babies, and waves goodbye; she flirts then turns shy when you catch her looking.

Elia hugs Curie in the morning and gives hugs to everyone at bed time. The girls play a lot; Curie is a lot more patient and Elia interacts with Curie more. She draws when Curie draws, gets a turn walking on walls because Curie does; they cleaned up the blocks together and, at the bath, learned to squirt water from the rubber ducky first accidentally into her own face, then into Curie’s. Her laughter is infectious when she does it. She likes to pour water over Curie’s head even when it is un-asked for.

So Elia is growing and it is amazing. Our favorite this month? Elia sits on Albert’s chest facing him reaches down and grabs his shoulder and tries to pick him up to go down stairs. Albert goes along with it and Elia dutifully makes the “this is heavy” grunting noise and is delighted to find that it works. She then sits in Albert’s elbow, waves good bye, to everyone else, and then the two of them go downstairs, sometimes at midnight, to watch BBC cartoons in the darkness, and somewhere, in the glow of the TV, there is a can of Japanese stacked potato chips just waiting to be shared.