Category: Elia

Elia April 2015. Just by starting to walk this month Elia somehow stopped being a baby and is a full-fledged toddler – including her run-in with the concrete at the end of the month – at 16 months her center of gravity is still in her head and the stumble turned into a fall. Elia’s motor and cognitive skills just seemed to explode at the same time, it is as if a switch was pulled and all of the sudden she “got it.” When Curie walked she had a similar growth explosion and did many of the same skills that Elia is exhibiting now.

Elia can now do “itsy bitsy spider,” point to her nose or yours when asked, imitates the “Old-MacDonald” cow by kicking when it kicks, started eating off a plate without turning it over (3/29), insists on using a fork even for soup. In addition, she loves to write and draw, stands up to give Curie a hug when asked, and sometimes when she is not asked, cries when something is taken away from her and will do things to simply crack herself up. She is so proud of herself when she stands on wobbly things, pulls off her socks, or eats a popsicle by herself.

When she laughs these days, she will wrinkle her nose and cover her mouth with one or two hands as if to say “oh my goodness!” Elia loves to dance to almost any music, but she especially likes to dance to “Creature Report” from the Octonauts, and does so with multiple dance moves. If she drops something or someone has an accident, she will say “uh oh!”

Elia loves to climb up onto stools, chairs, and her high chair either to sit or stand and rock holding the back of the chair. We began moving turning the stool over and moving it away from counters to discourage her, but she has begun lifting the stool (this would be like us moving a 60 inch TV by ourselves) and moving it into position so that she can stand up at the counter.

Elia has become afraid of dogs and cats, but more attached to family and teachers. She transitioned from the infant classrom to the flex classroom, but we find her with her infant classroom teacher often. Recently she has been spending time with Albert and wouldn’t let him go at the end of a night, or when she is off to school, or even when he leaves a room. She will imitate whatever Curie is doing to the best of her ability including holding the camera to her face. She even loves to pick up the D700 and try to move it around. 

These last few weeks have been particularly hard for us, but the silver lining is that we are stronger as a family, watching less TV, eating better, and getting good exercise in. We cherish the importance of family and the perspective that it is so important. We have only 15 years, 5,475 days until Curie goes off to college 6205 until Elia does (Erin read an article about counting down the days to appreciate the time you have now); considering how fast this much has gone already, it will be done in a heartbeat, and we will be old with only memories of moments to cherish. The point is this, life is hard but it gives us family to keep perspective, experience love on many levels, and appreciate the good things of what life has to offer.

Elia March 2015. Having children is like being on the cusp of something amazing almost every day. It may be as simple as Elia learning to climb down stairs butt first, or using a fork, or sitting on real chairs, but it is amazing nonetheless. On the other end, Elia officially walked March 13th at day care – because Erin saw it, but so far Albert has not. The staff of daycare was waiting for Erin to tell her when she went to pick her up.

And while walking is amazing and the milestone people are expecting, it is not the one we track and are most amazed about. Erin’s favorite thing is to put Elia in back of her and say “where’s Elia?” and Elia will put her hands on your back, lean over so you can see her face with a big grin, as if to say “here I am!”

Albert’s favorite thing is watching Elia try to open something, a bottle, an Easter egg or something where she will grunt like it takes great strength, but not actually try harder – she thinks the grunting noise is what opens things. It is like when Curie was one and would make the sneezing sound to get the “boogies” to come out of her nose because she knew that when she sneezed, it would blow her nose. False cause and effect; she does this with the remote too, she points the remote at the TV and expects something to happen. When she hits a button and something actually does happen she cracks herself up.

Curie’s favorite thing is to ask Elia to kick and she kicks her feet while sitting down a la the “Old MacDonald” cow we mentioned earlier. We will soon have to have a full family kick fest. We ALL love eliciting kisses and hugs from Elia on demand – Curie especially though. You say “kisses!” and she will kiss you. You say “hugs!” and she will hug you. She understands far more than you suspect.

Elia gets jealous of parent time with Curie now, she gets angry when she doesn’t get what she wants and cries angry too. She definitely has opinions as well; shaking her head if she doesn’t like a particular food or toy. She is intensely curious, and learning by mimicking; she will type on the keyboard simply because we do.

Elia likes to feed people by fork, or straw, or hand putting out the item until you either eat it or pretend to. She can say “apple” and “water” and “Momma” and “Dada” and Jie-jie.” She holds the camera as if to take a picture, she pushes the stroller, or shopping cart, or bike around to practice walking. She looks at books quietly to herself, and pushes her way to get the prime spot sitting between your legs or leaning against a parent, often eliciting indignation from her sister.

So Elia is 15 months now, not yet in size three diapers (massive mistake when we tried it), just in 12 month clothes, her boots fall off her feet, her hands get lost in her coat. She is a peanut, but proud and full of life, happy, full of laughter, opinionated, willful and strong. Everything you want your child to be.

Reporting on the parenting: we are doing well – recently, acknowledging that the difficulties of being C-level parents has meant that there will be days we get a “C” on our parenting, means that we are more apt to forgive one another for the little frustrations that a sane, rested, fed, unstressed person wouldn’t even blink at. It is like flossing, if you forget one day, you don’t just give up, you forgive yourself the one day and pick right back up the next. We had been letting guilt and anxiety build which translated into sniping and nagging – so this is hopefully a steam valve back into appreciating one another and being more considerate to each other. Its only been 15 days since the last post, so we will keep you updated.