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The Gift of Giving: Beauty Lesson Revisited

Back in September of 2015 we were teaching Curie the lesson that “anyone who smiles is pretty, and that your actions dictate whether or not you are beautiful.” Since then, it is something that we have reinforced whenever we could and something that we have started teaching Elia, though not as pointedly.

Yesterday, on the day after the inauguration, a week after MLK’s birthday, and on the day of the Women’s March, Albert stayed with the kids so that Erin could go to the march. By the afternoon, to keep the kids busy, they went to the mall to walk around. While waiting for Erin to return and join them, Albert bought a case of Frozen blind boxes at half price at Barnes and Noble’s clearance section and told the kids that they could open one box with Erin at the restaurant.

At the restaurant, Curie asked to open her box and we told Curie that she could open one now before we ate, or two after we ate, and she chose two (marshmallow test); but upon opening them, both of hers and Elia’s were duplicates we already had. We then told them that there were kids who would love to have the toys and that giving is sometimes better than getting. So there we were at Tysons Mall, looking for kids young enough to be unjaded and appreciative, parents who looked like they might be receptive to this lesson we were teaching, and, as a rule, they couldn’t be carrying American Girl doll bags.

Curie found a two year old girl at the Disney store (yes, ironic that we were giving away Disney toys at a Disney store, but it was the same one where we started this lesson in 2015) and before Curie could do her spiel, the girl had the doll in her hands and looked like it was instantly hers. Her mother thought her daughter had taken the toy away from Curie, but we explained that we had duplicates and that we were learning that beauty comes from within, and that the gift of giving is sometimes better than getting. It was well received and she asked the little girl to say thank you, also a good lesson.

Curie had a second Elsa to give, and gave it to a second girl at the store;  again we received a positive response, more so in fact: the father seemed genuinely interested in what we were doing, as well as grateful that we were giving the toy to their daughter. As we were doing this, the woman behind the register overheard us and, though we thought she would ask us to stop since it was a store, instead took it to heart and said, “well this needs to be rewarded,” and proceeded to reach behind the counter to give Curie, Elia, and the little girl each a Disney bracelet.

Well, Curie loves little kids to begin with, and was so moved by how grateful the girls were; the fact that she “got for giving”, and that her parents were so proud of her, really reinforced the lesson and she wanted to do more. So, instead of going home to open the rest of the blind boxes, we opened the entire case, and Curie and Elia gave away almost every figure to kids in the mall. There were so many different reactions (the 1/36 rare Olaf with an upside-down head was hard to give away, the first girl gave it back), from pleasant surprise to gratitude, all saying to our kids that giving was as important as getting.

We had been trying to figure out how to include charity in our children’s life lessons with things like keeping one-third of your allowance, saving one-third, and giving one-third, but the kids have been too young to even appreciate money yet. We wanted to go to Arlington to lay wreaths, but that day there was an ice storm. We teach, as often as we can, the strength of kindness, the will of charity, and the importance of from where beauty derives, but it is hard to make an object lesson of it. We got that opportunity by chance on a day where the voice of tolerance was being spoken, and a sleeping giant awoken; the case of blind boxes was a frivolous $36, but it turned out to be a chance to see our kids embrace such an important lesson at such a critical time in history.

A quick addendum from Albert’s Facebook: “So, to be fair, I don’t want anyone to think that our parenting is a bed of roses, FB has a tendency to filter for the things that we want to talk about, things we love and things we hate, so the feed is gets pretty polarized (talking about the mundane in the early days of social media has thankfully largely gone away). I just wanted to say that we have good days and bad days,and yesterday was extraordinary so we wanted to celebrate it. However, there was as much whining and hangry frustration as there was beauty and joy – as it is with any day. It is parenting as it is with life, you take some good with some bad and hope that there is more good than bad at the end of each day.”

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Elia January 2017

So a lot happened this month, but we would be remiss if we did not address the bullet through Elia’s daycare class window. Frightening enough as it is, it was more frightening to find out that there were three bullets (still likely a random shooting considering the spread of the bullets) and that the bullet through the window was at child level. It was lucky that the shooting took place at nap time, however, the facility reacted poorly without locking down the facility until asking the police, and trying to downplay the incident to a parking inconvenience. We are still trying to decide if we will stay at the facility.

On a brighter note, it was Elia’s birthday this past month, at three she is 15 percentile for height and 3 percent for weight. She was so quiet at the doctor’s visit until the doctor told her she did not have to get a shot, after which she brightened up considerably.

Elia loved all the lead up to her birthday, telling us she wanted a Star Wars birthday for months until her birthday, the couple days before her actual birthday though, she switched to a Thomas birthday. We had her party at Busy Bees an indoor playground. Erin told Albert that Elia wanted it there, and when Albert asked Elia, Elia outed Erin and said “Mommy says we have at Busy Bees.” To be fair, Erin had given Elia three choices. We had a black out at her actual birthday where initially the owner was not going to discount the party, he did later, but likely realizing that we would tell everyone of the service we received. We bought flashlights for everyone as part of the party, and we gave away IKEA tool boxes for giveaways. Elia LOVED being the center of attention. We caught her singing happy birthday for days later. She also sang in the low funny voice that Curie did back in the day, but had not ever heard it. Amazing really.

Albert’s birthday is the day after Elia’s, his is effectively eliminated with hers. On his birthday, Elia said “my birthday too.” For days, she would say “happy burday to Dada! Happy burday to me!” Albert would say “Happy Birthday Elia!” She would reply “Happy Birthday Dada! It our birthday, we sang happy birthday to us!”

We went to California for the Christmas holiday and went to a hotel the night before the trip on Albert’s birthday. Albert caught pink eye on that day and spend his birthday in the urgent care getting an antibiotic ointment. When talking about the trip, Elia would tell us “I go trip with you,” apparently we have been going away too often that she wanted to make sure she came with us.

At three years old, Elia has the appropriate level of sass, when talking about  pink eye, she spoke up and said, “don’t touch dada’s yucky poo poo eye.” And then proceeded to laugh knowing she told a funny.

On the plane she wanted a window seat and when we were split up, Albert and Elia went to the back of the plane to their seats, but that seat didn’t have a window. Elia cried. Eventually she calmed down and flapped to help the plane take off. She had such an excited face.

Part of our trip was going to Disneyland the day after we got there. We went with Bernard and the twins and met up with George and his family. At three (we paid for her to go as a three year old instead of free as a two year old, because we were certain that she would say she was three if asked. It was only two days after her birthday). Elia is at that amazing age where it was all magical. She met Tinkerbell who became her newfound character. We even bought her a doll. She loved, and we mean LOVED Small World, it was set up for Christmas inside and she was amazed. It rained that morning, but it didn’t deter us. At one point when she clapped, we said “what did you do? did you clap?” She said, “yes, I clap like this!” And proceeded to demonstrate with a wild clapping all around her face.

For Christmas all the grandkids got Instax cameras from Albert’s parents, and while the camera was pretty much above her recommended age, she loved it shooting an entire ten frames of Albert’s ear. Since then she has learned that there are limited frames and that if she can see you in the view finder, it will take a picture of you, which is amazing. Santa brought her an entire case of superhero blind boxes which she loved (see picture). Her birthday and Christmas so close together, she loves the idea of presents.

We took the kids to see Moana, and Elia, who is very tempo oriented would bob at all the songs. While Maui was doing his dance, she started saying “round stom stom, round stom stom, doodly doo doodle doo,” while bouncing her fists on each other for the first half and twinkling her fingers for the second part. Her favorite song is “Away away (Aue aue)” and will say “dat my favrite, Dada’s favrite too.” She has been quite the daddy’s girl wanting him to drive her to and from school, likely because he takes her to Target after picking her up. When the song comes on the whole family raises their hand to check the stars.

Elia loves to get her hair cut and we went back to the same Cartoon Cuts for her to get her hair cut again. She asked for the same guy. Very cute. She loves to twirl in dresses, loved to be in matching black with Dada, asks for Dada to pick her up everywhere except recently when Erin kept her home for the day. After that she has started to ask for Mommy again. Each night Erin has the kids say what they are grateful for as part of the bedtime process. She regularly says “I grateful for you, and you, and you (all three of us). The other day she wanted to add: “I grateful for sun” and made slow vague sun gestures, which was hilarious. Then after, she askd to add another thing; she said “I grateful for doctor.” We thought she meant the doctor at her check up, so we said “we love our doctor.” She then clarified: “I grateful doctor take me from Mommy belly – we had made our annual visit to the NICU – still, how sophisticated is that?

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Curie December 2016

It is always quite something to write at the end of the year. There are Christmas posts and birthdays and all sorts of things like travel and family and such. Interestingly there is little time for reflection; however, we had a revelation recently about a Curie/Elia dynamic that was proving to be interesting. We had been noticing how cute Elia is seeing her  make her way growing up that we had seemed to have missed a bit with Curie. We had attributed this to Curie’s early diction where we did not see Curie’s making her way with her language. But the revelation we have had recently is that when Curie was turning three, Elia was just born, an infant, and we simply were overwhelmed to appreciate everything at the time. Don’t get me wrong, by reading older posts, looking at pictures, and watching videos we loved Curie at the age, but simply did not have the ability to appreciate it as much as we do now.

We have also noticed that Curie is a little jealous still of the attention that Elia gets (as all first born kids get), and we are learning to be careful when complementing Elia to make sure we have parallel compliments for Curie – a thought while writing this is that we need to make sure we do the same for Elia when we compliment Curie. There is a tendency to think that Curie knows she is so smart and capable, but we have to remember that that needs reinforcement.

Curie loves kindergarten and is doing great (so far, as a parent you are constantly wary), and loved it even more when Mommy volunteered at her school. Albert really needs to do the same. She also thinks that Liam is dreamy; Albert needs to find out who this Liam is. 🙂

She has become quite sassy as of late, something we are proud of. She was explaining how she didn’t want something to Erin, and in passing Albert agreed with Curie to which she said “Thanks Dada!” In a Steve Martin, well “Thaaank you!” kind of tone. Sassy. She also told Erin to scoot over when trying to sit together in the living room chair, she said that Mommy has a bigger butt than Dada, but a smaller head. Sassy. We have always known she was willful and now sassy is a part of that. Albert has been getting  kick out of mispronouncing her martial arts form that she is doing, it is called Ki Ban Yan part 1, but Albert calls it Ban Ki Moon part 1 every time to make Curie correct him. Albert is almost certainly the role model source for her sassiness. More on sass, when we write Elia’s post later. Sassy, I tell you, it is fantastic.

We have blogged how we went to California for the holidays and took Curie and Elia to Disneyland and how even though it was so expensive and you feel gouged, it is offset by the “magic” for the kids. Curie was so proud to be exactly 40″ and riding Star Tours, her first big kid ride. She was obsessed with going up Sleeping Beauty’s castle, and was looking for Aurora. She ended up buying a Rapunzel doll instead because of a rule that she made up. You can only buy a doll of a character you actually met there, and she had seen the Rapunzel show in the park next to the castle.

We saw Moana with Curie and interestingly her favorite character was Te Fite, the island more than Moana or Maui. She and Elia agree that the movie was too scary, but<Spoiler Alert> Curie loves the twist ending and what it represents. She watches a pirated clip of that moment on “Eggs (You Tube)” a lot. She also loves singing the songs from the movie but has no desire to rewatch it in the theater. We also bought Beauty and the Beast and that was also too scary so we watched the 30 minutes of nice parts to the end which she loved. She and Elia loved the trailer for the live action as well.

Curie could stand to eat more, and eat more protein, grinds her teeth when she sleeps, is sassy as mentioned before, can tend to whine or get fussy when she is tired, but works really hard on being beautiful – our definition is, again, anyone who smiles is pretty, and beauty comes from within. She will voluntarily give Elia things Elia wants even if it is the only or last one and looks to us for recognition of her actions (there are other times of course where she does not share, but that is normal), which is pretty amazing.

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Elia December 2016

Elia has been waiting and waiting for her birthday ever since Curie’s in September. At Target she will take a toy and say “this for my burday,” so that we have quite a list. We are afraid that it only comes once a year, interestingly enough, Christmas will help with that.

Elia’s verbalization has really kicked up in high gear, and she loves to sing songs in the car. She had a cognitive moment the other day. Albert has been singing “Wheels on the Car” recently, but while he was singing, Elia suggested that they sing “Wheels on the Truck,” making the progression that the song could be about other things.

Her sense of humor has also blossomed (and takes after Albert like Curie). She is still finding boundaries so things anything you say “no” to is funny. We have been “hiding” and making “lion noises” which consists of “rawr!” and such, but when Albert asked her what sound does a lion make the other day, she said “mmm, mmm, mmm” which is the sound lions make when they eat zebras. We have been eating zebras recently; she said “I eat little zebra, you eat sister zebra,” associating little and big with her and Curie. As you might guess, she has made the conversion to “I” and not “me.”

One morning when Albert was getting Elia dressed she noticed that Albert was wearing black pants and she was too, she said “we both wear black pants!” then she noticed that Albert was wearing a black t-shirt, and then had a pout that she too wanted a black t-shirt, fortunately we found one (note, she was already dressed and wanted to change).

At night she does not like to brush her teeth and Erin has to hold her and brush them to great consternation and protest on her part. On the other hand she does remember that she had a great dentist visit and says: “I do great with dentist” and earlier in the month: “me do great.” She and Curie will go through candy and throw away anything that is too chewy or hard that might be bad for their teeth by themselves, pretty amazing. We have been giving them Tic Tacs for treats and bribing. At one calorie a piece it doesn’t seem too bad, but if you don’t watch out they will try to eat the whole box.

Elia has always been a restless sleeper, tossing and turning to get comfortable, even more than Curie. She will be at all angles in the bed, but lately she has been waking up at night and sometimes not being able to get back to bed. There is an IKEA comforter that she has recently gravitated to to sleep but will kick it off in the middle of the night and say “no blanket” so we have to dress her warmer than if she used a blanket (who are we kidding, ever since Albert started it when Erin was on a trip, we don’t dress them in pajamas, we just dress them in tomorrow’s clothes). The other day though, she found an old onesie and had Erin put her in it, she loved it but it was too small, so Albert dug out the last onesie that Curie wore which was fleece and hooded. Elia loved it.

There was one week that Elia wasn’t feeling well and threw up in bed, and we mean really threw up. Mostly on herself but that meant getting her in the tub and Albert washed her clothes in the toilet (which had just been cleaned the day before, and if you think about it was pretty brilliant considering the debris in the bath and the subsequent having to scrub the bathtub too (at 4:00 AM – so if you wonder why we are tired this is one of the reasons). This is pretty gross of course but we mention for a reason, because the next night for the first time she blows out in bed, and we mean poo on the newly laid sheets from the night before. New bath, washing clothes and sheets in the toilet, and more laundry at 4:00 AM. Oh and Erin gladly let Albert do the cleaning since it really made her gag, something that Albert seemed to not be concerned about (what does that mean?).

So next month we will write about her birthday which is in December, but her blog goes from the 16th through the 15th, but it was fantastic and she loved it. Since Thanksgiving Elia has been single-handedly been drinking all of the apple cider we bought, two and a half gallons, she will ask for her Hulk cup (she loves the Hulk) and ask for an orange juice and an apple cider. Erin wants to wean her off of apple cider because it has not calcium. We drink calcium fortified orange juice because the kids have not wanted to drink milk recently, something the doctor said they needed to do for their growth. Curie is probably not going back (we have been giving her chocolate pudding and yogurt in her lunch to compensate some, and eating mac and cheese – not Albert though -eating it we mean), but Elia started to say “me no like our milk” and  “our milk smell yucky” it turns out she didn’t like whole milk any more and likes 2% and low fat milk because it is what they drink at school. She is at an amazing age and we love being with her, and I mean all of us; Curie more than the rest, she loves her little sister and will tell us how cute Elia is – amazing.

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Curie November 2016

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It has been a roller coaster of a month, Curie really wanted the girl to win the election and was very saddened when she didn’t; we had to work hard on not letting the kids be to affected by our own affect.

Being in kindergarten has unlocked amazing growth in Curie, her drawings have gotten much better and she is reading and identifying things every day. She loves to play school and is always Mrs. Best when she plays. We learned a lot at her parent-teacher conference: Curie loves school and when she was the teacher of the day, she had no hesitation in teaching the kids. . Her baseline test shows that she has a lot to work on, but she is not the bottom of the class even though she is the youngest. Her work is progressing nicely: as reported as a spoiler in the last blog, in one of the early assessments she had gotten a zero out of ten for her color words. Albert used test prep techniques to teach her and her result was ten out of ten, leading us to believe that she may not have had as much time as other kids, she is definitely in the right place.

At the parent-teacher conference, both of us had to be there so we asked Julie to look after the kids. When we returned, we expected to have both kids happy to see us and run to us, but Julie had them both asleep without too much issue. It was amazing. Albert was a little sad, but we got to watch Central Intelligence (which did not live up to its potential) as well.

Curie loves martial arts and works hard on the lessons and her forms she is doing a form that Albert keeps calling the “Ban Ki Moon Part 1” form though it is actually something else. She is ravenous after martial arts and we have to get her food as fast as we can; we think it is because she does not have time to finish her lunch. She did start buying snacks at martial arts which she was so proud of doing. It was wonderful to see. She and Etta are best friends and when Etta was going to test for her white belt, Curie insisted on staying to watch and support her. The teachers and Etta’s dad were impressed; we were very proud. The kids get a yellow tip on their belt if they do something good at home, Curie is still whiney at home but she is working towrd her yellow tip. We have to submit a yellow card for her to get her yellow tip and her wanting to watch Etta’s whitebelt test (a whole hour) was pretty impressive.

Curie loves to garden and loves to come out and use her cutters (garden shears) and trim the bushes. We raked and took care of the front and back yard with both girls helping. The squirrels ate our pumpkins carving a hole in the pumpkin to eat the seeds. Curie has been learning about squirrels at school and told us that they are crazy like Mrs. Best, who apparently says she is crazy (and forgetful) like a squirrel.

Curie is so excited about the holidays and listed Thanksgiving, Elia’s birthday, Albert’s birthday, Christmas (missed New Year’s), and Erin’s birthday to celebrate. We have been going to hotels to swim, but recently she did not want to, instead wanting swimming lessons. We believe it is too cold for her and that she wants to be good in the pool. We are looking into doing swimming lessons with her friends in a heated school nearby.

She is a great kid but still kid. she wants whatever toy that Elia is playing with, gets fussy and scared at things she should be fussy or scared at, wants things at Target (both kids love Target), and is pickier in eating than before. But she still wants time with Mommy, is crazy funny and laughs at funny things “Mommy, its the police, act normal!” She is crazy caring about Elia, playing mommy and baby with her. It is a crazy world right now, but we have to balance keeping it real to giving them a safe and fun place to be. We were recently witnesses to an attempted shoplifting and Curie was pretty scared about it. We used it to teach her the importance of being good and the example of Albert remembering their license plate and reporting it to the store was used to teach her the importance of doing the right thing even if you are scared. They may not remember it ever happened but if we can keep reinforcing that character counts, being brave is doing the right thing in the face of danger, and that you have to take responsibility for your actions, then a glimpse into the more frustrating parts of our world is okay.

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Elia November 2016

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Elia, what a sweetheart in these interesting times. If you have children, you know what a salve they can be to the world’s problems and perspective comes down to simply worrying about them not everything else out there. Sure they can be whiney and frustrating and you can be sick with worry, but these things are still about love and not about disdain or hate.

Elia is a joy – most times. She does love to provoke her sister, and seems to have inherited, along with Curie, Albert’s ability know what will frustrate you. She has not yet learned that it is not always funny and that when you say “no” it really means “please stop,” but then again she is just shy of three. Sometimes we will tell her we love her and she will respond “me no love you” with a big smile on her face.

On the other hand she is unbearably cute. Albert asked, “Do you love Jie-jie?” To which she responded, “Yes. I love Jie-jie. Curie loves me too!” Oh and yes, she is using “I” now, mostly, instead of “me.” This manifested recently when Albert said “I love you Elia!” And she said “I love you!” Erin then said “I love you too!” To which Elia replied “Me love you too!” Albert likes telling Elia that she is funny because Elia likes saying “Dada funny” or “Sophia sat on Dada legs, Sophia funny.” So when Albert says “Elia funny,” she says “‘Lea no funny,, Dada funny.” And they will go back and forth a few times with this.

Albert recently had a meeting but had time before it to spend with Elia which gave them a chance to really bond for a bit, as a result for a while Elia wanted only Dada and allowed Curie to spend time with Mommy. One thing that has become a favorite for Elia is hiding with Albert. This started with being in a sheet tent right before bed with Curie and they would hide in the bed to surprise Erin. But Elia has really taken to it and loves laying on Albert’s belly hiding from animals. “Me sleep yo belly, we hide from bea-os!” She will put her face up against Albert’s touching noses and say seriously in a whisper “hide dada! is bea-o!” Then she will make bear sounds “”Rawr” but more like “Wawr!” in your face. Or lions, or tigers, and sometimes dinosaurs. “Dada, hide!” “We hiding.” “Es Beawr”

Elia has loved going to parties with bounce houses and jumping things especially at EJ’s party where she wanted to climb up everything, even things that seemed to big for her. She is very much in the “do by my self” phase. When Curie got a new winter coat, Albert washed Curie’s old one and gave it to Elia as her new coat which she loved. It was still a little dirty so Elia said “wash my coat” in her measured way so Albert washed her coat. It was the morning and Albert was going to put her in a lighter coat because her coat was being washed. Elia, not knowing that washing took time started crying that she wanted her coat, her new winter coat. Albert fortunately found a vest that Curie never wore with a big 5 on the back that Elia loved. In fact she insisted on wearing it the next couple of days as her “soccer shots vest.” Oh and if you called a coat, she corrected you that it is “my vest.” That week was the last week for Soccer Shots (which Elia loves) and all the kids got medals for participation. Elia was so proud to wear hers. On occasion she asks about it and loves it all over again.

Her favorite show is Hi 5 House on Netflix and she can be seen singing and dancing to the show by herself as a part of the studio audience. It is adorable. We have all gotten into it singing “The Animal Dance,” “Action Heroes,” and more. She is so good natured and laughs with a beaming face that lights up your own joy. She calls M&Ms “em a lens” or “em a lems,” kisses everyone good night, unless she decides you don’t get a kiss to get a reaction out of you, points to the old car and pointed tells us that it is the old car, got a little sick and for Thanksgiving said “I thankful family” when asked what she was thankful about. She is a sharp one that one, and a joy to have all the time, especially in these interesting times.

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Curie October 2016

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We went to a lot of farms in October, we went apple picking in Stribling, the Burke Fall Festival with Natalie, Chloe, and a whole Bright Horizon’s contingent, Butler Farms with Lucy and Nora, and Navi, and Great Country Farms (our favorite) by ourselves. The girls love the farms and fall festivals, Curie particularly likes the jump “pillow” a giant jumping bounce set-up at Great Country Farms.

In addition there were a number of birthday parties, Katie’s at the bounce place in Woodbridge, where we immediately ran out of batteries in our brand new car, EJ’s party at a different bounce place, and Etta’s party (which we had to miss Mateo’s party because it was on the same day) at Flight, basically ANOTHER bounce place!

We bought the new car, and Curie was really broken up about saying goodbye to the old yellow car (of course we haven’t gotten rid of it yet) we had the girls take a picture with the old car and she was beside herself. Elia will point to the old car, but Curie really has a bond with it. All the kids at Bright Horizons knew when we were there with the Yellow Bug. Both girls hugged the car, and it wasn’t until we went into the new car that she felt better. We asked her what the name of the new car is, and she said “Pug” because it rhymes like “Bug.” It has not stuck, but it was very cute, the “Yellow Pug.” A few days later, Erin dropped a bottle of white pepper onto our scale and it shattered like a car window, pretty amazing really. Curie’s response was “now I will miss the scale AND the car.”

Curie loves school, she loves going, gets scared if she thinks we might miss the bus. She has had some catching up to do because she is the youngest of the class, we now encourage Super Why and Sesame Street over “eggs” and spend a lot of time with Daddy and Mommy to do lessons. She actually insists on lessons most days. She had a zero on her color words when they began assessing and Albert worked on it with her using test prep techniques (how many “P” words are there? Which one is the longer one? There are three B words, there is only one O word), and spoiler alert for November’s blog: she got 100% on her latest assessment. It shows that she can learn and catch up quickly, and is learning and progressing at an amazing pace. Her drawings have improved dramatically drawing with her friends, and when we go back to Bright Horizons on occasion to pick up Elia, there is a difference between her and her friends in the K-prep class.

Curie takes the bus every morning and takes the martial arts bus to tae kwon do (which we just call “martial arts”) for after-school care. On the bus to school we wave to her from the side and try to see her in the windows (they are tinted on the buses here – which is different from when we were kids). The thing though is that unless she is sitting on our side and really up to the window, it is hard to see her. We asked her if she was sitting on our side on the bus and she said that the bus patrol tells her where to sit. So the next day, unprompted, while getting on the bus, Curie stops the line cold on the stairs (she is the first one on the bus normally). We wait, and wait, and wonder what is going on, then we hear the bus driver call to us and say “she asked if she could sit on the side where her parents are so that she can wave to you.” That’s our girl! Stand up for what you want! We were so proud.

So, Curie comes home and tells us she is going to test for her white belt (Albert said that he got his white belt when they gave him his uniform, but apparently you test for a white belt – and pay $35 for the privilege to do so). It is like a recital where you go watch, so we went. Curie is the smallest kid in the class by far. It was so cute. The teacher asks the class if anyone needs to use the bathroom before the test. The entire class except Curie runs off. Curie says looks at us with the “what? I don’t need to go” look. They do jumping jacks, push ups, low blocks, high blocks, kicks, simulated sparring, recite Korean numbers and words and tell their student creed. It is amazing and Curie only has to be asked to use the other hand once, one poor kid keeps using the wrong side and is asked a lot to switch hands or feet. It was a really good learning experience to see one kid not be able to break his board (more advanced students also tested) and not pass and to talk to Curie about it. The teachers are really good about self esteem and discipline, and Curie loves Mr. Arnold, her teacher and bus driver.

Curie said her tooth hurt and Erin called the dentist. There was a cancellation the next day and so she took Curie to have her tooth extracted. Albert was in Bloomington and beside himself. Erin told Albert he shouldn’t go to those kind of dentist visits any more. On the other hand, Elia had a great visit, and it might be genetics, or how Curie was in the womb, but Elia had a very different dentist experience. Curie had to take antibiotics while waiting for her original appointment and started with a lot of whining, but after a while, it became more routine, which was a relief. She does dislike grape candy because of the grape flavored Motrin though. Curie now shows off the space with her friends, chooses healthy foods and puts back sugary snacks even when Albert says they are okay (bad Albert).

Curie was the evil queen for Halloween as we posted earlier and wants to be the evil queen next year as well. She is very independent in her thinking, though can hesitate when making decisions. Curie had a great time with Etta and Isabella trick-or-treating. Elia loved it too. Choosing to be an evil queen instead of Snow White is the queen vs. princess thing we think but there is something cool about the independence to not be what everyone else was. Another incident was the Happy Meal toys where the girl toy you could comb her hair and only one arm moved, where the boy toy would shoot things or have wings that opened. Curie was indignant and asked Erin to write in to Old MacDonalds.

Albert stresses about school and testing, got nervous for the white belt testing, agonized over needing to work on the letters and so on. Erin worries about the whining, and baby talk. We both worry about food and sleep and all sorts of things. But here is the thing, Curie is doing great, she is smiling, loves the things she does, plays teacher at home all the time. And there is something more fundamental, she defends Elia, takes care of Elizabeth (Katie’s sister) and any little kid. She told us the Winnie the Pooh movie, “makes me cry” because they can’t find Christopher Robin. And most tellingly this month, Curie offered her coat without asking to a little girl she was playing tag with because the little girl said she was cold. Curie has a good heart and that makes us prouder than anything else.

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Elia October 2016

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With fall has come some getting sick, some time away on business, and a lot of farms for apple picking and festivals. Elia has been commuting with Albert a lot since Curie has gone to kindergarten and Erin remarked how she hadn’t realized how much time she had with the kids when she picked both of them up from school.

In the car one day Elia burped and we called her out in it because she loves saying “I bupped.” But to our surprise, she said “no, I farted, I farted in my mouth,” and was so pleased with herself for telling a joke. The crazy thing is this, when Curie was little, before Elia was born, Curie said the same thing and we have never told that story in front of Elia.

The games in the car have changed. Erin invented what color is that sound with Curie, or let’s make Elia say a word. Albert and Elia have been identifying cars with colors and getting a point for every car identified. When he says, “you have a point!” Elia grins and says “yo turn!” The songs have changed too. When Erin was driving, she would teach them songs from her youth, now with Albert and Elia, they are singing “The Wheels on the Car” where he actually uses the windshield wipers, the windows, and the horn. Another song they sing is “Old MacDonald has a Zoo” because Elia said that there were no monkeys on the farm.

She loves going to pick up Curie at Martial Arts and is fascinated by the people working out there. She keeps telling us that she wants to do the Tiger Tots, which she has to be four to join (she is almost three now). She is also obsessed with soccer, or more specifically a soccer uniform from Soccer Shots, so we enrolled her in the program. The shirt has taken forever to get to us, but it finally did arrive. She was obsessed with seeing some teams on a field practice soccer in the park and wanted to go play with them. All of soccer is Soccer Shots for her and it is probably because her friend Sophia is in the program that she is so aware of it. Now she is in the program too, she loves it and will perk up and be more attentive if you mention it.

Elia is exploring and pushing her boundaries more, as should be expected; she is also discovering imagination. One day she was opening the door and put her finger up to the door lock and looked at Albert and said, “dis my finger key,” which is really quite remarkable. She looks at tall buildings and calls them castles and tells you to look at them, so we do from her perspective and everything looks amazing. She still loves sitting in your lap, asking you to read or play, “Dada, play with me,” “Mama, play with me,” taking your hand and pulling you to her level.

With Curie, she is Elia’s hero even if she expresses it in different ways. She will give hugs and kisses, or withhold them, want to have whatever Curie has, or do whatever Curie is doing, and fairness is important. If someone else gets something she should get it too.

We have been to a lot of festivals and parties lately with jumping and slides as a theme in most of the places. At the Burke festival, Elia loved riding the long carpet slide with Albert and Erin, but was tired and unwilling to ride it at Butler farms, later we learned she was sick. The have been in many bounce houses and slides and Elia has been on every large slide she can find. Recently though, she asks to hold Albert’s hand if she is sliding down a normal slide.

Parenting is hard, when our children are sick we worry, when they fall, we worry. When they find adversity, we worry. When they learn, we worry – and work with them, and worry, and hold them and hug them and play with them and care for them, and cherish them. And love them. And while now when they cry and holding them can make it better, we’ll take that magic, and while we worry that is just another expression of love.

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Curie September 2016

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So Curie started kindergarten, taking martial arts, made new friends, rode the bus, turned five, had a birthday party at Flight trampoline park with her pre-school and kindergarten friends all in one week.

Oh it has been hard having Curie go to school. She is exposed to so much more, learning so much, and having a great time; but for the parents it is learning the new normal, anxiety for your children’s happiness and success, packing lunch, dropping off, bus rides, new pick-up hard stops at work and more. All parents do it, so it is not like it is any different for us, but at the same time, it feels overwhelming for us; so much so, that Albert has had to start instituting a half-full policy for himself.

In kindergarten, Curie has Mrs. Best a strict but fun 30-year veteran teacher. Curie is the youngest in the class and has had to catch up on many things, capital letters, lower case letters counting up to twenty, counting down from twenty, reading colors, all things that we wish we had known when she was at Bright Horizons. We have since let them know that they need to help better prepare their students. For us, it simply means that we need to spend time every day with lessons for Curie, so we set aside some time, bought letters an posters, and Curie eagerly dives in. The fact that she likes school so much is wonderful and a godsend. Her favorite thing to play with us now is being the teacher at school, though she is always the teacher because she is in charge.

She is learning a lot too, they have all sorts of songs they learned, “Da rules, da rules, da classroom rules.” Every Tuesday they have a folder to bring home and in it is the work they have done. She brings home the cutest things she has made in school, a Humpty Dumpty, an ant with body parts labeled (and song sung to “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes.”), little work books for learning numbers and more. She is exhausted everyday though running through all her energy in a day that we have looked to raise her caloric intake to help boost her energy. This is offset by the need to help her sugar intake for her teeth since she has had to have a lot of dental work because of her soft enamel as a result of being born early. The dental visits have been horrible and traumatic. We have one to go, and it is an extraction. She bounces back relatively quickly from them, but for us as parents it is very hard.

Curie takes martial arts as her after-school program. A bus picks her up every day after school. Her friend Etta has joined her and they go together. Etta is Curie’s best friend at school and is a year older and a head taller. The martial arts class loves Curie who is the smallest one there and the kids like to draw pictures for her. Curie likes to teach us martial arts too, taekwondo to be exact. She is learning to be more respectful, and learning discipline in her class, which has not always translated to home yet. Her friend Layla got her white belt, and Curie is excited to get hers as well.

We have had time with kids from her old pre-school spending time at dinner with Lucy and Nora at Olive Garden, birthday parties for Chloe, Natalie, and Maggie, dinner with Navee, who she tried to hug all night. We have had time with her new friends as well, play dates with Layla, Isabella, and Etta. She and Etta hold hands walking to the classroom from the cafeteria. The first day of school she walked holding hands with Katie the other kindergartener who rides the bus with her when they couldn’t find their room. Another older kid takes them there now. Curie also loves the kids who have helped her, Riley the bus monitor is someone that Curie looks up to.

There has been a lot of change and the important thing to realize is all of this is a part of growing up. Albert’s mother recounts that Suephy had trouble starting kindergarten, but it did not stop her from being as successful as she is, it just takes being involved as parents and teaching and reinforcing the learning in school, staying ahead of lessons, helping with homework, getting her focused on the right things. She is more tired after school and just wants to go home to play. She needs more Mommy time and asks for playdates with Mommy or Daddy. It feels like we have less time as a family because of the obligations and the structure. Curie is taking it all in stride and it is just our “new-normal” as Albert likes to call it.

Curie’s backpack is a small kids pack we got at REI when she was two, it is the size of a purse-backpack to get a sense of what we mean. In it she puts in her lunch bag, her snack, her martial arts snack, the Tuesday folder, if it is Tuesday or Wednesday, her library book (she loves the library), a t-shirt for martial arts and sometimes a jacket if she has taken it off, and her water bottle. The backpack is tiny but so jammed packed with things, and even though it is not a full sized backpack, it is huge on her. After we carry her to the bus stop she dutifully puts it on and runs to the bus, sometimes forgetting to kiss us goodbye. The backpack is kind of like our days, full of stuff, seemingly small and too big at the same time, dutifully worn, and with a tiny keychain on it for good luck.

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We say goodbye to the Bug and buy a new car

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In the last couple of months we have put in about $3,000 into the Bug for engine and turbo pressure work and $2,000 before that at the end of last year for a catalytic converter and other issues. (Thankfully) in the driveway, the check engine light came on last week along with the EPC and anti-lock brake light.

The car is worth $4,000 if in the best of shape, so it has come time to say goodbye to our 2002 yellow VW New Beetle Turbo.

In trying to see this as half-full, no one was hurt as the Bug failed and the time has come to get a new car, but Curie did not quite see it that way and when we went to take our family picture with the car, Curie cried inconsolably, both girls hugged the car and thanked it, and Curie kissed it. We were touched by her sensitivity.

Albert’s mother reminds him that when he was three he and his sister also cried inconsolably when we sold the Ford Fairlane and bought the LTD.

In honor of our beloved car, the one that all the pre-school kids would point to and exclaim that Curie’s mother has arrived, here is a picture of Albert’s father and the Bug when the car was new and came with a first generation iPod. The kids were consulted and we recommended we buy the yellow one. The picture to the left was taken yesterday to say “thank you” and “good-bye.”

We will donate the car rather than sell it as recommended by Albert’s mother.

Albert really does like buying cars and worked ahead of time to purchase our new Honda FIT EX CVT at $1,500 below invoice and inadvertently also got $900 worth of extras for our car. The kids wanted another yellow car, and we wanted something as reliable as our Blackberry (purple) FIT from 2010 (the third picture from when it was new), so the logical choice was a yellow FIT. Erin’s father had just gotten a silver one so could tell us about the car and what was a good price.

The new 2016 FIT is fancier and more advanced than the 2010 one, and is Erin’s car, the purple one is Albert’s. The kids do love the old Bug, but they also love new car, and Curie has transferred her elementary school insignia magnet to it. It is odd, we don’t have a pet, but we are experiencing the lesson of a pet’s passing for our kids. So this is our farewell, and as we told the kids to say, “thank you yellow car, thanks for taking care of us.”