Category: Updates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Halloween, our trip to California, and our anniversary, we have not had the chance to post Curie’s monthly collage so, seven days late, here we are.

If you recall, for her birthday, Curie got an Elsa nightgown which was a capitulation on Albert’s part. We told her she could wear it for Halloween as well. In the meantime, Curie saw Brave, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, and Monsters, Inc, (of the movies, only Monsters, Inc was too scary for her), and went to the doctor – who always impresses Curie. So for Halloween, she wanted to be Dr. Elsa Merida, this we have mentioned before in the Halloween entry. When we asked her what Elia should be she at first said “Anna,” but then changed her mind and wanted Elia to be just like her complete with her own bow and stethoscope, which we thought was pretty considerate. The result was that Elia went as Curie for Halloween.

You may also recall that Albert bought Erin’s bow long before he ever met her, and before we had kids, we used to shoot almost every weekend. We haven’t been since having Curie, but we have always intended on going back as evidenced by Albert buying a bow for Curie before she was born. While we were in California for Erin’s work and visiting relatives, Curie found a toy bow at Daiso, a Japanese dollar store ($1.50) which she wanted. It was in someone else’s basket that looked abandoned on the floor, so we waited for a while and when no one came to claim it Albert took it and bought it for her. She loves to shoot. She shot at the park, in the hotel room and posed for the infamous “Merida and Horse” picture. “Brave” definitely has made an influence, and she was very interested when we told her about her real bow that she could get when she turned 5.

Also for Halloween, we went as Acapella Mimes to the Hoagland party, where you can see in the photos from that party that Curie was just as game to pose as a mime as any of us. For trick-or-treating, we went with Natalie and her parents around our neighborhood which was adorable to watch the two together. In addition to Halloween and California, we went to the Great Country Farm, where Curie demonstrated a great affinity for the animals, saying they were her favorite thing even more than the jumping pillow, though she does call them “aminals.” It is funny because Elia is particularly afraid of actual animals at this point.  It was also amazing to watch Curie go from very tentative to getting big air on the jumping pillow. In California, we went to the Exploratorium, which is amazing if you haven’t been. Albert’s family used to go to the older location a lot as kids. Curie’s favorite exhibit was the animation station where she spent the most time at any one exhibit.

Activities aside, she has really started to play with Elia, jumping into the playpen from the bed yelling “cannonball! (and Elia copying her)”  She and Elia like to sit on top of the back of the couch and jump down together. When Elia gets upset, Curie has taken on the role of making the “shh, shh, shh” noise to calm her down and you know, it really works. They play trains together, Legos, and dance together. She thinks it is great that Elia is starting to talk more and likes to play a game in the car to see how many words we can make Elia say.  Its funny we thought it was important for Curie to have a sibling, and as they start to be best friends for one another, it warms the heart to think that they will have each other even after we are gone (okay, really it is Albert who thinks like that).

As Curie grows, she has become more complex and engaging.  In California she showed the Chen competitiveness, and made it a point to eat three servings of macaroni and cheese to prove she could eat more than her cousin Eleanor. At school, she came home once and said that she got married to a lot of people (boys and girls), and rumor has it that she has been holding a little boy’s hand and having him get her coat. She loves saying “boo!” to Albert when she gets home from school to startle him.

Curie loves to help cook and is upset if there is nothing for her to do. She wants to have a grown-up look after her which is code for “spend time with me.” She wants us to play with her, and watch with her, and take care of her. She is perfectly capable of going to the potty by herself, but insists on someone helping her. She loves when we do things as a family, or feeling special with Erin or Albert separately – “Mommy and me are going to do that, right?” She is still learning what beautiful and pretty means (she told her cousins that she can get an Elsa doll if she smiles more and does good things – no, she has not forgotten), but she acts beautiful all the time holding the door, waiting for everyone to come to the table to eat, wanting to say grace together, watching out for her sister, and so many more things. And she continues to make us laugh aloud with her antics: earlier this month, when she had to go brush her teeth, she turned mid-way to the bathroom, looked back at us with one index finger raised and said “I’ll be back in a jiffy!” What four year old says thing like that? Adorable.

Learning what it means to be pretty and what it means to be beautiful. Curie turned four this month, and received a doll for her birthday, Sleeping Beauty, in fact. Erin is against this type of “hard doll” for the impossible body type impression it can make on a girl, so we re-gifted it. Curie was only okay with it because Aurora is a princess, and as we have mentioned Curie is working on being a queen or king. Well, Elsa is a queen and Curie is a little fixated on replacing her Aurora with an Elsa “hard doll,” specifically in the “bad Elsa dress ( the blue one).”

So we are at the Disney store where Curie has an Elsa hard doll clasped in her arms asking to buy it. While Erin takes Elia to the restroom to be changed, Albert has a long conversation with Curie that paraphrased, goes something like this: “we want you to understand that no  one looks like cartoon characters and to be pretty and to be beautiful are not about what you look like. If you smile you are pretty, it doesn’t matter what you look like, do you understand?” She of course says yes, because she wants the doll. “Let’s go around the store and you tell me who is pretty.” Amazingly there are very few people smiling in a Disney store. Eventually we find someone who is smiling and we say together that that person is pretty.

So Albert asks her, “what does it mean to be pretty?” Curie points at her mouth and smiles, “That’s right, Albert says and then presses on, “Do you know what it means to be beautiful?” Curie shakes her head. “To be beautiful comes from your heart, when you are kind, when you are considerate, when you take care of others, you are beautiful. So tell me what does it mean to be beautiful?” Curie shrugs her shoulders, “I don’t know.” So Albert repeats it to her. When he asks again she says “it comes from the heart.” He pushes, what does that mean? After a few more repeats she says, “you have to be nice to people, and take care of them.” Again, she can say the words, but does she mean them? “Curie, what if we said we are not going to buy the doll today and we will see if you learn what it means to be pretty and beautiful.” “But I want it!” “What if you saw a little girl who was crying because her parents couldn’t afford a doll? Did you know if you had one and gave it to her, I would buy you another one? Because that would be beautiful.” Albert recounts for Curie when she gave away her sand shovel selflessly as a beautiful act.

“Okay, what does it mean to be pretty?” It is something like the tenth time, Curie answers correctly. “What does it mean to be beautiful?” Curie answers correctly. “Our friends are waiting for us for dinner, and we are late, what should we do?” Curie says:

“Let’s go find them, we can always come back some other time.”

From “but I want it,” to “we can always come back,” in thirty minutes. Albert tells her that is very considerate and very beautiful. She says “let’s go tell Mommy!” Erin picks the ball right up and tells her how beautiful that act was. As parents we are proud, but it is just one data point – one day. Albert reinforces as we walk through the mall going so far as to extol what Curie has done to a stranger. The man smiles and says he is proud of her. “See, he thinks you are beautiful. And did you see his smile? He was so pretty.” Coming out the mall, a person is holding the door open for us, Albert asks Curie, “what is the beautiful thing to do?” Curie holds the door for the people in back of us – ironically a gaggle of girls with American Girl dolls, and in the garage Curie says “let’s wait for Mama and Elia,” which Albert says loudly in a stage voice so the American Girls can hear “see, that is a being considerate, it’s a beautiful thing you are doing,” and Curie beams with pride and says “let’s tell Mama!” Albert says t0 her, “see your smile? That makes you so pretty.”

We are probably going to buy the doll soon, but haven’t yet. When she forgets to be nice or whines, we now say, that wasn’t very beautiful, and she quickly smiles and says “oh, sorry!” When she gives up her candy to share with Elia, we tell her she is being beautiful and slowly we reinforce the lesson. Who knows if it will stick, but when you tell her she has done something beautiful, she smiles this giant, very pretty smile.

Other things happened this month of course. After Curie stopped sucking her thumb, her teeth are starting to relax by themselves and straighten out. She loves to help cook and spends a lot of time preparing things in the kitchen. She wants gloves and tools to help rake and garden in the back yard. She raided all of her play-doh from her birthday and toys to try to make a giant play-doh egg like she sees in videos. Our family is regularly the subject of her drawings. On the way to her four-year check up she said that she wants to be a doctor and had Albert bring her “shot” and stethoscope to the appointment; upon seeing the doctor sling the stethoscope around her neck sideways, Curie mimicked her in the examination room and has begun doing the same at home. For Halloween she wants to be Elsa as a doctor. Queen Elsa, M.D.

She holds us to promises, has a memory like a steel trap. She loves, loves, loves Elia, going so far to be protective. On our New Orleans trip, Bernard joked that Elia could become part of their family and Curie said, “Elia is MY sister, she is part of OUR family, right Mama?” Curie loves her cousins as well, hugging Eleanor a lot and wanting to hold either twin’s hand during the trip. She is a lot younger than her cousins, so it is hard for her especially when her cousins are distracted to older things. One thing they all did together though, was beignet dancing. We recounted when we were last in New Orleans and had beignets which with the sugar caused Curie to dance around Cafe du Monde. So after each beignet this trip, they all danced around Cafe du Monde.

During the New Orleans trip she said a number of funny and fantastic things. She legitimately called security, “surgery” “I have to take my luggage to surgery.” When we were separated at security and reunited, she proclaimed “we’re a family again!” When things happen she likes to say “check!” As if checking things off on her list. And when our phone batteries had died after dinner and she couldn’t watch anything, she thought for a moment on how to entertain herself and said, “I know, I’ll use my brain!” Eliciting smiles from all of us; she doesn’t know she is being sweet and adorable. After dinner the twins were drawing and Albert gave Curie his pen to draw. She said to them, “my Dad gave me this pen, he always has what I need.”

It is not all cute and adorable though. We play crazy games in the car as we have mentioned, like “What Color is That Sound?” The new one is to make up new songs. Curie engaged us in a rigmarole song ten minutes long about a sad boy with no shoes in a swimming pool building french fry houses, eating them and then getting sick, that had us in stitches; her comedic sense of timing has only gotten better. Finally, we encourage her to have scientific observations and praise her when she notices something particular (Erin is particularly good at encouraging this). We end this post with a matter-of-fact observation that Curie told Albert out of the blue in the airport. “Daddy?” She says as they walk toward the restrooms. “Pee always comes before poo.” “What?” Albert asks. “Pee comes before poo.” she repeats. Albert gives it a thought – “you are right, that is a good observation.” Curie beams with pride and you can almost see her say “check!” In her head, at another truism checked off. And with that satisfied smile, it really does make her such a pretty little girl.

1. A smile makes you pretty regardless of what you look like.
2. Beauty comes from your heart and from what you do.
3. You can use your brain to entertain yourself.
4. Pee comes before poo.

Recently, Albert told Curie that the first song he ever sang to her the day she was born was “You’re the Inspiration” by Chicago and she wanted to dance with him (they apparently have been learning to formally dance at school). Albert danced on his knees and Curie rested her head on his chest. Albert unshaven, without hair product, in an undershirt and shorts and still magical. Then, later in the night, right before bedtime, she wanted to do it again.

There are days Curie asks us to pick her up, and though there are days that she feels too heavy, we also have friends whose children are becoming teenagers or going to college, and we are pressed to think, how many more times will we be able to pick her up and hold her?

She is growing up, she will tell us matter-of-factly, and taking responsibility, “it’s my fault” after accidentally hitting Elia. She recognized that certain foods did not hurt her mouth when she had hand foot mouth disease, and later when her four-year molars started coming in. It was because she was cognizant of that, that she cried so much, disappointed that even the ice cream and cookies she was banking on still hurt her mouth. The one benefit of hand-foot-mouth, is that Curie stopped sucking her thumb finally.

There are a lot of influences at school bearing on her too. One night she said “books are boring,” which shocked us. “Who told you this?” She mentioned that a girl at school told her. Not wanting this to be a core memory (a la Inside Out), Albert read books that she liked and taught her how to respond if the girl said it again: “you just haven’t read the right book,” which she uses if we ask her if books are boring. The book she loves the most right now is an old one called Show Me. In it you learn where your nose is etc… Albert, however, has turned it into an irritating game where in cahoots the two of them and Elia go and find the parts on Mommy including all the nuzzling and tickling. Erin is a good sport about it, and it made Curie love books again. “Where is your nose? Is that where it grows? Let me nuzzle your nose.” Fortunately it ends with a big hug, so it is all right.

Along the same lines, some of her best friends made up an arbitrary rule that only the girl with the longest dress can be Elsa from Frozen. At first Curie was just asking for big dresses, which we couldn’t figure out after all the Superman shirts. Then when she told us, we taught her to tell the girl that all of them could be Elsa, it took some doing, but it worked and now she can be Elsa whenever she wants. The other girl has also decided to stand up and be Elsa as well. Curie wants to be “bad Elsa,” the one with the magic powers.

With her birthday coming up, we experimented with a number of things to see if she would like them. We went ice skating (she pushed a Home Depot bucket around to keep standing and balanced), and loved it, but we realized that not all parents would be able to ice skate and keep an eye on their kids, so we picked bowling (Curie calls it “balling”) and took the kids to try it out. The first time Curie had just woken from a nap and didn’t want to play (though she did want to play video games). Elia loved it (see her blog for her reaction, it is priceless). The second time Curie loved it so much she played four games straight. And as for the video games, we pulled out our Wii and have started playing Mario Kart again. Erin was happy.

As we posted earlier, Erin’s parents took us to Thomas Land, which was magical for the kids. While there she told Erin’s mom that she had made the scrambled eggs wrong because “my Daddy doesn’t make them like that,” and wouldn’t eat them (we stopped putting milk in scrambled eggs after reading a cooking blog, they do taste better that way). Curie has also started baking boxed cakes and brownies. She and Elia love mixing.

Our daily life is pretty busy and we feel run down all the time, but it is still amazing and heart-filling. The Chen Engineering company keeps making huge track layouts, Curie makes up names and words for things: pho and egg rolls are noodle-doodles with egamaroles, supersoup, and meatballmaballs. She calls tofu, “toh-food,” and most magnificently has named her Uncle Steve, “Weird Beard,” because of his beard. She only wants showers with Albert now and her bath toys have not been played with for some time – she likes showers because she doesn’t get water in her face when washing her hair (unlike Elia, who would put her face in the water as the first thing). Curie and Erin are the same in the no-water-in-the-face respect.

Albert has allowed Elsa because she is a queen and not a princess and works with Curie not to need to be saved as a princess, but recently having seen Frozen and Frozen Fever, we have introduced Mulan and Pocahontas whom she identified tremendously with because “we have the same hair!” So as a result we also introduced Lilo and Stitch, which we saw in its entirety.

Yes. Curie is growing up and almost four. Soon she will be out of pre-school and in kindergarten and we get emotional thinking about how proud we are that she is growing and emotional at how fast it is going. It means we need to relish and embrace every moment: the night of the Perseid meteor shower, Erin, Curie, and I lay on the front stoop while Elia was asleep upstairs and stared at the stars. And recently, Curie scratched her leg at school and pointed out her injury. Then she got her First Baby book (which we never filled out) and brought it to us. “Remember?” She asked. Albert was perplexed until Erin explained it to him: Albert had explained to Curie that the First Baby book was a scrapbook, but she had not understood and thought he had said “scratchbook” and had been wanting to catalog every scratch she had received. How wonderful is that? Now we have to get her a scratchbook so that she can do just that!