Elia October 2018

Sometimes we don’t always know who the audience is for these blogs, though it is fairly certain that in the end it is for the kids to read about their childhood. What started out as a listing of Curie’s milestones as a baby has become more. Elia is working hard to carve out an identity for herself and this has good and bad consequences especially when she sees identity as something that someone else does not do rather than owning the things she wants to do.  So if Curie wants one thing, Elia will identify with another. Curie likes udon, so Elia wants ramen, and so on.  Lately, Curie has done the reverse and is exceptionally helpful when Elia is misbehaving. Continue reading “Elia October 2018”

Curie September 2018

September was some time ago, and there is a temptation to write about October instead. In September we went to Meadowlark with Susie, Isabella, and Olivia,  with the entire family dressed in purple. Both kids loved the fact that we were dressed in a themed color, which is not something they will do for much longer, so we took advantage and had a great time.

This month Curie and Elia really got into two cooking shows on Amazon Prime; they watched Kids Try, which has kids trying different foods over the past 100 years, and a show called Little Kitchen which has kids watching recipes online Continue reading “Curie September 2018”

Curie August 2018

August was a big month for us. New house, start of the second grade, and lots and lots of work. House, work, camp, and the start of school. Renovations got mostly completed on August 13th, we moved on August 15, Curie started second grad on August 28th. The whole summer we did not take our vacation or do many of the summer things we would normally do. We DID to out to Butler Orchards and pick vegetables and dig up potatoes, which was amazing, but now we have fruit flies in our house because of it. Continue reading “Curie August 2018”

Elia August 2018

Watching Elia discover the world around her has been amazing with times of revelation and times where she is becoming more self aware. She tries so hard to do what Curie does even though she knows she is smaller. At Curie’s Congressional Camp luau, she was so proud to make it up on stage with Curie do practice the hula. When it came time to take bows, she was beaming as she waved to us on the stage, she was with the camp kids and was one of them. Her joy was boundless and unabashed.  Continue reading “Elia August 2018”

Curie July 2018

Summer has come and gone, and it seems like an instant when you are buying and renovating a house for a move. It also seems like an eternity when you are feeling guilty about not doing the summer things you might normally do, like get away at some point to take the kids somewhere. July was all about Camp for Curie. This year Curie did Congo Camp the entire summer with two rounds of pony camp. Someone told us that we would be sucked into the pony thing the moment we bought pony toys. We likely won’t be able to afford riding lessons, much less a pony, but we are glad we are able to let Curie do things like pony camp. It was in 2016 that we first let the kids ride ponies in Toronto and it has definitely been something that they have loved. Continue reading “Curie July 2018”

Elia July 2018

During these months we have been in the middle of buying a house and moving, so we have not been doing a great job with this blog. July’s blog for Elia encompasses June 16th to July 15th, So we will recount the happenings for this time even though we are a month late.

Albert went to his company’s big conference at the end of June necessitating asking Erin’s parents to come help for the time he was away. With Erin’s parents, Elia was playing royal family with Curie and them, and her punishment for Pop-Pop was, “You must sleep in a bed with no pillows.” And while Albert was away Elia would tell him “Daddy, I very miss you,” and later, “Daddy, you said we had to promise to face call.” Albert notes that it is quite a thing to have your daughter miss you so much. On his return, Continue reading “Elia July 2018”

Curie June 2018

Geez, we are really behind in our blogging. At the time of writing it is already July 21, 2018, so we will have to work to recount the happenings of June. At the beginning of June, Curie had yet to finish first grade, and with our challenges in her reading, there was some concern, however in the last two months, she went from an 8 or 10 reading level to a 12 and 14, coming just short of the 16 she was supposed to achieve. We enrolled her into a reading program for the summer so as not to lose anything and hopefully jumpstart second grade. It seems to be working as she is starting to read signs and various words and subtitles.  Continue reading “Curie June 2018”

Elia June 2018

Elia has become more cute and more frustrating at the same time. Not only does she simply not acknowledge you when you say something she doesn’t want to hear, she may also throw a tantrum, or flop to the ground crying. She is learning that you can’t always get what you want and that often asking nicely is the best way to get what you want. All at the the same time she will do her pushing back in the most adorable ways. She will literally growl at you, or practice her mad face to use later. And then when you get through to her and ask if she is really mad or crying, she will break into a laugh and say it was just pretend. Frustrating and adorable at the same time. Continue reading “Elia June 2018”