Erin and Albert…

Curie March 2015. Someone wrote recently that the things empty-nesters wish they had taken a picture of was the mundane things, like the dining table everyone ate at or the nightlight the kids used. The big trips and events were great, but to remember the little things was key. Jerry Seinfeld says you should write all the funny things your kids say in a book, because though you think you will remember it all, you don’t. And as these posts get longer and longer on each girl, we realize that there were so many things we should have written about Curie that we didn’t.

When Curie just started being mobile she would feel things for their texture, especially horizontal surfaces, and she would put her palms up against the edge and scratch at the surface with her finger tips learning what this new feeling was. This has been floating in Albert’s mind a lot recently because Elia is similarly discovering so many new things for the first time, and yet we didn’t write it down when Curie was growing up (or if we did, we have forgotten). You can’t write everything down, but this exercise of taking a picture every day makes us feel like we could do a better job remembering for when we are old and empty-nesters ourselves. Erin and I both have one or two pictures for entire years of some of our childhoods (our parents probably have many more in their houses) and it is the pictures that often determine how we remember what happened, that is why this picture-a-day has become so important to us.

Family is becoming much more important to Curie, there is a sense of not-all-being-there when we are not all together she feels. Albert tends to pass out on the couch instead of going to bed and recently Curie has been insisting that he come up to bed so that we can “all be a family.” Elia delights her where she will find ways to play with her, or want to hug her, or kiss her, or play with her feet, or wrestle (not the neck Curie) with her. She makes it a point to kiss Elia when giving kisses to us, and when we have Elia kiss us, she insists on one for herself.

We are making progress on whining and frustration, and the Olaf bag with blind bags has transformed into Easter eggs with figurines from Curie’s favorite shows. Now to be fair, Albert lets her open as many as she needs to to find the one she wants and then they close all the other ones back up and put them back in the bag for future openings. Perhaps not the original idea, but it works and gets her the one she is looking for. She has done some funny things with her figurines, with Captain Barnacle she insisted on holding him when watching Octonauts and held him up every time Captain Barnacle appeared. The next day she wanted Dashi and had Captain Barnacle kiss Dashi when she was bitten by a shark playing with Albert, we thought it was a cute romantic twist until she also got Peso (called “Queso”) and she had Captain Barnacle kiss him too – maybe it is progressive.

Curie loves Play Doh, and wants to play it (notice play it, not play with it) every day, she loves watching the nan and tortilla makers make bread at our local kabob and Mexican places and uses the full sized rolling pins on her Play Doh. At a recent children’s museum trip she started playing with regular sized Legos (technically the bigger ones are Duplos – which BTW Albert just discovered that they are compatible and you can put Legos on Duplos – it was mind blowing), and Elia went from the huge ones from Mega Blocks to Duplos.

Because it is spring it is hard to remember that the month started with a snow storm and right before, Albert had bought Curie a snow shovel. Curie LOVES to shovel snow and clean off the car – until that is, her glove comes off and her hand gets too cold. She also started out-growing her boots, so we took advantage of the return policy that you really shouldn’t do, and returned the boots at REI within the year and got her a larger size (first, for those of you looking down your nose, someone is going to get fantastic almost perfect boots for their kid at the next attic/garage sale, AND REI is getting free advertising for their fantastic return policy right now), but since they didn’t have her size in the boots she had, we swapped them up for some BOGs which both Albert and Erin wanted for themselves. BOGs have cut out handles that make it very easy to pull on, and are perfect. The thing is this, we got her first boots on sale for $32 which were $50 boots. The BOGS were on sale for $49 and we said, hey why not – but they are normally $74 dollars. So Curie is wearing essentially $80 boots ($78 at L.L. Bean). What kid gets $80 boots?

Elia and Curie are playing a lot more now. They will share a sippy cup and actually give it back to each other. The other thing is we are finally using our expensive tricycle which as you can see, has a tandem attachment. Normally Curie won’t ride a stroller or vehicle for longer than a couple of minutes before wanting to be carried, but this time they rode the whole way there and back. Something wonderful is happening.

At the end of the month Bernard visited, and generally, Albert’s family sees us less because of distance so it was a treat. For days Curie was excited that Uncle Bernard was visiting. She worked very hard on a card for him and harder on an envelope that had his name on it (as close as she could get with Erin’s instruction) she then decorated it with a ton of puffed letter stickers. The nicest thing was when Bernard read to Curie and then to Elia and it reminded us how important family is and not just your immediate family.

Curie February 2015. Who would have guessed that sitting in the dark listening to Curie laugh in her sleep would be something so heartwarming? This month we have made progress on self-control; we have also remembered that though we are tracking Elia’s milestones, Curie continues to develop at a remarkable pace surprising us with new things she learns almost every day.

Recently somebody told us  “if you can understand the currency your child believes in, and it changes all the time, then you are golden.” This is actually true for management as well from baby boomers to the millennial.  What this all is tantamount is teaching your children self-control through bribery. Really though we have been seeing that you need a constant mix in approach and frankly, we won’t be able to say whether any of it has worked until we are 80 (okay, Albert 80, Erin 68) to see if we did okay. Some parents use stars on a chart that the kids can cash in for prizes, others use the inverse and use time outs and the stick.

Curie is crying less, learning to be less whiny and controlling her feelings more – her currency was screen time, but recently instead of giving her blind bags when we felt like it, Curie now gets a blind bag if she has progressed and controlled herself the whole day – which means she might start to whine, but finds her self control along the way and stops. It has, at least for the couple of weeks, worked wonders. If she can go a whole week, she can get an Octonaut toy; lest you think we are just buying a lot of toys, she has not earned the Octonaut toy yet.

A new wrinkle in the “I’m not tired,” negotiations of not going to bed has been that she now will leave the bed and come downstairs to spend time with Albert watching what went from “your” to “our favorite car show (Top Gear).” When she is sufficiently tired, she will be back up and want “Mommy all to myself.”

The most effective changer, recently though, has been having Curie watch “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” which is based on Mr. Rogers for those of us a little older. Each episode has a lesson, but more importantly a little song that goes with the lesson like “if you have to go potty, stop and go right away, wash and flush and you are on your way!” This for instance has boosted Curie from almost potty trained to essentially potty trained (though for convenience we put her in pull-ups on weekends or when she goes to sleep). There are songs on jealousy, sharing, feeling frustrated – “if you start to get angry and you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four,” The secret is the parents learn the songs too and give you common language to solve problems. Curie will sing them to us when she sees our behavior and can use them to identify when she is jealous, or angry, or needing to share, or needing to go potty.

With all the toys and games we have inherited, been gifted, or bought, we learned, during a warm weekend, that there is nothing like running in a field to Curie. She wanted us to race, to get picked up, twirled, did “123 jump,” helped Elia walk and as we mentioned earlier did “123 jump” with her. When she falls she tends to jump up and say “I’m okay!” The same goes with in the house with a clean space in the living room, or the mattress in her room, to twirl, dance, “do a show,” or just exercise with her yoga, her exercise, with dog and tree pose.

Curie is sensitive and caring, wanting to be “in the middle” between Albert and Erin when she can, likes to hold “my little sister,” discovered that she can pick Elia  up, played “fetch” with Elia (yeah, “catch” would have been better) with a ball. And Curie, one day, worried about Albert’s ear, met him at the stairs after he had returned from the minute clinic to give him a big hug because he said he had said needed it – “I need to give Daddy a big hug.”

We were late to the Frozen game, so “Let it go,” and “Do you want to build a snowman,” are just showing up, our biggest surprise was when she could sing the entire first verse of “The duck walks up,” having not heard it from us for almost half a year, by herself. And there are other little things -after more than a year after trying to get her to wear sunglasses, on the last day of Cancun, she decided it was time to wear them – for the day. She likes fixing things and replacing batteries; Albert bought her a shovel so she could help shoveling snow. All in all it is the simple things, and we tend to forget that.

Finally one thought, with kids, parents tend to be partners and forget to be married. The children have precedence in time, mind, and effort – and yet when you remember to fall in love regularly, you become less resentful, snipe and nag less, and remember to be considerate and thoughtful of each other’s feelings. You become Partners again with the capital “P” and remember that laughter is what brought you together and it is what will allow us to grow old together.

Curie January 2015. “Curie Becomes a ‘Threenager,'” or “Ginger Ale and Orange Juice.” Over the past few months we have commented that three has been harder than two (people say four gets easier, but having been fooled by the idea of the terrible twos, judgement is currently being withheld), and recently Erin discovered that someone has coined the term threenager. Rebellion, contrariness, drama, and whininess all come with parenting challenges.

At pre-school Curie has learned “you get what you get and you don’t get upset,” when it comes to selecting instruments for music class. We have begun using it at home and making the transference to even which parent picks her up or does things for her.

Curie is coming into stronger emotions and learning to cope with them. Everything is all or nothing in her eyes, something that Albert had issues with when he was the same age. Tantrums and crying to the point of coughing and hysteria are not uncommon and coping with them often means making sure we take the time not to just react. Reasoning with her but being firm about the boundaries have been the general order of the day, but you have to reason like a three-year old.

Erin has been doing a great job pre-wiring conversations like “when this show ends I am going to say turn it off, and you are going to say ‘yes mommy,'” which she does really well with. Albert will take her aside and keep talking to her in measured tones until she has cried it out. We tell her all the time that we don’t understand her when she whines and make her say it again until it is in her “big girl strong voice” and only say yes when she does. Albert will take it further and encourage her superhero voice or robot voice (okay usually it is Albert doing the superhero voice or robot voice, but it convey’s the idea that a strong voice is better for asking for things). All of this is of course coupled with a “please.” We do the same when she demands and work the other direction to a nice voice.

Now don’t get us wrong, it is not an exasperated pain (okay sometimes it is), but it is a daily occurrence that we want to work on more to rein in the entitled-ness, and hopefully not spoil her. Each parent has their own way of raising kids (and judging other parents along the way), and while everyone seems to have some sort of advice either from experience or thought, we are all just muddling through the best we can and what works for one kid may not work for another. What works one day, even, may not work the next.

The month was long for us, partly because we have never really shaken the illnesses of December and acquired new ones along the way, and partly because we were anticipating our Cancun vacation with the Hoaglands on January 31. Work seemed longer and harder, daily chores did not get done. Tempers and voices became brittle and taking the time each day to be a family and appreciate became more important though not always done. Twice Curie wanted us to take a family picture in bed (we do a lot as evidenced by the pictures) and wanting to be with “family all together” is something very important to her. She told Erin that she wanted a big family.

Snow in DC meant snow suits and indoor snowmen as Curie discovered she loved snow, but did not like cold. We went to the car show in DC (which was a little bit of a disappointment as we had hoped to see cool concept cars but instead was at a what felt like an indoor car lot with a lot of ordinary cars). The best part of the car show was when Curie took charge of one of the cameras and said “Daddy, you and me are ‘tographers,’ wight?” And proceeded to take the job very seriously getting angry at people getting into her shot. She learned to hold the camera away from her eye (she had been imitating Albert when he shoots his DSLR by holding the LCD to her face), and has taken some very nice pictures.

Curie is becoming a complex, opinionated, wonderful little girl (oops sorry, big girl). Curie’s favorite shows are Chuggington and Octonauts (thank you Emma) and recently Doc McStuffin, but is trying to convince us that the two verboten things Disney princesses and Barbies are good things (Albert and Erin respectively dislike these). She loves her hot dog without the bun, she likes to mix drinks together to see what colors, flavors, or sensations they make (orange juice and ginger ale are her favorite, but you have to pour the ginger ale first she says). She loves her family, especially her Mommy, her Daddy, and her Little Sister, which, of course, is all of us. When she told Erin she wanted a big family she said: I want four Mommys, four Daddys, four Elias, four Poppops, four Julies, and four Grandmoms… you get the idea. All this to say in yet a different way, parenting is hard, but parenting is wonderful all the same.

What is the word for “you just did something so unbearably cute and touching that it melts my heart and almost brings me to tears?” “The aww feeling.” is the only thing that comes to mind, and yet it is not even a proper word. Sure there is no such word as “love” in some languages, and there are many many words for “rice” and “ice” in others. You would think that English would have a word for that feeling you have for your own kids when they do something adorable and amazing at the same time.” It is “love” but more, and more nuanced.

We tend to write about things that happen in our blogs to document the goings on of our kids, what they got for Christmas (train set and robot), where they went (Florida, Massachusetts, the White House), milestones (almost three feet), and their health (kids get sick a lot especially when they are in day care – sheepishly we used to be non-parents once- and it seemed like people’s kids were sick all the time – trust me, this is normal, you only hear about when they are sick, not the days they are healthy). So at the end of this year, and because we have already posted a lot of what we have done this month in separate posts, we wanted to take the time to write about the “aww” feeling.

<Some> non-parents may think the idea saccharine, but there is an overwhelming feeling when Curie says to Elia, unprompted, “I’m proud of you, little one,” or “be careful Elia, I’ll look after you,” or “Nana is in a better place now.” Sure they are mimicking adults, and yes, it is a mixture of pride love and the fact that it is a three year old expressing a complex behavior toward a one year old or toward a concept she does not yet understand, but there must be a word for it.

Forget about kids for a moment, think about your pets when you have a rough day and they, if they are a dog (or a pig), unprompted, lick your hand and give you the cocked inquisitive head of “is everything okay?”(Albert has never had more than a fish, so he does not understand), or they jump into your lap and purr if they are a cat (or some other purring animal- ferret?). You put your hand to your chest, blink hard, and hug your (insert dog or other animal, or child, if you are a parent, here) as hard as you can. They don’t understand, so they say “mommy, your squishing my frog,” or “ruff-ruff, eep!” or “oink” or “meow,” or “neigh (horse putting its head on your chest)…”  you get the idea.

So maybe it is just love, pride, and gratitude added to anthropomorphic mimicking, but it seems more real than the bad day, more vivid than the bad feeling, more wonderful, than just the idea of love in that moment it happens. Unprompted roses from you loved one, a hand of a friend on your shoulder, a kiss on your forehead from your parent or grandparent. The rat race continues, the unexpected misfortunes (and fortunes – but like kids being sick we seem to focus on the misfortunes) continue, the time bombs and mines of daily life continue unabated but are off set by this thing with no word, only a feeling and an expression of “awe.”

…oh yeah, something about Curie for this month: recently Curie likes to say that she is “so so hungry,” or “so, so thirsty,” with rolled eyes and shaking head when she is hungry or thirsty. What a ham. She also said “Mommy, I love my new cousins,” upon meeting them, and “where is my new best friend?” when talking about kids at Albert’s holiday party. Aww, that is our daughter.