So it is remarkable how life can envelope your time especially during the holidays and beyond, which is to say, we are behind in blogging again. For the record, it has been a month since this blog was supposed to be written, and so now we are relying on memory and pictures to recount what happened. The winter holidays are not as carefree as they might be when you work at a non-profit. It is the end of the year and it is an important time to solicit donors who are also thinking about charitable giving in relation to their taxes and tax brackets; so Erin especially has a lot of work at the end of a year.
We had been postponing our vacation all year because we owed both rent and mortgage on two houses and were hoping the other house would be rented by someone else and have some relief. This didn’t happen as fast as we had hoped, so we changed our Japan trip to a trip to Canada in November, then changed it again to December, swapping out Erin’s family visit (Albert’s family get together was in October) to delay the trip further. We did not do the trip in the last week of the month, even though that was the week of Curie’s winter break (and the first week of January) because we wanted to make sure Erin could get into work that last week.
So keeping our finances in mind, we drove to Montreal. It was bitterly cold so we prepared by buying long underwear, bringing snow pants and vests and many layers. We bought handwarmers and emergency blankets, hats, and the lot. And though it was really cold, we had a really good time urban hiking. We didn’t see many normal attractions in Montreal, but we did get the kids’ Kinder eggs, go to a children’s science museum, eat a lot of great food and have a great time at an indoor playground. Really though, having the family time even with the 10 hour drive was pretty great. We drove back on Christmas and drove straight through instead of stopping somewhere overnight like we did on the drive up. When we got in the girls were excited that Santa ate some of the cookies but were wondering why he didn’t eat them all and didn’t drink our SunnyD. The girls then opened their Hatchimals from Santa and then opened the presents from family the next day in a multi-day Christmas.
We left the day after Elia’s birthday (that would be Albert’s birthday), and in our family on one person’s birthday the other person gets a mini-gift. For Elia, she got to unwrap family presents, and one of them was a Starfire, Blackfire set that Curie got to give her. Elia really wanted Blackfire, so Curie got the Starfire doll. They are knifters (sisters in Tamiran), so it was nice that they could share the two. At the end of the month we missed being with the Hoaglands for New Year’s Eve for the first time in maybe 10 years since they were in South Africa for a trip. We did have a video chat with them and instead had New Year’s Eve with the Tamanahas. We made dumplings from scratch and Curie had a great time making the dough as her job and loved showing others how to make dumplings.
Erin had a business trip at the beginning of the month so Albert took the kids to Dave and Buster’s for dinner and the kids really played a fighting game that gives you cards to choose your fighter. It is amazing to see the two of them playing a fighting game and learning what to do to make the characters act, especially since that takes a fair amount of coordination and thinking. We also went to one of Elia’s friend’s birthday parties where we invited Natalie to keep Curie company. We also got lice! Elia got it from school and so we had to hire a company to come down and delouse us. All the girls had it, but Albert was spared because of short, thinner hair, and hair product. The amazing thing is that everyone we talked to was matter of fact about it even though we had never had it before. But it did mean olive oil treatments and combing for three weeks. It turns out lice like clean hair, we didn’t know.
The biggest news of the month for Curie was losing her first tooth. It happened at the end of our trip to Montreal. Baby teeth are so tiny. Curie was so proud and was so nervous before it came out. We put it in a Kinder egg capsule and she put it under the pillow so that she could have the tooth fairy give her something. Her friends have received either money or things and she got two dollars from the tooth fairy. And while we give Curie money all the time for snacks, she was especially proud of her tooth money (and the money she won from Albert learning how to catch a dropped dollar bill).
So Curie continues to grow, she is in size 6 clothes normally but likes to wear medium dresses so that they are long. She loves her black and purple dresses that Albert has bought successive sizes for her so that she can continue to wear them as she grows. She is rambunctious and caring, loves to help to clean and to cook, is emotional when tired, will move to cry when she doesn’t get what she wants, loves Elia, and wants her attention and approval but at the same time wants to be in charge. She is afraid of uncomfortable situations on TV, worries about approval (we need to work on that one), is proud of her work, her martial arts, and whether or not she is a good person. We do what we can as parents, and are very very proud of her.