December seems like a long time ago and we should say that it is in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic as we write this in May. So back in December we had worked out that we would see Erin’s family for Christmas in New Jersey having just seen Albert’s family in Atlanta for Thanksgiving. The idea was to find a place that was equidistant and an easy drive for everyone, including Julie and Steve. In fact we had planned to rent a large car or van to make it easier to drive.
The idea was that we would go to the new American Dream mall in New Jersey, stay nearby and just go to an indoor amusement park or water park or skiing slope/hill. The stores wouldn’t be open yet so we had hoped that the crowds would be smaller. As we got closer to Christmas though, Erin’s dad had caught a cold or the flu, and then our kids also had a bug, and we opted not to travel, first for birthdays, then for Christmas, and then even for New Year’s to keep the kids from getting sick again.
So what happened was Elia was sniffly at Thanksgiving but not sick and then after Bernard and Jared caught something and we caught something as well. Erin was sick the longest, and in our notes we note that luckily Curie gets sick over the weekend so that she doesn’t miss school
We go to Kumo’s with the Hoaglands for Elia’s birthday, and Curie starts to gets sick. The next day Elia rides the bus by herself to school. We did get flu shots this year which likely helped with attenuating the length of the flu. In anticipation for the holidays we take Curie in and get verified that she has Type II. Fortunately, she feels better soon. Albert’s 50th birthday gets postponed, but Julie comes over to watch the kids, so that we can go see Star Wars.
We move the date for the trip to see if everyone will get better, but we decide to postpone because Erin’s dad is sick too. So we stay in, and have some amazing meals for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day: Oh My Hotpot for Christmas Eve, Chima’s for Christmas Day. After dinner on Christmas day we go and see Frozen 2 again, for the third time, and it was just as good then.
Christmas comes and the kids get a number of presents including a Harry Potter clock tower for Curie. She is engrossed in it so Albert builds Elia her own building and so begins an epic Lego build with Curie coming back to play with all the parts. We make an MRI, a phone booth, a skeleton box, an outhouse, a jail, and an oven that can fit a person to name a few.
We consider traveling for New Year’s but decide to stay home. We make plans with the Tamanahas, but we are not decided when Elia gets sick, and we spend New Year’s Eve at home.
Here are some notables for December for Curie, she wants beef noodle soup when she is sick so we make it for her so she can eat something to get her energy. When we go to Costco, the girls want to ride in the sleigh we build out of a shopping cart, floor mats and pillows and blankets. It usually means having two carts for the trip, one for the sleigh and one for the food.
The girls wore their cat hats from Old Navy and it kept them warm even in the restaurant and they looked so cute in them. In particular, Curie likes the hat look.
For Christmas, the girls got LOL sets from Santa in addition to the larger gifts from us. Albert got an iPad to start recording songs and went on a shopping spree for a microphone to go with it. On one trip we went to Guitar Center and the girls played in the lights for parties, on another they played on the drums with Curie liking the electronic drums.
We do take a moment out of the days and go to NICU for our family tradition and it is nice to see that the girls have really embraced the annual visit as our family tradition. This time the girls were allowed to go into the foyer and the nurse was able to talk to them and ask them how old they were. Usually we wait in the hallway while one of us goes in with the chocolates.
Curie loves school, especially Mr. Newton, who really encourages her. She still has trouble writing, but her reading has really improved and we forget sometimes to work on her math. She is shy at times gregarious at others, loves EMA and her rank at EMA. She loves to take care of her sister, though is a little jealous of the attention Elia gets because Curie doesn’t remember that she got attention when she was littler. We will have to work on that to help her feel more connected. We suspect she feels like she has to give in more than Elia does. She may not be wrong.
So as we do the blog this way we don’t capture all the gems that we had intended, but we at least have this one from Curie:
“I can’t believe how much Elia has grown, it seems like she was just a baby two days ago.”
“Do you think so?”
“No, but it is something that people say.”
And that is a microcosm of how wonderful Curie’s thinking is as she grows up. We love her and wouldn’t have it any other way. More later.