In February, Erin had her birthday and her parents and her sister and her sister’s husband and us all pitched in to buy Erin Mario Kart 8, of course the fact that we had nothing to play it on meant that we had to buy a Nintendo Switch and all the relevant accessories too. What we didn’t know is that Curie could play Mario Kart almost immediately. Perhaps she had played it with Isabella, but we were amazed because when we were visiting the Yischons we are fairly certain that Chen Jing couldn’t or wouldn’t play at a similar age. In any case, Curie is fairly competitive, as is Elia, and so what we thought would be the adults playing and the kids watching, turned into the kids playing and the adults participating. As expected Steve and Julie wanted to play, but in a pleasant surprise Jim wanted to learn and played as well!
While a good time was had, we did all get sick with all of the people there. And as we kept re-infecting each other, it took all month for us to get mostly well (it is March as of this writing and Erin is still sick). Mostly just a cold and a cough, but it lingered for quite a while.
The kids have the same sense of humor as Albert and Curie has learned how to really get Erin in subtle ways. We have been going to Wasabi, a conveyor belt, kaiten, sushi place since Curie was born. Even at two we let Curie take items off conveyor without helping her. Most recently Curie has been waiting until the last moment to reach for the sushi that Erin has asked for just to stress her out. So she will put her hands near the plate but will wait until it is almost too late and past before getting it. She gets a kick out of making Erin worry that she is not going to get it or that she might knock it over.
We went to Disney on Ice again but it was an older show so it was largely Toy Story and Cars and was boring for the kids and in particular Curie was fussy in it. They liked the typical things, Frozen, Ariel and the Little Mermaid, but while Elia liked Cars more, Curie was less interested. The nice thing was that Curie was able to understand that the snow cones cost so much and were not worth it. She and Elia did hold us to taking them to Target to get something else.
We were lucky enough to go to Curie’s poetry slam at her school, she wrote two poems one was about flowers and the other about Erin. Erin almost didn’t make it but you should have seen her reaction when Curie read it aloud for everyone. She loved it. Elia was so well behave listening to the poems. We also were able to see their poster presentation on Native Americans. Curie’s was the Pueblo Indians. She said she chose them because they just did them and so she knew more about them.
Curie continues to amaze us she has a facility for math that we hadn’t seen before and understands it as patterns and technique that will serve her well into the future as she keeps up with it. She continues to improve on her reading and she has been able to read random things without being asked, something that we had hoped would happen. The result though is now we can’t just pretend something says something else. We still need to work with her on science, and history, and writing, as well as reading and math.
We have been encouraging Curie to write more and have told her that she can contribute to her blog with what she writes. Below is her contribution for the month. She wrote this on a separate Post-it for each one and then read them to us right before bed. It was almost like a poetry performance.
To M D E C, Love Curie
To Mom, I love you. You are the best forever and forever. I love you forever. Love Curie.
E + C = Love
To Elia, I love you. You are the best forever and forever. I love you forever. Love, Curie.
E + C = Love
To Dad, I love you forever and forever, I love you forever. Love Curie
A + C = Love
To Me, I love you . You are the best forever and forever. Love Me.
C + C = Love
E + E + D + C = Love Love