It is a remarkable time where the world seems like there is a Bizzaro universe and we are in that one and not the normal one. The only stabilizing thing is family, it is hard to imagine trying to get through the days without it. We have never been so far behind in writing so we will attempt to recount the month’s happenings and try to remember the cute things said and done, but as we move further and further away, it is hard without taking notes. This particular blog was written once already, yet the save draft feature in WordPress has unfortunately not been working and we lost a draft twice already, though the second was just an outline.
Curie and Elia will always be petite, but it is nice to see that Curie has been growing and wears 6/6x now and no longer 5Ts. She has grown two inches in the past three months. Her reading continues to improve but her writing still needs quite a bit of work, she forgets vowels as she sounds out words, and will write using the whole space rather than regular sized letters. At EMA, she will need to break a board for her next test and with so little mass, Albert bought a few boards to practice. In March, Curie broke her first board and we re-enacted it to get the video and pictures.
This month we bought a wagon at Costco, which we have used considerably since buying it. We will need to buy bikes for the kids soon since we have really outgrown the blue car, and even the tricycle. The first time we used it was at Tysons Corner, where the girls lay in the wagon to read at Barnes and Noble and we wandered around to get away from the weather.
Albert has been drawing for the girls and drew them as young ladies, it was interesting that both girls chose the girl with the flowing dress over the more normal clothes. Curie loves her purple Shopkins dress as her favorite dress these days. She still loves her red Tsum Tsum dress, but will wear the purple dress more. Both girls have so many dresses these days that they will wear party dresses all the time. There was one day though that Curie insisted on wearing her Hermione Granger dress, and that was because she was being twins with her friend Kalani.
We found out that Curie likes the strip side of the t-bone for her steak. In fact, she has been telling us that is her favorite steak lately and will ask if the steak is a t-bone if we have a flap steak or other beef. She has been eating lunches from home for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but has been buying lunch on Thursday for the cookie and, on Friday for the pizza. She loves when we go to eat lunch with her, which we don’t do often enough. Recently she has asked for a Thermos to bring soup or hot food since some kids do that at school. We bought her and Elia small food Thermoses and have let her bring soup and noodles to school. In general though, she doesn’t finish her lunch and brings back food. This is consistent with meals where neither girl finishes their plate mostly, but that is as much likely as them getting bored rather than getting full – usually they can get hungry again before the end of a dinner and have a second wind.
When Albert took Elia on a date to Clydes, Curie, quite reasonably, wanted her own date. So when Albert had to take the car in for servicing one day, he picked Curie up early and they went together to go somewhere. Curie chose a buffet place and was happy to go with Albert to Green Olive near the dealership. She still recounts the cold and the weather that made walking there challenging. She got to have Pho and ribs and was pretty happy. They both were pretty happy.
We let the kids make a crazy pie at Cafe Rio one day that no one ate, introduced the kids to Five Guys, and went to the Mosaic with the Hoaglands and ate at Choolah and the bakery. We discovered Peter Chang’s restaurant and were not as impressed with the regular food, but loved the giant soup dumpling and the bubble scallion pancakes. In fact, this was after our trip to New York where we sought our the soup dumplings and to find at least these in our area was very nice. Curie loves deconstructing the soup dumpling, eating the soup first, then the meatball. Elia only likes the skins and does not choose soup dumplings as a favorite food for herself. We think this is because Curie likes them as one of hers.
The big trip was the New York trip for Erin’s work. We decided to go as a family, and took Curie out of school for a day, something we are trying not to do to in general so that she can continue to improve in her work. Her math has been something she really loves and she can do well in most other areas, so not taking days off is important to us. For this trip though we had a chance to get away for a little bit, so we went and stayed in lower Manhattan and Albert took the kids to Chinatown for a visit. There they bought Chinese dresses and fans and bought parasols, but they were huge and not worth it. The kids loved the trip and stuck to the holding hands rule in the city. When Erin was done, we went to Joe’s Ginger for soup dumplings.
Nora’s birthday was this month and both girls were invited. They made masks at the party and Curie was especially proud of hers, to the point of being sad that an eyebrow fell off and she wanted to fix it later. Albert intended on cutting a new one for her, which we have yet to do, We also saw Captain Marvel together in the theater. We did see Into the Spiderverse with the kids, and we have seen most of Wonder Woman together and most of Black Panther as well, but this was the first live action Marvel film we have seen in the theater with the kids, and though it was scary for some of the parts, they really liked it. Curie did watch Erin’s phone during some of it when it was scary, and she was funny eating popcorn with no hands on her head after.
We bought our new swing for the back yard and had a fire in the fire pit. We roasted marshmallows, and Curie lost another cap because they were too chewy after a while. We also invented strawberry covered chocolate at the same time.
Curie and Elia are best friends, and Curie, while taking privilege as the older sister when she can, loves to read to Elia, incorporate her into her play, and makes it a point to try to make Elia happy. Curie will get upset and cry if she can’t be the one to help Elia or if Elia refuses help. Curie did not want a new car seat when Elia got hers, and was very gracious about showing her what she could do in the seat (turning around, picking up things, opening the car window…). They love to dance and sing together and are the joy and hopeful worry of our lives. The funny thing for the month? Curie learned that she can stress Erin out at Wasabi by waiting to the last moment to take something that Erin wants off the belt. She totally has Albert’s sense of humor.