Elia is growing up, she is getting longer and bigger, heavier to lift, but still a little girl. She is five, and we forget how little they are until they go outside and are around other children. She is about the same as her classmates at school, but that is because she is the oldest of the children there. It is almost graduation time and it is pretty incredible. Just this month, she went to kindergarten orientation where she got to play with toys in Curie’s old room, she is ready to ride the bus, she tells people she is going to go to camp with her sister. We had Curie in preschool all the way until kindergarten started. It helps that Curie has been through this before and Curie is telling her all about what to expect at school, on the bus (Elia gets to get on first, and ride in the front seat), and after school at EMA. Elia is so excited, and though we know she will work through the new things as we all do, we are so proud that she is looking forward to all of this rather than worrying about it.
Elia loves school right now, the new teacher Miss Chelsea is very good about units and in the junior astronaut unit, Elia was so proud to get her certificate as a Junior Astronaut and talked about being an astronaut when she grows up. They learned about recycling, and culture, and weather and many things that Elia will try to teach us and tell us. We also found out that Elia likes to eat the quiche at school but doesn’t eat it anywhere else. For show and tell once, Elia brought the Peppa Pig’s house and a bag of Shopkins and was apparently the center of attention because when Albert arrived she was playing with the other kids around her and the teachers saying that they had been playing for hours and that she could bring it back because the kids were peaceful and not rambunctious because of it.
We let the kids wear their Easter dresses early and went to the botanical gardens and took a lot of pictures. After we went to Ritas and discovered Urban Hot Pot, our newest favorite hot pot place with a conveyor belt where the kids cooked in their own pots for the first time. We had a two hour wait where we waited in the Safeway parking lot and Albert entertained us with his Doritos eating.
We went back to Burke lake for the first time in a year, this time Elia did not want to be on the lake for some reason and kept asking Albert to go back and that she wanted to go home. Albert had to negotiate with her to stay out there for a while. This time Elia rode with Albert and she did have fun seeing the birds, the blue heron (who we saw nest high in the trees), the hawk, and the geese and ducks. She also got to drive the boat like Albert let Curie last time, and got to row a bit as well.
We found out why Elia wanted to come inside later when we were playing outside. We bought a swing for the backyard at Costco and Natalie and the neighborhood kids were running around, but Elia came back in and sat by herself with a coloring book looking agitated. Albert sat next to her and asked what was going on. She didn’t want to tell him so he just sat with her and asked her questions. It turns out she is afraid of bees, and flying bugs in general and did not want to be outside because of them. Albert told her that they could play together inside and they did while Erin played with Curie and the other kids outside. Later that night, as we were getting ready for bed, she said to Albert without prompting: “Thank you for taking care of me when I came inside.” What an amazing kid.
The back yard has been amazing, we have never had a deck before and we have never had to grow grass either. The kids loved spreading around the grass seed before we had any, and with all the rain, we have a pretty nice lawn now. We hang bird feeders from the deck and see all sorts of birds from gold finches, to sparrows, to wood peckers, cardinals, and blue jays. We have a fire pit to toast marshmallows, we made strawberry covered chocolates, and we put the barbecue on the deck and use it a lot more again (at Armistead it was on the same level as the kitchen in the back and we used it a lot. At Shootingstar it was in the back but on level lower, and with the kitchen in the front, we didn’t barbecue that much). We found out that the kids love t-bones because Curie likes the strip side and Elia likes the filet side. Pretty interesting, we are not sure they can tell the difference or if they just want to have something of their own that is not the same.
This month we went to the Mosaic, and played, introduced the kids to Five Guys, went to Agnes’s birthday party, and Chloe’s birthday party, discovered Peter Chang’s, Duck Donuts, and went on the trips to New York and Spring Break. The kids got their Chinese dresses and fans, we found a new sushi conveyor belt restaurant, met up with the Yischons, and Reggie’s kids, and ate at a new ramen restaurant in Philadelphia. The kids love the please touch museum where Elia got knocked over by a kid but everyone came to her defense. After Agnes’s party, Agnes brought her Elastigirl cycle that we gave her to school, so Albert got Elia’s out and she brought it to school also so that they could both play with them.
This month Albert took Elia on a second date to the “other fancy restaurant,” Tempo, which prompted a “no fair” reaction in Curie who wanted her second date. Elia got an Edna Mode doll at Target that day and when we opened it, she said, “she’s beautiful,” which is so nice that her sensibilities of beauty are not limited to the ones society has made Disney Princesses and Barbies. Elia is totally her own person, loves when Curie reads to Elia, loves to dance, and loves drawing and writing. Elia will spend a long time writing letters she makes up and fills pages with them. She will copy letters from boxes and papers, she loves to type on the computer with her “letters and numbers.” Elia loves to learn is is so eager to grow up and be like Curie. We are so proud of her but not ready for her to grow up yet. What an adorable girl.