Watching Elia discover the world around her has been amazing with times of revelation and times where she is becoming more self aware. She tries so hard to do what Curie does even though she knows she is smaller. At Curie’s Congressional Camp luau, she was so proud to make it up on stage with Curie do practice the hula. When it came time to take bows, she was beaming as she waved to us on the stage, she was with the camp kids and was one of them. Her joy was boundless and unabashed.
She has taken advantage of being alone with Albert as well, asking for a walk in the woods before Erin and Curie return and taking her parasol along the way. They listen to music together in the car and take the time to talk about the day. Albert picks her up, and gives her “uppy” when she wants. His rationale is soon she will be too big and won’t want to be picked up, so why not relish the chance while we can (he does this with Curie too even though she is nearly seven – actually seven at the time we write this). Elia and Albert get a handful of foaming sanitizer and either spray it on the carpet, or rub hands together, each with one hand in an awkward cleaning of the hands. This is not unlike Albert and Curie swinging only one arm as he carried her when she was younger.
Since Elia has been complaining about her teeth, they no longer just go for a snack after work. In fact, Elia has gone so far as to tell us her teeth hurt and ask us to take her to the dentist to get her teeth fixed. She is very practical about it saying: “when we fix my tooth, can I have candy again?” It is heartbreaking and precocious at the same time. We did take her for her visit, but that is a story for next month.
The revelations we refer to earlier are about Elia discovering the world. She caught wind in her mouth from the open car window and then turned and opened her mouth to see if it would blow on Albert for instance. She practices her words when she notices she is not saying them the same way as other people, and then she will practice words she knows that Albert has pointed out before “tookie, tookie, cookie.” On some level we don’t want her to grow up and we love when she says “stinking” instead of “thinking.” And we break down in peals of laughter asking Elia and Curie to say “ravioli.”
Elia is so resourceful too, Albert was finding out when Elia could reach the controls of the door in the car, because at one point Curie discovered she could open the window and Albert wanted to know if Elia could. Elia responded with, “no I can’t, but I can with my feet.” She then proceeded to take off her shoe and do it with her foot. This is amazing because she not only solved the problem but discovered that she couldn’t do it with her shoe on but could with her shoe off.
When Curie started second grade, Elia moved from Preschool 2 to K-Prep, the highest level at Bright Horizons. We made a big deal of her transition and though she had been excited to move from Preschool 1 to Preschool 2 the year before, she did not want to go to K-Prep. She said that she didn’t want o go to school that she wanted to start kindergarten already and go to school with sissy. “I want to go to school with my sisto.” With a little prodding we discovered something else. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t want to go to K-Prep, though she had her apprehensions; she was actually sad about leaving her teachers Ms. Tiana and Mr. Wally. She has grown so attached to them and quite frankly they have been the best teachers for her. In particular Elia has a fascination with Mr. Wally, going so far as to say a rapper on a magazine was handsome and he looked like Mr. Wally. There is another little connection there too. In Cars 3 Jackson Storm, though a character that is mean and a bit of a jerk, has captured Elia’s imagination. She likes him because he is very fast and more. In her words, “Jackson stom is very fast, and he is handsome.” It makes you smile.
She is still four years old, loving twirly dresses, new swimsuits that are iradescent and fun. She claims to have nightmares even before sleeping to stay up with Albert, and she asks for “code code water,” for ice water right before bed. She is rambunctious and willful and will intentionally not listen to get what she wants. She loves little ice cream cones and orange popsicles. She will eat your dessert so that she can try everyone’s dessert. She loves mint chocolate chip and everything else you have ordered. She is cute and wonderful and fun and Curie would be the first to admit that Elia is a joy to our family.