On Feb 6, Elia says “love” for the first time in the form of “love you dada.” Granted, it sounded more like “Louu Daddai,” but it was still there. Elia has then progressed to “seyou,” which means “see you soon,” followed by “Louu Daddai!” She is conversational with: “Dada, fix mama phone,” or “Mama, snow falling outside! There’s snow.” And every time she walks outside she will say “Wow! Snow!” She will even call Poppop by herself and have a full conversation with him, albeit, that she will answer yes and no questions. She likes to call us “guys (dai’s),” and knows her colors now through green and orange (green used to be white). She can also count to 10 by herself (credited to Curie and Jake and the Neverland Pirates).
She has her own personality, opinions, and temperament, so much that she has been practicing her eye roll. She loves playing “Row, row, row, your boat,” riding Curie like a horse when they play train, and kissing you on the lips by holding your cheeks so that you can’t turn away. The other day Elia brought Albert a My Little Pony and having one for herself and wanting to play together. She unloads and loads the dishwasher (which is totally scary when she is holding a breakable plate) – she pulls up her stool to the dishwasher to do so. She can crack eggs and break up the yolks while scrambling them.
At school she graduated to the upstairs “twos” classroom that we mentioned when writing in Curie’s blog post. She loves the water fountain, likes water over soda, though will ask for juice on occasion. She has stopped making her own whistle sounds while blowing a whistle and can now make the whistle make noise. Like Curie at a similar age, she has learned the concept of “up and down” and will stand up in her chair and sit down in it while saying it. She eats a lot more and has thinned out while growing recently, at night she wakes up hungry.Elia is less afraid of cats and dogs than before, but still wary, wants to watch “eggs (Youtube), just like Curie.
The other day she got home from school, was helped out of the car, then looked at the sky and said “stars!” She then proceeded to sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with her hand motions. The knowing what a star is, more than a shape or song is impressive. She has a scary growling voice she has been practicing and at the Asian supermarket, she likes to make shark and lobster growling noises while reaching with both hands in a tooth or claw fashion. In the aisles, she will dance as she walks side to side to the music, or run with her hands stretch out in back of her; if you have see Naruto, its like that.
She is growing very fast, changing every day adding vocabulary, discovering new things, becoming more temperamental and quicker to anger when she doesn’t get what she wants. She loves to play with Curie, and with Erin, and Albert. Curie gets jealous of Erin and Albert and asks why Elia won’t play with her, or hug her, or kiss her. The two of them play in the Ikea kitchen, have tea parties, and ride the rocking horse together. They dress up in their dresses and do shows, play musical instruments and generally have a good time. Elia is almost the same age as Curie was when she was born, which is a strange thought. The two are so different at the same age, but on balance it would be hard to compare them as a whole, it would be like two glasses filled to the same height, but with different things, or two cookies of the same size but one with chocolate chips and the other with toll house. We have two wonderful girls and couldn’t imagine it any other way.