So we have been using Waze lately instead of Google Maps (maps has a better interface, but the crowd sourcing in Waze seems to give better directions). For a while we had T-Pain as our voice and the kids loved it, In fact, Curie would request putting the “new GPS” on. For those of you who do not know, T-Pain is an autotuned rapper who sings the directions: “I’m T-Pain, you gonna see, Ima gonna get you from A to Z.” So we would sing along to his directions and unconsciously sing it around the kids. Recently Elia had a great reaction, After Albert sang the “I’m T-pain…” part, Elia protested and said, “me T-Pain, you bad guys”
Another day, Erin had taken Elia into the bathroom at a restaurant and Elia spied a Windex bottle. She asked Erin “wat dat for?” Erin responded that it was for cleaning mirrors. Without missing a beat, Elia asked, “na spray mama face?”
The kids love to play frozen powers and heat queen to freeze and unfreeze. In the car, Curie was talking about frozen powers to which Elia said that she had “Star Wars Frozen powers,” which we can only imagine what that would be like. Speaking of Star Wars, Elia loves the Force Awakens and anything Star Wars. There is a giant First Order Storm Trooper that Elia loves to push its button as we mentioned before; most recently though she will go up to it, call it her friend, and hold its hand. We have a blue and green light saber at home (not real ones of course, that would be dangerous) and Elia has taken to fighting with them. Now, you really do need to defend yourself, because Elia goes all out and goes for your head and your face and swings really hard. She will walk up to you with both light sabers and hand you the green one (the blue one is Rey’s so it is hers), then once activated she will go at you at will. Steve was game for this kind of fight so played with her and would fall once hit. Elia liked this so much that she also wanted to fall melodramatically and drop her light saber; so her fight became one touch of the light saber against her opponent’s and then a melodramatic pretend-fall coming to rest on the floor.
The second time in the pool this summer Elia still liked jumping into the pool but at one point pushed Albert away seeing that most other kids were swimming by themselves; she did not want anyone to hold her as she swam with her floaties. Because she did it first, it pushed Curie into jumping into the pool and swimming by herself. We’ll send them to swim class this summer.
Elia has been saying all sorts of funny things like “me baby” then after a pause “cute.” When she had a diaper rash she walked bow-legged and said “my butt hurts.” Which sound funny because Curie always said “bum” instead of “butt.” It is like hearing baby sailor talk. When playing with Albert once, Elia raised one finger to indicate that there was only on blind box left on her show. Albert raised his finger too and she laughed. Then she said it was her “thumb,” to which Albert corrected, “no, no, that is your finger, this is your thumb,” raising his thumb. Then she couldn’t copy it until Albert held her thumb and she closed her fist. Albert wiggled his thumb and she laughed hysterically. The next day, Curie and Elia were in the car, and after a period of quiet, Elia spoke up “Mommy, thumb!” Holding a thumbs up and very proud of herself. Right now if you ask her where is her thumb she will look at her hand for a while and then make the thumbs up sign.
Erin was away on a trip at the end of Elia’s month (ending on the 15th) which meant that Albert had the kids. Curie had a fever which Albert caught. So sick single parenting the kids ran a little bit wild. Albert fed them sugar-free Reese’s peanut butter cups and sugar free Squirt. But the saddest part was when Elia missed Erin and found her nursing cover. It must smell like milk and Mommy, because Elia held it crying and used it as a blanket crying herself to sleep.