The girls are amazing, they are still whiney and frustrating at times, but truly they are amazing. Both girls have had a growth spurt with half an inch in a month. Elia wears Curie’s iconic old clothes making for a double take on occasion for both of us.
Elia continues to be cute and a laugh riot every day, she is also very aware and surprisingly sophisticated for her age. She still doesn’t have her “r’s” yet and her “c’s” are largely “t’s” and her “g’s” are “d’s” but don’t be fooled, her development is going crazy and she is sharp as a tack behind those words.
In the car Erin was pretending to cry about something to make a point and Elia spoke up and said Erin: “is this a big problem or a little problem?” Which came out “dis big pwoblem or little pwoblem.” And like the time she quoted us on smiling to be pretty/beautiful, i goes to show she is always listening and absorbing.
She knows what we value as a family as well. When driving with Albert she said: “you and me spending time together. Then when Erin came, she said “whole family spending time together.” And though Curie wasn’t there yet, she does not forget her. She said of Curie when giving us a hug: “Curie is the best sister in the whole world. I give her big hugs, squeezy hugs, Curie doesn’t like squeezy hugs but I do..” Albert said ” we miss Curie right?” Elia replied “that is because we love her so much.”
She tells Erin: “Mommy, why your drink not smell very good?” And holds her nose when thing smell even remotely bad. Her syntax is adorable with “please I open it?” to mishearing words and saying “Really, please?” When she means “pretty please?” In addition to being adorable with her speech and insisting on wearing her “Belle dress” every day, she also gives puppy dog eyes on demand.
Elia wants to keep up with Curie, wanting to celebrate her score too when we were celebrating Curie’s rise in score in reading at kindergarten. When she “reads” books out loud she speaks very slowly like Curie does when she is reading, like she is sounding out the words, but she is just reciting them.
We love watching her sing, she is very expressive, shaking her head on the loud notes and holding her hands up. She loves to ask us to dance too, wanting to be graceful and princess-like. She will make up songs at will going so far as to make up lyrics of an old soul like: “the world is not what it is meant to be for me.” She was drinking her pho broth with a straw and she said: “When I drink with this, my heart feels better.”
There is much wisdom coming from this little girl, and at the same time she sleep talks about broccoli, and when she is tired she will flop down and cry and when she cries she will let Albert pick her up and spend time in bed Monument on the iPad together.
Albert remembers deciding that greatness was going to be more than fame and influence, but rather working at being a good husband and father would be the greatest achievement. We won’t know until years from now if we did well or not, but we are hoping that as adults reading this then, that both girls will nod and say we did a good job.
When we started writing this draft, we had not yet sold the house and times were challenging for Albert at work it was to have started: “For the record, these are challenging times for us trying to resolve an issue with our house so that we can close on it. Emotions are raw, patience is stretched thin and the breaking point seems just around the corner. If we didn’t have kids to balance everything out things would be a lot worse.” The appreciation is still there but things are better now.