52 Months! And backdated entries are a good thing. 🙂
[[image:2012-yaya52month-15.jpg:Happy Yaya says Hiiii:center:0]]
* Mouse over pictures for captions
Another month has passed – without traveling again! Things are pretty quiet at home, even Lily the cat seems calm and relaxed (she’s tense when we leave her). Food status: Another slight success. As mentioned last month, we imposed a new rule that Yaya will not get a new game (on the iPad) or new toy until she tries a new food. This past month she tried nutella (she dipped her finger and tasted it). And for that she got a new Team Umizoomi game on the iPad. Sadly, the Peppa Pig Sports Day game is only available on iTunes UK and I can’t seem to download or purchase it without making it seem like we’ve moved to the UK and will only shop iTunes UK from now on! May I say, Apple and iTunes, that limiting such things by country in such a stringent way – really crappy. You really disappointed Yaya who really wanted the Peppa Pig Sports Day game! And she even tried a new food to get it! Shame on you Apple and iTunes! Shame on YOU!!!! Sadly she won’t eat nutella again (even though it is nothing but deliciousness!). But she tried it. That’s the spirit, Yaya! Would it be cruel to buy her a toy that she really wants and keep it in a box where she can see it until she eats something else new? Probably, right? Hmm.
Yaya has been able to play with Adik quite a bit now that he is bigger and able to fend for himself a little better. They dance together and play together – Yaya sometimes pretends to be a “big baby” and goes around copying Adik, which luckily, he finds very amusing. We still have to ensure that Yaya isn’t too rough with her brother and doesn’t put things on his head or cover his face with a blanket, etc. Yes, she still thinks that is funny, and Adik does not. It’s going to be a fun day when he realizes that he can retaliate and do mean things to her, too. Speaking as a younger sibling, we don’t stay innocent and open to victimization forever, you know. (Well, maybe it does stay with you a long time – it bugs me sometimes that if Hisham were to yell at me to do something, I probably still would snap to it! Damn that early obedience training!!) But hey, we evolve and grow into our own persons and we learn to stand up for ourselves. So Yaya, watch out! Adik’s going to get there and it’ll be quite a surprise.
I was just thinking how far Yaya has come speech-wise. It’s only been about two years since she joined the realm of the speaking and said “toes” (two years and a few weeks to be exact). She almost always speaks in full sentences, and if she has to think, she has a bit of a repetition (I wouldn’t call it a stutter exactly). For instance, if she wanted to say, “Mama, Papa said I have to ask you if I can do [something]” she might say “Mama, Papa sa-aid I have to ask you if I ca-an do [something]”. So it’s not a traditional stutter, it’s more like a mid-word elipsis and tends to be on a vowel. But after she’s finished her thought she will repeat her sentence (ad infinitum!) perfectly minus the elipses. It’s really quite funny. Also, Yaya is paying attention to rules of grammar – past tenses, singular/plural agreements, etc. However, she has not yet learnt the exceptions so everything follows the “rules”. If she has hurt herself, she will say “I hurted my knee when I fe-ell”. And she knows that to make something plural, in general you add an -s to the end of the word. We noticed that when she assigned roles and Adik was the sole person in the audience, she said “Adik will be the audien” (singular). 😀 How funny is that? We figure she will learn from listening to us speak the correct grammar as she has picked up the ground rules by listening.
OK – since there’s not much else to report, let’s get to the pictures – these are some of my favorite taken in the past month:
[[image:2012-yaya52month-01.jpg:Yaya emerging out of the tent:center:0]]
[[image:2012-yaya52month-06.jpg:Bashful on the sofa:center:0]]
[[image:2012-yaya52month-13.jpg:Arrr ye scurvy mateyyyyys!!!:center:0]]
There really has been a lot of fun hanging out with the family:
[[image:2012-yaya52month-02.jpg:Papa and Yaya after Papa voted:center:0]]
[[image:2012-yaya52month-04.jpg:Papa, Adik and Yaya outside on a beautiful autumn afternoon:center:0]]
[[image:2012-yaya52month-05.jpg:Yaya and Adik rowing along in a “rowboat”:center:0]]
[[image:2012-yaya52month-11.jpg:Yaya simultaneously posing and smiling while trying to block Adik’s access to the laptop:center:0]]
[[image:2012-yaya52month-12.jpg:Sharing a joke together:center:0]]
[[image:2012-yaya52month-14.jpg:Yaya laughing at “Cowboy Adik”:center:0]]
[[image:2012-yaya52month-16.jpg:Yaya and Mama:center:0]]
The following are a series of photos that Yaya asked me to take where she tried on different “new and fancy poses”:
[[image:2012-yaya52month-07.jpg:I call this one “Yaya Happy Puppy”:center:0]]
[[image:2012-yaya52month-08.jpg:Bunny Yaya:center:0]]
And then she asked me to pose her in a “new and fancy pose” so I asked her to sit on Papa’s napping chair like so, and smile:
[[image:2012-yaya52month-09.jpg:I love this shot!:center:0]]
And then we went a little silly again:
[[image:2012-yaya52month-10.jpg:”Angry Yaya” in a new and fancy pose:center:0]]
It has been another awesome month. Our beautiful little girl is growing up so quickly! Happy 52 month birthday baby girl! We love you!! See you all next month!
[[image:2012-yaya52month-03.jpg::center:0]]
