77 Yaya-filled months!
[[image:2014-yaya77month-05.jpg:Happily making use of her “lumps of coal” Christmas present:center:0]]
Unlike some children, Yaya was completely happy to play with her “lumps of coal” Christmas present. She made a drawing of a cat using various charcoal pieces on regular printer paper.
* Mouse over the pictures for captions
So December was very busy and filled with fun and activities. We did not have to go anywhere for work but Jo, Vin’s sister came to visit and stayed with us for two weeks so we had a ton of fun with her. We took Jo to Elkhart to visit with Becky and her family for a few days and had such a great time. More on that visit and the pictures from it here (stay tuned for an active link). I did have to do some work from home, but I tried to get up early and get my work done before the start of the day for Vin, Jo and the kids in order to maximize the time I could spend with the family. It all worked out.
In the meantime, in mid-December, Yaya had a checkup with a pediatric optometrist (OK so I actually had to google Yaya’s doctor to find out what to call her as I did not know whether she was an optometrist, opthalmologist, or optician). Yaya was diagnosed with a condition called “accomodative esotropia” – she has 20/20 vision in her right eye, and almost 20/20 vision in her left eye. However she is farsighted and has trouble getting her left eye to focus on things that are close up, causing it (her left eye) to drift inwards as she tries to focus. We picked up her new spectacles the week before Christmas and she now wears bifocals to correct this! I’m sure she is the only 6-year-old on our block who is wearing bifocals. She seems to have adjusted very well and we are seeing not just an improvement on her reading ability but definitely more willingness to try (which was a huge part of our problems before this). So hopefully, the new glasses will help her progress well in her reading. She was reading synopses of her favorite cartoons that were downloaded to the iPad and has surprised not just us, but even herself with how many words she actually does know how to read. Let’s hope that she will continue to improve and begin reading smoothly and well with the help of the new glasses!
Food status – Yaya has tried some more new foods this month, and they include:
* pomegranate (liked the juice but happily spat out the seed)
* tangerine (I opened a segment and let her suck on the little globules of tangerine goodness and spit out whatever she didn’t want – she liked the juice)
* chocolate ganache (finger tasted from Adik’s 3rd birthday cake)
I suppose that isn’t too bad, right? Hopefully we will continue to progress with trying out new foods and whatnot. Let’s move to the photos. Keep in mind that I have purposely not included any of the photos of Jo’s visit as we will compile those into one fun entry (to be written soon, hopefully!). We begin with some fun photos of Yaya and Adik that was part of the small “photoshoot” (if one can even call it that) that I had to organize in order to have some photos for the 2014 Holiday card:
[[image:2014-yaya77month-01.jpg:Adik relaxes on Yaya:center:0]]
[[image:2014-yaya77month-02.jpg:Mischievous smiles:center:0]]
[[image:2014-yaya77month-03.jpg:Sayang Adik! Love Adik!:center:0]]
There were quite a few more photos and I debated with myself about creating a “Yaya and Adik choose your own adventure photo” entry to cover all the fun photos but in the end I came to my senses, realizing that with any luck it will not be 2016 before I am done with these entries!
Let’s see how Yaya ended up with glasses.
[[image:2014-yaya77month-11.jpg:Getting her eyes tested:center:0]]
[[image:2014-yaya77month-12.jpg:Choosing a Hello Kitty frame for herself:center:0]]
[[image:2014-yaya77month-17.jpg:After a week, Yaya is wearing glasses and Adik insists on wearing Yaya’s (Hello Kitty) sunglasses to match her:center:0]]
Yaya is enjoying the fact that the glasses are (in her words) “calming down her eyes” so she can see better. Wish us luck getting her caught up with her reading and writing!
We also had to purchase a bunch of cold weather clothes for the kids in December, since we had spent most of the autumn in Florida where it was much warmer. This includes a new winter coat:
[[image:2014-yaya77month-10.jpg:Her Royal Pinkness (or is that fuchsia?):center:0]]
[[image:2014-yaya77month-13.jpg:New fuzzy sweater for Yaya (the boots are not new):center:0]]
Some photos of Yaya engaging in the creation of art:
[[image:2014-yaya77month-04.jpg:Trying out the pottery wheel and getting nice and messy:center:0]]
[[image:2014-yaya77month-14.jpg:Hard at work painting a new teacup for Papa:center:0]]
[[image:2014-yaya77month-15.jpg:Sculpting Elsa out of home made play dough:center:0]]
One of Adik’s birthday / Christmas gifts was battery powered cars and tracks. Yaya of course got a car stuck in her hair and we had to cut it out:
[[image:2014-yaya77month-06.jpg:Shenanigans and note the ominous scissors approaching in the background:center:0]]
Ever since Adik was born, Yaya has been wanting to give him lessons on how to paint a picture at an easel. She decided she would teach Adik this when he was three years old, so the day after he turned three, the lesson was on!
[[image:2014-yaya77month-09.jpg:Smocked and ready for action!:center:0]]
[[image:2014-yaya77month-07.jpg:Yaya instructing and Adik executing:center:0]]
[[image:2014-yaya77month-08.jpg:Yaya having a sit-in protest as Adik decides to work independently and ignore her instructions:center:0]]
Yaya got pretty upset when Adik decided to paint a shall we say, “deconstructed” version of Mittens the Kitten from Timmy Time. We had to advise her that people will be people and individuals will assert their individuality. Adik wanted to paint stuff his own way and in art we can’t actually tell him that his way is the wrong way. So Yaya calmed down and painted Mittens on the other side. In the end, both kids enjoyed painting and had fun. And that is it!
Happy 77-month birthday, baby girl! We love you!!!!!
[[image:2014-yaya77month-16.jpg:My pretty bespectacled girl:center:0]]
