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56 Months

Yaya is now four months away from her first half decade! 56 months now! Where did all that time go?

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

Food status: something weird happened at the grocery store. Yaya surreptitiously took a bite of a carrot at the produce aisle. She chewed a bit and then ended up spitting it out (into my hand, ew!) but she randomly took a bite of an unwashed, unpeeled, unprepared carrot! How odd is that? After we advised her against taking a bite of unwashed produce, and encouraging her to give carrots a proper try next time (meaning: washed, peeled, perhaps even cooked or with dressing, etc.), we did reward her for trying something new with a game. Right or wrong, we didn't want to stifle her experimentation with food by not following through on our promises. Sadly she did not try anything else.

We traveled out east for work again in March, this time to Pennsylvania. Yaya was her usual professional road-warrior traveler self, and got to swim in the pool a few times and even go to the local mall nearby for rides on a merry-go-round! She also met a magician who made little nerf balls multiply in her hands, and he doubled as a balloon animal maker, which made him doubly popular with Yaya! So now, in addition to wanting to be a police person (first) then a chef (second), she wants to be a magician when she grows up! Ha!

Yaya is still very into drawing and coloring, using crayons, color pencils, marker pens, paints, and regular pens and pencils. She doesn't have free reign to her art supplies anymore as Adik has a tendency to try to eat them. But she copes well, and where Hisham (Yaya's Pak Yope) tends to draw on the floor, Yaya prefers to draw on the piano bench. Yep. That poor bench has been through a lot. Yaya is also getting to use her child's scissors to start getting used to that tool - but that is especially a controlled tool since Adik is not allowed to touch it at all! Yaya tends to draw things and color it in and then ask us to cut it out for her - she seems hesitant to try it herself as she thinks she won't do it right. We have also been into making things out of paper - paper airplanes, paper boats, and most recently, paper jumping frogs. This last has been quite the hit (with children and adults alike!). Yaya colors the frogs in and names them - so far there has been Hoppina, Chyna (Yaya folded this lopsided frog), Gorf (who only hops backwards), and two little green tree frogs, Brother Frog and Sister Frog. Brother Frog is the champion of jumping frogs - even able to jump from the coffee table onto the sofa! We have races and do creative jumping exercises. It's all fun. Who needs expensive toys when you can fold paper!

Big breakthroughs for bed time to report! First, Yaya consented to sleep in two-piece NON-footed 'jamas! Wheee! The ones she likes are hand-me-downs from Gabby and Grace ('jamas with peace signs all over), so thanks girls and thanks Mary! Whee! And the second breakthrough - Yaya slept on the pull out bed in the hotel all by herself all night! So far, she's either slept with us on our bed, or been able to stay part of the night in the pull out bed, so that Yaya managed to sleep through the night every night in the pull out bed while we were at the hotel in Pennsylvania! Way to go, Yaya!! Our little girl is growing up and becoming more independent every day!

As to how Yaya and Adik are getting along - they are getting along very well, thank you! Adik (of course) worships the ground Yaya walks on and tries to copy her at everything, which of course flatters Yaya. Yaya, for her part, does genuinely like to play with her brother and wants to play with him all the time. We have to watch her to make sure she doesn't get too rough. For instance, she tries to stop him from going to the stairs but she might do it by pulling on his shirt which might result in Adik being roughly pulled to the ground in a tumble. Or she might get carried away when they play tag and accidentally push the baby instead of gently tagging him while they're running. Either way, Yaya has to learn not to get overly rough, but she loves playing with him. And really, she is such a good big sister. When Adik gets it into his head to jump on her to hug her, or to wrestle, or to sit on her tummy so she can be his horsey, Yaya is very good about making sure she's not so rough that she bucks him off, and so far she hasn't given in to her instinct for self preservation and has not just rolled over, body slamming Adik to the ground to escape him. It sure does warm the heart to see the kids play nicely together (not to mention that it frees us up to accomplish some things around the house).

Anyway, let us proceed to the monthly photo round up. First we have a couple where Yaya is helping me juicing some lovely navel oranges: 

Here are some fun pictures of the interactions between Yaya and Adik. Playing in the tent behind the sofa:

And now to test drive our sunglasses - summer is reputed to be around the corner! We did have an awful lot of snow this month, but Yaya loved it and Adik is getting an appreciation for it. Check out their snow adventures here.

Yaya had her second dentist appointment, six months after her first one here. She did very well, not fussing at all about getting her teeth examined and polished. She did balk at the application of fluoride on her teeth - we were unable to convince to try it. The deal is on though - Yaya and the nurse agreed that all five year olds must get their fluoride applications, and at Yaya's next appointment she will be five! The dentist is really awesome and so very good with Yaya and her unique oral issues. Plus their waiting room has a little kids section which both Yaya and Adik loved!

And now back to the Yaya show:

Here is one of my new favorite photos:

Thanks for another fun-filled month! Happy 56 month birthday, baby girl! We love you!!

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