Let Them Eat Cake!

Yeah so Yaya officially loves yellow cake with chocolate frosting! Now most parents would be like…great another sugar coma waiting to happen. BUT NO! Not us! We are thrilled! Not just because it is a real food item that it going into her mouth, but because we just really wanted her to be able to eat and enjoy her birthday cake on her birthday. Her 3rd birthday is rapidly approaching, June 30th! I know it is silly but I feel like it is a huge thing that she will be able to eat her birthday cake. She didn’t eat it last year, we got one of course, but she wasn’t even eating baby food at the time…just baby formula from her orphanage bottle. She also loves ice cream, and I mean loves it. So I envision a happy girl on her birthday…well at least during the eating part. Our test cake last night was a roaring success. The most interesting thing about the cake eating was that it was given to her by a dear friend of ours, Zeb. Yaya came to the table curious about what everyone was eating and Eric mentioned that chocolate was involved. Zeb picked up a fork and put a reasonable size bite for a normal eating toddler and I almost choked…it was bigger than anything we’ve put in her mouth thus far. I didn’t think she would even eat it, but she gobbled it down to my shock…to everyone’s shock actually. Then she ran off. Then she came back and poked Zeb in the arm, he got a fork full of chocolate icing for her, which she loved. Zeb then proceeded to de-frost the remainder of his cake.  When there was no frosting left, he offered her just the yellow cake…she ate it. Then she ate some more and I think Zeb gave her 6-8 bites. It was amazing! Today, I got a slice for myself and then Eden. Yaya came up to the table and gave me the, “Where is my cake, woman?!” look. So I got her a toddler appropriate piece and she ate all of it.

We also saw her feeding therapist today and I told her all of what has transpired in the past week since we last met. Patty looked at me and said, “You don’t need me anymore.” I protested a bit and began discussing how we are to get her to bite into things that are whole; apple slice, cheese, banana, pasta etc. And how do we transition into crunchy; goldfish, crackers, cookies. I am thrilled she is off the baby food but eventually hope to not have to dice all her food. We had a feeding session with Patty and Yaya bit off the head of a goldfish cracker and took a biet out of an “Angry Birds” graham cracker cookie. Patty looked up at me at the end and repeated… “You don’t need me.”  We decided to drop our appointment next week but keep our final appointment in June. I’ll drop that if we really don’t need it, but we will likely go. Eden got to go with us today and so she finally got to experience the “Sensory Room.” I think I’ve blogged about this before but it is so much fun in there. I’m gonna try to post some video here of the girls in the room. It is Yaya’s reward for working hard and being brave in her feeding sessions.

In other Yaya news, she helped/watched us break down the crib and then put it up in the attic. She could have cared less. She is totally into her big girl bed. She still cries out at night, but we don’t have to get involved now. She screams out and then falls back asleep. I look forward to the day when all her dreams are sweet….or at least not such that she cries out at night. Eric is still sleeping upstairs and will do so for about another week I think.

Totally random picture from May…we cooked S’mores on the front porch…yum!