BethaBlip 57...

This is my monthly track of my children as they grow to see how they change as time goes by. I take the same photo in the same place each 1st and 15th of each month along with a wee diary of what has happened and how life has progressed for each of them. Bethany on the 1st and Ewan on the 15th. It is quite remarkable and is accentuated by the 1 year ago thumbnail down in the bottom right.

This month, we got through the prescription from the hospital for Bethany's eye drops (Atropine Sulphate). These are to replace her patches which she didn't like wearing and we had to really try to get her to wear them for the full 6 hours a day. The drops go in her good eye two consecutive days in the week and they dilate her pupil for the week. This means that her sight from the good eye is blurred forcing her bad eye to work harder through her glasses. She seems a lot happier with this option. It does carry the risk of getting too much light into the eye with the pupil dilated so we pack her sunglasses for school if it gets too much.

This outfit is for a Grace and Neve's superheros and princesses birthday party that we were about to leave for when I took the photo. Bethany made her own crown. We've now got Annie over for her first sleepover visitor. The house is very loud just now.

We've had a few stroppy fits from Bethany this month. We actually have a picture of her with a lunch bag chalked on the board in the kitchen. If the figure remains full when we deem the time right, she can get the lunch bag for going to school with however, the drawing has been losing limbs for these wee stroppy moments we've been having. She has also been regaining limbs for being good.

School update. On the good side, Bethany is starting to attempt reading things for herself. She's going through the sounds of the letters and words she comes across. On the bad side, she's been having a few issues with the big change that is fulltime education. These issues are things you don't really appreciate until she explains the problem. For example, she was getting upset about her friends leaving her in the dinner hall because she couldn't finish her lunch as fast as others. Short solution, smaller lunches. In the playground, there is sometimes, what I'd expect normally, games of chasing. Bethany isn't a fan of being chased and so got upset about this. I told her that the best way to not get chased is to not run. These are all things that we seem to discuss at bedtime. It can be quite distressing but is nice that she can talk to us about them.

Quirky wee behaviour point of note. Bethany started making these paper chalk balls the other week there. She has this process which she taught me, where she shreds tissue into water, squeezes it into a ball, then shaves coloured chalk into a bowl in which she rolls and covers the balls. She came up with this whole thing all by her self. It was fascinating watching her do it.

Oh, other wee quirky point of note. When you ask Bethany to smile, she puts on the weird fake smile thing. I detest it although I'd never vocalize that to her but the best way I've found to get a more natural smile out of her is just to mention 'pumps' or 'bums'. Works every time.

You can check out the rest of this series and see her progress by entering the words tagged BethaBlip into the Blip Search facility.