Just a quick post to capture the moment. Mallory has the tendency, like her daddy, to zone out when she get’s into something, usually on TV. For her it’s normally Mickey Mouse, Handy Manny, or one of her DVD’s. I didn’t realize, but apparently when I can’t get her attention as a result, I will whistle or go “hey, pssst”… until she looks at me, and then continue with what I needed to tell her.

It should be no surprise then, that she has picked up on the exact same habit. Enter Thursday night… I’m sitting down watching the Olympics, and she comes up to me and says “Daddy… pssstt, daddy!” It caught me off guard the first time, so it worked very well, and provided a laugh. Then the next day, when she tried again, and it didn’t work quite as well, her “Psst’s” became “PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTT’s” in rapid succession. Again, many laughs, which I’m sure will only encourage the behavior.

I’m waiting now for the note from daycare, which informs me that she has begun to use this tactic on the teachers.

I think when I last posted, my grandmother was sick, but we were hoping she would make a recovery. She suffered from COPD, and was on oxygen at home. She came down with pneumonia, and ended up in the hospital. At first it looked really bad, but then she started doing better, and then things changed again and she went down hill. She asked not to be intubated, and signed a DNR as well. A few days later, the hospital said they had done all they could, and transferred her to a hospice facility.

My brother, his wife, and I drove down after work on Monday. We got there about 4:30 the next morning and Maw was still with us. She wasn’t very responsive… couldn’t open her eyes or talk. She was sleeping when we came in, but later did react a little when we spoke to her a little later. The day was uneventful, and that night we stayed with her overnight (Matt, Lauren, Sonya and myself). The rule was that two people had to be with her at all times. She was on oxygen and morphine only… no monitors, no IV fluids, etc. Continue reading →

I have to admit that I was heading into today with a pretty pessimistic attitude. Mallory’s teachers have been having a lot of good luck with her using the potty at school. Some days she’ll go without having to change her pull-up at all. The only problem is that the same level of excitment about using the potty doesn’t seem to follow her home. On Friday, her teacher finally said those magic words. . . “We are ready for big girl panties.”

Could it be true? Could we be on the verge of saving $120,000/year in diapers? I left school excited, however over the weekend, Mallory did not volunteer or cooperate with going to the potty once. Nada. Zilch. So I was a little less than excited about giving it a try today. My fear was only reinforced when Mallory exclaimed to me about 1/2 mile from her school that she had “pee peed in her panties”. Sure enough, her pants were wet, so I took her into school first thing wet. Her teacher was nice enough to take it from there.

I wondered a few times throughout the day how well she would do. I truly expected to come to school and find her back in pull-ups. When I arrived, a teacher (not her normal teacher) told me that she had a small accident and she changed her pants. But to my surprise, she was still wearing panties. This mean that she had only had one accident at school that day… what a BIG GIRL. Continue reading →