Mallory is at that age where you wish you had a tape recorder tied to her at all times.  You just never know what’s going to pop out of that little mouth.  And the biggest problem is that you know she gets it from you.  Of course, Johnathan taught her stuff like, “See this elbow.  Right in your forehead, baby.  Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam.”  And the ever popular, “It’s time to crack some skulls, baby.”  But then, there is the occasional thing that you have no idea where it came from like, “Fine, mom.  Fine.” (yes, she’s only three)  I thought I would share some recent excerpts.

Just today, Johnathan was taking the kids to school.  Mallory likes to talk so he was asking her if she was going to have fun at school.  She said, “No.  I’m going to be shy.”  “Why are you going to be shy?”  “Cause when I’m shy, the teachers hold me.”  (I knew it!!!  Stinkin’ kid!)  “I’m going to be shy for 30 minutes.  Want me to count to 30, daddy?”  “Sure.”  “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 30.”  (Impatient too.  That’s my girl!)

Tonight, she asked if we could eat dinner while we watched Tinkerbell.  We agreed that was fine since we had said no last night.  The only problem is that she is her father’s child.  She gets fixated on the TV.  I mean, fully engulfed.  (I have carried on one-sided conversations with Johnathan for several minutes.)  She wasn’t paying attention to her food so Johnathan kept pushing pause to make her take a big bite.  She expressed her displeasure by saying, “Aaahhh.  Do we have to keep doing this?!”

I think my favorite though was one day when I picked her up from school.  She always gets a fruit snack for the ride home…provided she kept her pants dry all day.  This particular day, she finished it before we go to the red light, which was very fast.  I said, “Wow!  You ate that fast!”  She said, “Yeah…I’m an inja.”  (Those of you that know Johnathan well, will know exactly where that originated.)

Mallory has become quite the storyteller these days. A couple of months ago, I noticed on her paper from school that they had studied about Jonah. When I asked her about it, she confirmed that he was swallowed by a big fish…that “spit him out on the sand and he had sand on his pants and he had to get it off cause he was all dirty…” It went on, but you get the picture.
For reasons that I won’t go into, we have been carpooling this week. Well, yesterday Mallory was talking about “The Big Pickle”. This was in reference to a VeggieTales video about David and Goliath that I think she has only watched once. Today, she started talking about potatoes. (A food that she doesn’t like…I’m not really sure she’s related to me). It went a little something like this, “When a potato comes, we go hide in the closet.”
“When a potato comes?”
“Yes. And they’re scarrrrry.” (insert really cute face with wide eyes during the “scary” part)
“Is a potato a monster?”
“No, mommy, it’s a potato.”
“Okay.”
“It comes and it picks up cars and houses and swings.”
“It picks up cars and houses and rocketships…?”
“I didn’t say rocketships. Cars and houses and swings. Airplanes and rocketships are too high up.”
“Okay. Who told you this?”
“Parissa.”  (her teacher)
“Parissa?”
“Yes.”
“We eat potatoes.”
“Yeah.  Well, I don’t.  I don’t like potatoes.”
“Okay.”
“…and the potato trail…”
Johnathan felt the need to chime in, “Potato trail?”
“Yes. It picks up cars and houses and big swings.”
Then, without realizing it Johnathan mockingly said, “Oh, the big, bad F3 Potato!” And I fell out laughing…tears streaming from my eyes. Suddenly, it hit Johnathan. “That’s what she’s talking about!”
We spent the next few minutes trying to teach her how to say “tornado”. They’re learning about weather at school. Who needs a TV when you have this kind of entertainment?

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 →