Busy Back Yard

This has been a fast week for us. Time seems to have gone by fairly quickly. I like that on the weeks when I am on call. This happens to be one of those weeks. So, the faster we can dispose of this week, the sooner I will not have to worry about getting called back into work and messing up my evening or weekend plans. Thankfully, I don't get called in that often, but every now and then, I get hit with a particularly difficult problem and that tends to compound the stress of being called out in the first place.

The kids are doing great lately. Abby brought home her report card from school this week and she had some amazingly high grades. I was never this good in school when I was her age. I guess she gets her smarts from her mother! That's a good thing. I married a very smart and wonderful lady. Abby is continuing to learn more at her karate classes and hopes to get to the point where she can test for another belt soon. I hope to be there to record it like I did last time.

Next week, Abby's school is having a Fall Festival and Pam and my mother plan to go. I'll be at work, but it would be nice to attend. I probably would have asked off if I hadn't already taken some time off this month. I'll send a camera along with Pam. Maybe I can go next year.







Many people have come up to me and asked questions about how David is doing. I get a little surprised when some people are unaware that he is walking and talking now. In fact, he has been walking very well for over six months. He's also quite the daredevil and he will climb up on nearly anything. We're always getting him off chairs and occasionally a few tables. He seems to have no fear at all. The nicest thing for us lately is he has been really turning up the charm and he is working hard at trying to learn to talk to us. We work with him a lot on his words and he has been very responsive. Of course, we're still at the stage where only we know what he is saying most of the time. He likes to put his own twist on the words we teach him. For instance, when a big truck goes by his window in the car, he yells out, "truck-ieee!" That "ieee" suffix gets appended to a lot of the words he repeats back to us. It is very cute. But, he recognizes animals and other objects in books and calls them by name and/or makes their appropriate sound. Occasionally, he gets it a little wrong, but most of the time, he's right.

Our only concerns about David so far are the unknown future for his kindeys and his insatiable appetite for water. He drinks water like there is no tomorrow. We have had him tested for diabetes a couple of times and he doesn't have it. We don't know why he thinks he must drink so much, so fast, but we hope to find a way to get him to calm down about it. This should get easier to manage as our ability to communicate with him improves.

David is still doing great on learning to use the toilet. I am maintaining our nightly ritual of associating his bath rituals with doing his business in the toilet and not somewhere else. So far, it works very well. He always goes before the bath and usually afterwards, he will go again. If he feels the need to do more, he will say, "poo-poo" to me and I'll place him back on the toilet. He understands what that word means and he doesn't disappoint me when I place him on the toilet. He does it!

I am hoping to get some "pickin' time" in this weekend. There are a lot of songs that have been rattling around in my head all week and I need to spend some time trying to play them. So, if I don't get called in to work, I hope to wear my fingers down to nubs playing some Bluegrass!

Thanks for checking in.

Rob