"Dip Dip"

Melinda is a genius. We all knew that already...but she really really is.

She figured out that Abigail might not be liking the food because it does not have enough flavor. I can not believe I missed this. It makes total sense. This is a child who used to eat Jalapeno flavored potato chips...and like it!!

The last couple of meals have been pretty easy. For hot dogs Melinda discovered a calorie free ketchup, that Abigail gets to dip her hot dog bits into..."Dip Dip?" she asks suddenly excited for dinner. There is calorie free syrup for her ketopancakes that she gets to "Dip Dip" the pieces into. We are also letting her sit with the food for a few minutes and start to eat on her own time. It took about 15 minutes this morning but once she got the first bite in she plowed right thru the plate of butter soaked egg's and cheese.

Abigail's communication skills are also improving 10 fold. This morning I asked her if she wanted to drink her cream. "No" she says..."No drink cream". Do you want me to put it in a syringe? I ask. "Yes" she says..."Cream in syringe please" she answers. I fumbled around looking for a syringe for about 30 seconds while I recovered from the shock that I just had a conversation with my daughter.

I was away for the weekend with friends and Melinda tried putting Abigail to bed in her own bed and left her alone to fall asleep. It worked really well Saturday night. So when I got home last night I asked her is she wanted to go to sleep on the bed in the office like she always does or if she wanted to go to bed in her own bed.

"My own bed!!!" she yells and bolts for the stairs. "I go night night in my own bed" she chants as she goes up the stairs. I put her giggling wiggling mass of three year old to bed, read her a story, turned out the light, and left her alone. I heard her playing with her mass of stuffed animals and her xylophone for about 20 minutes before she quieted down and dozed off. Melinda and I only had to go up for about 5 minutes each to get her to drift the rest of the way to sleep. We have been talking about putting her to bed in her own room for sometime but there was always something that kept us from trying it. We used to put her to bed on the office bed so we were close at hand if she needed us. She used to have 2 or 3 sets of seizures before going to sleep and would often wake up several times a night with them as well. We would carry her up to her own bed when we were ready for bed. I am going to miss her drifting off to sleep on my chest.