The Forecast for Macy's Basement is Partly Sunny

.....with scattered clouds. Hi everyone! My playroom is all finished. Grandpa painted the walls and Mom found two very talented artists to paint clouds all around the room. Mom spent Saturday moving my toys downstairs, hanging butterflies, and hiding lady bugs all over so I can find them.

Mom also set up my cottage! Isn't it neat! Dad and I sat inside and played with blocks and Elmo together. I can see my bear that Uncle Casey and Aunt Maresa gave me from my window. I am having a lot of fun running around the room and playing with all of my toys

The butterflies were a little tangled when Mom got them from the UPS man. She spent an entire hour sorting out all of the fishing line before she gave up and asked Dad to give it a try. I heard Dad talking in a loud voice downstairs but I couldn't quite hear what he was saying. Mom told me that it was just because Dad has always been afraid of butterflies and he wasn't mad, just scared. Whatever he told them, Dad had all of my butterflies untangled and looking good by the time Mom came back downstairs.

Here are some more pictures of my playroom!

After my playroom was finished, a pretty unusual event took place at my house - not often observed by humans. Fortunately, I was able to get it on film to share with everyone. The great toy animal migration from the living room to my playroom filmed from Chopper Macy.

As you can tell it was quite the procession. Toy trains, dump trucks, and shopping carts were backed up for miles

Despite all of the rush-hour congestion, the animals were happy to be on their way to the playroom!

Any comment about the great migration for the folks at home Horsey? Nope. Okay, back to you guys.

That's it for this week. I have another trip to Riley Children's Hospital coming up but until then, how about a final thought from the monkey.

Nothing? Alrighty then, I guess I'll see you guys next week!

Check out my favorite song!

This is Mom and Dad's favorite video

Ma-ma and Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Hi everybody! It has been really cold here, brrrrrr. But, I have some big news! I started calling Mom, "ma-ma" on purpose.

I used to refer to almost everything as "ma-ma". Elmo.."ma-ma", my tea pot.."ma-ma", I want to go upstairs.."ma-ma", you get the idea. But this weekend, I hugged Mom's legs and called her "Ma-ma" and I haven't called anything else "ma-ma" since. I still refer to Dad as "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" but I am working on it.

Dad has been teaching me how to walk down the stairs. He puts his hands out in front of me so I won't fall and I step down each step on my own. Sometimes I hold on to his fingers just a little for some reassurance.

Check out the matching shirts! Who said the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Pumpkin Show ended in October? I was feeling a little restless so this was the best picture they had. All of the other ones had someone's mouth open, eyes closed, or diaper showing. Wonder where that blue wall came from?

That's because Grandpa painted the basement for my soon to be playroom. Mom decided that it was time for the grown-ups to reclaim the living room and kitchen. The pack-n-play is already packed away. Soon, my plastic hippo, furry lion, and farm animals will make the annual migration to the basement.

I tried to help Mom and Dad clean up.

Surprisingly I didn't miss a spot or break anything.

Check out the newest family member!

Kaiyu, Larry, and Kaiyu's parents brought Maezhen home this week. The made it through a time-zone crossing flight, a touch and go landing in the snow at O'Hare International Airport all with their brand new daughter just in time for the Chinese New Year. Welcome home guys and we hope you have a happy New Year!

Maezhen, I'll show you how to color...

...since I'm not allowed to teach you how to sweep.

Mom and Dad wanted to share with everyone my expressions when I watched the Teletubbies.

College makes me thirsty!

This college stuff is easy! Awesome, lots of pictures in this article.

See you guys next week,

I'm outta here!

Don't Be So Quick to Walk Away...Dance with Me

Hi everyone! Macy and Dad are busy playing tea party, so I’ll step in this week for a little blogging. While I’m not nearly as funny as Macy is, I can fill you in on how things are going around here. The short story is that we are doing well. Macy is a happy, BUSY girl. She will be 18 months old on Thursday, which is such a cute age (the calm before the “terrible twos”).

Macy can do the sign language for about 15-20 words, and can sort of say about another 10 words, although they are words only Mom can understand (“she” = fish, “ock” = sock, “meow” = cat, “yum, yum” = Cookie Monster). The speech pathologist that comes to our house weekly has observed that Macy can produce sounds using the back of her tongue, but hasn’t quite figured out how to use the front of her tongue to talk yet. The speech therapist said that she hasn’t learned how to use the muscles in her mouth to eat, so it’s no surprise that she isn’t able to use those same muscles properly to speak. It will take time, but it will come.

She still isn’t really eating anything yet. By this I mean that she gets 100% of her nutrition from the feeding tube, and no food goes down, but we are definitely working on it. It is such an incredibly, INCREDIBLY slow process that it blows my mind. It is a true test of patience. Our speech pathologist is absolutely wonderful, and has given us specific strategies to exercise to help desensitize Macy’s oral aversion to food. Over a 45-minute feeding period we start with holding a spoon of pureed baby food a couple of feet away from her for about 5 minutes or so, and we very slowly inch it closer to her throughout the feeding period.

A successful feeding for Macy is eventually allowing the spoon to touch the corner of her mouth (without going inside her mouth). She always resists this at first, and sometimes we get there, and sometimes we don’t. Our goal is to have her take at least one bite of anything from a spoon by this summer. As for the feeding tube, our hope is that we can wean her from it by the time she is 3 years old.

One improvement that we are so very thankful for is that she doesn’t gag and vomit as much as she used to. A cough, laugh, or simple kiss on the cheek used to trigger a gag and then she would lose her entire feeding, which would happen up to 5-6 times a day. We are happy to say that she only loses about one feeding a week, and her reflux has improved too. This is vital in getting her to overcome her oral aversion and learn to eat. I know that many of you have been praying specifically for this, and I want to let you know that your prayers are working. THANK YOU!!!

Well, Ryan has told me that this blog is getting way too long, so I’ll have to stop here I guess. Macy will be back next week. Until then, check out some of her dancing.

You may all thank Dad's friend Scott for the use of his Justin Timberlake collection.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Brrrrrrrrr.....it's cold outside!

Hi there! It's me! I hope everyone had a good week. I had lot's of fun. It has been pretty cold here so Mom and I didn't get out much. I never get tired of playing, but a couple of my toys that are the loudest had to take a time-out for Mom's sake. We still read a ton of books and I started throwing things. I throw cups, dolls, balls, blocks, and books.

We did manage a trip to Walmart. I love to go to Walmart with Mom because I see all of the different things that are in my books. I see balloons, and corn, and bicycles! Mom puts me in the shopping cart and I start pointing and saying "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" right away. Walmart is so much fun - who knew? Mom taught me some sign language to describe what I see, but I get so excited I usually just flap my arms like I'm going to lead a flock of geese south for the winter.

One of my favorite books is Goodnight Moon. Mom reads it to me before I go to sleep everynight. I can't remember how it goes exactly but here is some of the story...."Good night red balloon, good night room, good night quiet old lady whispering hush, good night mush, good night moon, good night cow jumping over the moon." Well, Dad has been working a different shift this week. Last night when he came home he told Mom and me that a virus destroyed his computer at work. She asked him how bad it was and he said. "good night Microsoft Word documents, good night operating system, good night hard drive that runs the operating system."

Anyway, did I mention that I really like to dance?

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me"

Woops forgot the pants in that one.

Oh my.

Oh well, see you next week!