Our Story

Once upon a time there was a very special 3 year old named Tracy. She seemed to be at a stand still on the growth & development charts. Specialists just couldn’t quite figure her out! Deb, her mom, always tried to tell the professionals that Tracy ate a lot, but her growth records never showed it.

Deb got the feeling that the professionals didn’t always believe her. She wanted to get Tracy to eat even more food. You see, Tracy had a very hard time concentrating on anything for very long at a time. Deb decided to have her eat for just 3 minutes at a time. Deb grabbed the little 3-minute egg timer and sat it in front of Tracy’s plate. The result was incredible!! Tracy would eat for 3 minutes, then take a 3-minute break, then eat for 3 more minutes. Mealtime became pleasurable!!

When Sara, one of the professionals, joined Tracy’s family for dinner one evening she was amazed at the effectiveness & results of that little timer. Sara told Deb that she should be using a timer for a lot of other activities during the day. That gave Deb an idea! She had used larger timers in the preschool room where she worked everyday. An in-between size would be useful, she thought! So, she put dirty, old river-sand in a soda pop bottle & taped another bottle to the first one. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked great! Deb continued to evolve the looks of the timer over the next 20 years.

Today the timers look PDA (pretty dang awesome)! And the results are still incredible! Before Tracy turned 25, Deb decided to quit her daytime job so she could have more time for making timers!! She knew it was time for her to share the PDA timers and their incredible results with everyone!!

As for Tracy, she has grown into a fine young lady!