Happy First Birthday Little Girl

Melody turned 1 this past Wednesday. It's hard to believe in ways, but completely believable in others. She has learned so much in the last month. She can now crawl, she can sign "more," "mommy" and "daddy," her first tooth is coming in on the bottom, she has gone from 4 bottles a day to 3, she can eat a whole jar of baby food at a time, she has developed a definite preference for Larry and me, and she has said her first word: an approximation of "uh oh." What an amazing couple of months we've had. Happy Birthday baby girl!

This Tuesday we will be heading into surgery for Melody's palate and ears. I have to admit that I'm nervous, but I trust in a great big God to bring us through. I hope to post updates from the hospital when I can. Friday is Julie's CT scan. I learned that if she can be still for the 2 minutes it takes to do the scan then she doesn't need to be sedated. That would be so wonderful! We'd be in and out of the hospital with no recovery at all. If they sedate her, she'll have to sleep it off for a few hours and then stay off her feet for 24 hours. I'm really praying that she will cooperate and stay still. We can bring our portable DVD player, which gives me hope that it is possible. I don't know how we'll handle all the logistics yet, since we don't know about Melody's location and condition at that point. It's going to be a busy week.

Here are some pictures from a while back. What sweet sisters!

Memories of Melody Sleeping

I took these pictures on September 11th, back when Melody was still sleeping decently. I just love how babies end up in this position!

A Big Night

Tonight is the first night we put both girls to bed in the same room! Melody has been increasingly unhappy about sleep, much to our dismay. She is back to crying when we put her down and then waking frequently and screaming some more. I believe that yesterday at least one of my children was crying at any given moment of the day. Days like that make every neuron in my brain hurt. That's why I've been a bit quiet here lately. There's just nothing left at the end of the day. Anyway, I took Melody to the doctor today and she's back on antibiotics for possible ear infections. It was kind of borderline, but the doctor wanted to err on the side of over-treatment because of her upcoming surgery. I am fine with that, especially if it helps Melody sleep. I'm not sure if that's really her problem though. I think she has really started to attach to us and simply doesn't want to be left in her crib to sleep. We hope that by putting her in a room with Julie she might feel less alone. We'll see what happens. All I know is that I don't want to sleep on the living room floor again tonight (Larry was on the couch).

Here are some fun summer pictures from September 10th.

More Scrapbooking

I keep trying to do new things in Photoshop. It's an amazingly powerful program, but I'm an amazingly UNartistic person. Sooo...it is going to take me a while to get beyond my draw toward angularity. My brain is just too mathematical!

Here are two pages I made this evening. What do you think?



I need to come back and give credit for the designers of the papers and elements I used. Stay tuned!

Still Here

I don't know how time gets away from me, but it does. Both girls are still sick, but Melody is on the upswing. She finally slept through the night again last night! We are praying that she is all better by her surgery date, only 11 days away. I can't believe that she will be 12 months old in only 5 days, wow!

Now to start catching up on pictures. Here are some more from the hayride for Julie's preschool.

Julie on her way to school that morning. For those of you who know Sign Language, she is signing "cheese," as she always does when I ask her to "say cheese!"


At the hayride...

Checking In

Yes, I'm still here. Melody is sick again, which means no sleep all around. She just does not sleep well when she doesn't feel well. Last night she started crying before midnight and continued on and off all night/morning. Larry ended up on the couch and Melody ended up in bed with me. Today she woke crying every 15 minutes during her naps. Needless to say, we're all tired. In the midst of that, both Larry and I managed to run 20 miles this weekend. I went yesterday and he went today. I can't say I've properly trained for this marathon, but I didn't do too badly on the 20.

Here's one picture for now. It's from a hayride for Julie's preschool. Our camera seems to be taking mostly blurry pictures these days, which is really disappointing. Does anyone know if Photoshop can fix blurry photos?

Another Day, Another ENT

I took Melody to her ENT appointment yesterday. Originally I had scheduled her to see the same Dr. as Julie on Tuesday, but it turns out that he doesn't operate at the hospital our plastic surgeon prefers, so we were left seeking a new ENT. I really liked the one we saw, so that's great news. Of course, I wish I had known it would take me 15 minutes to find a parking space at Edward Hospital yesterday, and I wish the computer system hadn't crashed as it was in the middle of processing my co-pay, but those are just details. The doctor took a lot of time with us and explained everything in detail. He was very friendly too. Melody also had a hearing test. For the second time in a week, I sat with a child on my lap and heard the words "definitely fluid in her ears." As a result, Melody is also currently suffering mild to moderate hearing loss. They were able to test the ear bones and found them to be responding in a normal range, yay! That means tubes should clear up Melody's hearing problems too. Hopefully by Thanksgiving I will have two children who can hear a whole lot more of what is going on around them.

My afternoon was filled with bringing our cats to the vet for their yearly checkup. I cannot believe how much it cost! Of course, Omega has so many "issues" that I shouldn't be surprised. This time they found a yeast infection in her ears! She's also the cat with asthma. Both kitties had "chin acne." They also got two shots each. Otherwise, they checked out as healthy.

I really will be back with pictures from last weekend, really.

ENT

I took Julie to the ENT this morning. First, the good news. She did AMAZINGLY well! She didn't shed a single tear, which is literally unheard of in our past experience. She went in a little anxious and kept saying "Melody ear," which is her way of telling the doctor to look in Melody's ear instead. The doctor obliged and peeked in Melody's ears first, after which Julie happily let him look in her ears! She even sat in the big chair and tried to play with the instruments. I was so proud of her! Then they did a hearing test, which has also brought much terror in the past. Not today! Julie let them put the ear buds in her ear to test her eardrums and she even went in the sound booth with the tech while I waited outside! Finally, she let the nurse walk her down the hall to get a prize out of the treasure chest. Has someone replaced my little girl with another? I can only surmise that it is a combination of growing up and going to school. I think she is learning that not all adults are trying to take her away from Mommy for good. I almost didn't know what to do with myself, I'm so unused to her acting independently. It's really amazing!

Now, the not so good news. Julie's tubes have fallen out, which we knew. Unfortunately, she has enough fluid build-up to cause some significant hearing loss. She has "mild" loss in her right ear and "moderate" loss in her left ear. That' not good. It means she really isn't hearing me when I am trying to get her attention. Once the tubes are replaced, her hearing should improve. We don’t have a date for that yet because the ENT wants to do a CT scan first. Once we have the results, the ENT will schedule surgery (either just for tubes or for tubes and tumor removal if it has grown back). Last time we did a CT scan it was no fun at all. I had to lay on top of Julie while they tried to insert an IV. They tried one side. They tried the other. There was blood everywhere. Eventually they called an IV specialist and she got it in. It was worse than our surgery experiences. This time I'm going to ask if they can give her a little sedative before attempting the IV. We shall see.

I'll be back later with photos from our weekend!

Melody

Credits: Sweet Girl Quick Page designed by Tina Chambers

Melody is settling in so well and it's such a joy getting to know her. Just yesterday she figured out how to scoot herself around the house. We put her down on the floor in Julie's room and within minutes she was in the bathroom ready for her bath! It's amazing that one day she couldn't do that and now she can. She basically sticks both legs out in front of her and then pulls one of them in to drag herself forward. It works!

Melody also has definite preferences. How can such a little person know what she wants so clearly? For example, she has chosen a dish towel as her "lovey" and there is no replacing it with any of our cute, soft baby blankies. No, no. When I pick her up after her nap, the first thing she does is reach back toward the crib to grab her dish towel. I think she likes the fringed edge as well as the texture of the towel. She loves to suck on it. The good news is that dish towels are easy to come by. So far, she has not shown a preference for any specific one, thankfully!

Melody's two favorite activities are eating and taking a bath. Her favorite foods are sweets of all kinds. She literally pants if you put ice cream in front of her. She still has no teeth, but that doesn't slow her down! I've seen a noticeable increase in the amount of solid food she is eating this week. I wonder if we'll see a growth spurt soon? She is still wearing 9 month clothes, but all our winter stuff is 12 months. It's not cold yet, at least!

She really is such a sweetie...I could eat her up!

Pretty in PJ's

We received these adorable PJ's as a gift for Melody (Thank You, Pat!). Then...we found a matching set for Julie while we were in Kohl's yesterday! So "Pretty!"




The last picture was another precious sister-kiss in the making :-)

Bunk Beds!

Here they are! (For those of you who may be wondering, we found them at Big Lots. They were literally less than half the price of all the others we'd seen, and they are just as sturdy if not sturdier.) We didn't attach the top rail because the ladder is attached to it. The last thing we need is for Julie to climb up and down the ladder all night long! We'll add that when the time comes.



Here you can see the matching valances, as well as my two favorite little girls :-)

I went in to check on Julie a little while ago and she was on the floor, not quite asleep. I moved her into bed and she rolled over as if to go to sleep. We'll see if she stays in bed tonight or ends up back on the floor. I would like to sleep in her bed...it looks like fun!

Pictures

"I want to crawl, really I do! If only someone would do something about this pesky leg that keeps getting in my way...!"

Julie made this hat at preschool on Friday. She loves wearing it! Her other favorite thing at the moment is picking flowers from outside. Every day after school she begs me for a sprig of purple Hostas. How can I resist?

"Wanna share my cracker? I moistened it all up for you and everything!"

We had a fun Friday evening at the playground. Unfortunately, our camera was not set on "sport" setting, so many of our pictures are blurry. I still like them though.








Right now Larry is out buying plywood to finish setting up the bunk beds we got this weekend! Tonight will be Julie's first night in a twin-sized bed. I am so excited about it! Pictures will follow!