Progress

Melody slept through the night Sunday night! When I woke up early Sunday morning, I thought for sure that something terrible had happened to cause the lack of commotion during the night. Thankfully, that was not the case and we all had a much happier day than the previous few. Last night brought one waking episode that kept us up for about an hour. After that she slept the rest of the night. Our current theory is that she is having trouble with her "new" nose. Before her palate was closed, her nasal cavity was open to her mouth. Now it is closed off, causing her to experience nasal congestion for the first time. We can hear her gurgling and trying to breathe at night, and there is thick, pasty gunk coming out of her nose during the day. We all know how hard it is to sleep when we can't breathe. The good news is that the girls are back to sharing a room, which gives us grownups our room back at night. I have to split them up for nap time because it's a lot harder to get them to settle down together in the middle of the day.

In other news, some of you may be wondering what happened with our plans to run the Chicago Marathon on October 7th. Well, Larry went downtown and started the race as a pace leader for the group planning to finish in 5 hours, 30 minutes. I would have paced this group too, if I had gone. Instead, I stayed home to help Melody recover. As most of you probably know, the marathon got called off partway through due to the extreme weather conditions. Larry and his group did not get to finish. He was having a hard time out there without anything to drink (they ran out), so I'm glad he came in early. All in all, he ran about 20 miles out of the 26.2. It sounds like a brutal experience. Larry can usually run through just about anything and do okay, but this time he came home saying "it was terrible." I feel for all the first-timers whose dreams did not pan out. What a crazy day.

I realize that I'm also overdue for an update on Julie's potty-training. I'm pleased as pie to report that she wears biggirlunderwear all day long (except at school)! She sometimes has an accident, but it's usually when I haven't been keeping track of how long it's been since her last visit to the potty. So yes, I prompt her still, but she also often goes without prompting. She still does not want to go #2 in the potty, however, so she holds it until we put a diaper on her at night. Then she goes, hollers, gets changed, and goes to sleep. We still use 2 diapers a day this way, but for now it's okay. We keep working with her to "let the poo-poos out" before bedtime, but it will happen at her pace. One could rephrase the common "horse-to-water" adage to say "you can lead a toddler to the potty, but you can't make him/her poop!" Oh, won't Julie be thrilled to someday know that I shared all this information with a thousand of my closest friends?!?!

Here are a few catch-up pictures. This is Julie in our cat carrier. Silly girl!


Larry's birthday was October 5th. Here we are with his pumpkin pie "cake." Julie has been obsessed with cakes and candles ever since! Happy Birthday Larry!

This is the first bottle Melody drank after surgery. I know, it's just an empty bottle, but it means so much to me!