We received a special piece of news since the last update…
Julie had a wonderful Christmas, received many wonderful gifts and is waiting for a special gift next year
Julie’s speech recognition continues to expand. Sometime this week, I asked her to pick up a piece of plastic and hand it to me. Julie responded without any hesitation or confusion. Now Sarah is involving Julie in the regular evening cleanup activities of Julie’s toys. When Julie fusses, Sarah asks her to use words to tell us what is wrong or to point. This has worked several times as Julie continues to connect meaning to words, objects and actions. She babbles when she is feeling rested, relaxed or when she is doing something fun.
As a computer geek, it’s amazing to see these connections form in her mind, then become more natural as she practices them over and over. Suddenly, she understands and we see new behavior that we supposed was still months away. For example, Julie picked up her diaper changing pad, put it on the ground and laid down on it when her diaper was wet. She is increasingly picky about the TV shows she wants. And, she is showing much more awareness about when she needs to sleep.
Julie has been fighting a cold for most of December. For several days, she would run a fever which dissipated quickly with a dose of Tylenol only to return the next day. Sometimes, she seemed perfectly healthy with lots of energy, but it didn’t last long. Naturally, her usual nausea was multiplied by fatigue and other symptoms. So, we either skipped social events or had to cut short our attendance. For instance, this past Sunday we skipped the nursery and only stayed briefly at church to make our big announcement. Julie’s energy was uncertain as she was being held back by this recurring cold. The cold finally broke late this week. She is nearly running around the house with new Christmas presents – squealing with glee at the cat, her toys, Sarah or me.
Christmas was wonderful this year. We spent Christmas Eve at my niece’s (Kim and James) house. They invited both sides of their families. We only get a chance to see James’ family once a year so we treasure these short encounters. We shared our announcement with all. They have a son – Logan – who is four months older than Julie. It was fun to see them interacting with each other. Julie doesn’t understand the Constitutional principles of property rights and Logan is too young to file his complaints with the proper legal authorities, so there were some hurt feelings, but Logan was a gracious host. We were disappointed when we had to leave early, but Julie had hit the wall.
My family came by our apartment on Christmas night. They had heard the announcement the previous night. There were lots of presents for Julie who was still trying to understand this present unwrapping business. While she spent an inordinate amount of time on boxes and bows, she managed to keep focus on the toys by and large. She interacted well with the family and cried at the front door when everyone left – so sad.
For the 1st time since 1975, Dallas had a white Christmas. There were thunderstorms starting late Christmas Eve and snow starting about 2 pm. I took Julie out for a quick experience with the snow. She seemed suitably impressed.
So, that’s about all. I’ve included pictures of Julie from earlier in the month.
Oh, yeah, there was one more announcement – Julie is going to be a big sister! Sarah learned the news middle of last week. She went to the doctor and they set the due date at August 24th. So far, Sarah is doing much better than she was with Julie. She has hardly any nausea, which is helping her energy level. She had a little cold and fever last weekend (along with Julie) but is feeling good today.
Julie’s issues resulted from a developmental problem which is as rare as winning the lottery. Her surgeon had never seen this type of tumor in 20+ years of practice (3-4 operations a day). While her oncologist had seen this type of tumor a couple times in his life, he had never seen it occur in the chest. So, there is no reason to believe that it might happen with this child.
Sarah and I are very, very happy about the news! I might have to change the subject line of these updates…
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Andy, Sarah, Julie plus one
I did try some new variations to the subject line of the updates, but never settled on something I liked.
Julie’s developing personality made us proud of the progress she had made in 2012. Oral feeding remained an issue, but we had settled into a fairly predictable pattern. We looked forward to a new baby, the end of our financial problems, and continued improvements for Julie in 2013.