Talia's First Post-Op Visit

Thursday 7-23-09 was Talia's first visit back to the hospital after her surgery on 7-7-09. Let's just say she wasn't thrilled to be back. The nice resident said that while she was screaming, it was a good time to look in her mouth. The good news is that her palate is healing well, and the surgeon used dissolving stitches that won't need to be removed; they'll fully dissolve in about 6 weeks. Even with the "applesauce consistency diet" or Stage 2 baby foods, our girl has gained 13 ounces in the last 3 weeks, and now weighs an impressive 21 pounds, holding fast at the 5th to 6th percentile for weight for her age. Talia will be 18 months old next week on Wednesday. Happily for Talia, the surgeon came in to the last few minutes of her appointment and gave the ok for soft foods "just no pretzels or potato chips"--as if! We took Talia to lunch and she enjoyed lo mein, tofu and vegetable fried rice, her first textured foods since surgery. She appeared delighted with the new diet. She go back in one month, which will be just a few days after big sister Lydia starts kindergarten. Lydia is immensely enjoying her Chinese Summer Camp experience, completing her second week today. Her Chinese just sounds so much better already. We also received the exciting news this week that Lydia was accepted into a Chinese Afterschool Program, where she'll be picked up from her elementary school and will attend afterschool until mom or dad gets out of work to pick her up. She'll now have about 3 hours a day of Chinese, in addition to our one hour family class each Saturday. We're thrilled and she's promised to teacher us what she learns so we won't fall behind. We'll look for more pictures to add. We've donated Talia's "no-no's" back to UNC Hospital, where they'll be used for children in other countries where doctors volunteer their services. "Houdini Talia" wouldn't stay in them and we were glad to see them go!