Thank you so much to everyone who called or emailed to check on Hammie after our consultation at UMASS. The surgeon we met with was very friendly and clearly very well qualified (he also seemed very young to me, does that make me old?). Basically, he recommended that we wait until Hammie is a year old (unless of course complications arise) to do the surgery on the hernia since he wants us to wait until Hammie is a year to see if his testicle comes down on its own. I am relieved that Hammie doesn't have to undergo surgery anytime soon, but I'm a little stressed at the idea of spending the next 10 months waiting for something to go wrong with his hernia. I am a firm believer in the "if something can go wrong, it will" philosophy, so no amount of reassurance by the doctor that complications "hardly ever happen" is going to set my mind at ease.

Unlike me, however, Hammie was apparently completely relieved by the surgeon's recommendation and for the past two nights Hammie has slept for 5 and half consecutive hours. I am thrilled, of course, to be suddenly getting an almost adequate amount of sleep, but I learned from Fraser not to get too excited about this, likely temporary, change in behavior. Still, it was really very nice yesterday to be able to remember simple things like where I put my keys, how many cups of coffee I had had, and the names of my children.

Fraser, ever the rebel, decided to start distinguishing himself from his brother by again confirming his reputation as a truly horrible sleeper. For the past month or so I have been putting Fraser down for his nap by himself, instead of lying down with him until he fell asleep the way we used to do. This change was largely the result of necessity since I can't really lie down with Fraser while holding Hammie. So now at naptime Fraser sits on his bed, we read a few stories, then I give him a kiss, he gives Hammie a kiss, then I say "sleep well, I will see you after your nap" and I leave and close the door. He settles right down and goes to sleep. Well, in a fit of unbridled optimism I decided we should try this routine at night and see if Fraser could start putting himself to sleep then as well.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, Sunday night we tried to put Fraser to bed by himself and he cried so hard he vomited all over his bed. We, of course, then had to strip the bed and throw everything in the wash, so Fraser, after it took us about half an hour to calm him down and Andy read him another story, slept in our bed the entire night. We'll just call that experiment "unsuccessful" and leave it at that.