Sunday 10:07 p.m. ET

Operation #3 went well. Eli got her internal line safely inserted beneath her clavicle and has hopefully felt the last prick of medical staff drawing her blood or trying in vain to stick an IV. Today was, apparently, New Haven’s annual get-in-a-huge-car-wreck day; we had to wait 2 ½ hours for Eli’s routine post-operational X-ray because the radiology staff was overloaded with four “trauma” cases. We didn’t mind too much; we just sat by ourselves in the quiet Pedi-OR recovery room with a kindly nurse who gave us all the graham crackers and apple juice we could handle and first-rate raspberry popsicles to boot. She even complimented us on our singing to Eli, contending extravagantly (perhaps jokingly, now I think of it) that I have a future on Broadway (and this while I have a sore throat!). Eli was very cute after she finally got some decent pain killer into her system. With her track record of Mt. St. Eli eruptions, Lia has been very careful about not feeding Eli too much. It is amusing in the extreme to watch Eli cast big-eyed glances at her mommy, coaxing for more at what she considers the premature end of a meal. She’s a very sweet little girl.
Julia’s nocturnal riotings have finally caught up with her; after church she crashed magnificently into a three hour nap. After she woke up she had a high time with Nin, singing and playing and dispatching nearly three mini-servings of pasta at suppertime. Lia sent me home with a quickly but affectionately drawn caricature of Julia and Nin. Julia initially repulsed the picture when I offered it to her, but when she realized it was a portrait of ours truly, she seized upon it and appraised it this side of a Rembrandt. Julia conquered my heart anew while I ate my late dinner, announcing at intervals, “Daddy, I love you so much!” Oh, how merrily the feeling is reciprocated.