Month Nineteen

This month has been a little challenging in a lot of different ways. Hudson sustained his first official serious injury that required an after-hours call to a pediatric dentist and an emergency visit to see said dentist. Hudson fell in the bath-tub and chipped one of his front teeth. According to the dentist, this injury is not a big deal, but will have to be watched from here on out.

Hudson recovered quite quickly, but I cannot say the same about us. Watching your child hurt is one of the most difficult and heart-wrenching things and it was an extremely stressful experience for everyone involved. I know some of you think, wow, you were stressed over that? Yes, I was. Still am. To each his own, I suppose.

Other than this traumatic and stressful episode, Hudson has pretty much stayed on course. He had his regular check up and has gained three pounds over the last three months and grew two inches. He is now in the 95% for height and 50% for weight. Not too shabby. The pediatrician predicts Hudson will be over six feet tall, which is hard to believe and/or imagine.

Hudson now says a few words and, to my absolute and utter dismay, most of them are in English. He certainly understands both very well, but his vocabulary at this point is a little limited. The pediatrician seems to think Hudson is doing extremely well since he is growing up in a bilingual environment. Here is his list:

Mama
Dada
Papa
Ball
Hi
No-no
Bye-bye
Ah-oh
Ba-ba (Russian for grandma)
Da (which is Russian for yes, or could possibly mean ‘give’)

He continues to exhibit a lot of independence. Changing diapers and clothes has become increasingly difficult. He also throws more fits now because he knows exactly what he wants and he often does not budge. For example, today I tried to get him out of the pool three times and no luck (he’s turned into quite a water bug; first, we couldn’t get him into the pool and now we can’t get him out). So, I called daddy to come lure Hudson out and, what do you know, he came and Hudson got out voluntarily. I am losing my touch.

He’s becoming more and more of a daddy’s boy. He wants to hang out with daddy, play with daddy, giggle with daddy. He even stays up and waits to hear daddy walk through the door at night. I love it! And so does his daddy. Right now Hudson is into shoes, which makes me very happy. He loves to “wear” daddy’s shoes in the mornings and he also brings our shoes to us and insists that we put them on.

One of the things that has happened this month is an amazing transformation — Hudson has a strong will and he is not afraid to use it. I think because he is non-verbal at this point, he really tries hard to show us what he wants and gets frustrated when he cannot get through to us (I get frustrated because I cannot reason with him, yet). Hudson now concentrates on tasks a lot better, so if he has decided he wants to play with cars, good luck making him switch to a different activity.

He doesn’t want to leave the nursery now, he likes it that much. He also doesn’t want to get out of the pool. He also doesn’t like to get out of the bath tub after his bath. He just wants to play all the time, which is great except on days we actually have places to go and things to accomplish.

He is now quite attached to a stuffed lamb. He has to sleep and eat with it. I am a little worried about traveling with him in a few days without Lammi (this things is just too huge to bring along on the airplane). He gives Lammi hugs and kisses and then makes me hold her and kiss her. Quite sweet.

I think both his daddy and I agree that Hudson’s personality is more like his daddy’s. He is extremely smart, but gets very frustrated when he cannot communicate what he wants or when he doesn’t get his way. We are working on using words, but it’s a slow going process.

In five days we depart on our big European adventure. I am anxious and excited about traveling with Hudson and having him meet the rest of his family. The anticipation of his reaction to a time change, food change, and everything else changing is quite overwhelming, but I know it will be all right.

I love you, little guy.

Love,
Mama