Month Twelve

Dear Hudson,

Today you turn twelve months old. Seems like it was just a few days ago that we brought you home from the hospital and you didn’t really know how to cry. And now you swiffer the floor, change channels on the TV, turn on the dryer, pull electric outlets out of the wall, hold your bottle while you eat (but only when you feel like it), take off and chew your socks, take electronic devices apart, make loud grunting noises in public places, laugh out loud during the sermon, spit food in my face, insist on being held every time I talk on the phone…and so much more.

This month you have shown us a lot more of your personality. You still love to be the center of attention, especially if that means beautiful, blond women paying you compliments. It has become increasingly difficult to take you out shopping because 1) you take off your socks, chew them and throw them to the floor which means I have to backtrack several times to find said chewed up socks, 2) you do not want to stay in your stroller because there are so many things to TOUCH! LEMMETOUCHIT! NOW! 3) you want to be held at all times which isn’t exactly conducive to my mad running through isles and grabbing stuff routine.

You now have nine teeth and a tenth is on its painful way. You have been waking up at 5 am for a few mornings in a row, screaming. I feel bad for you and sometimes I really wish humans didn’t have to have teeth. Molars, especially, are a pain in the neck, but you are taking it all like a champ. More or less. You jibber-jabber constantly, but I am pretty sure there is only one-two real words that you are able to say at this point — mama and papa. Sometimes you say ba-ba, which is Russian for grandma, but I know you don’t do so consciously. You just point at anything and yell, ‘BA-BA’, which is oh-so-cute. You love chatting with your grandparents on Skype and have now learned to clap and wave bye-bye. You also think that everything is funny and love to laugh along with everyone else, which, in turn, makes things that much funnier.

You are very much a boy. You love to do whatever we are doing and sometimes that means you are not very much into your toys. For example, you love to swiffer the floors because you saw me do that once; you love to get into all of our kitchen cabinets and play with any and all appliances you can get your hands on; you love electronics so much that we had to give you an old cell phone (we even charge it for you periodically), an old mouse, and some random Wii stuff that we are not using; you have learned to turn the washer and dryer on and off, which means I can no longer leave you unattended in the laundry room. Your recent favorite is pushing our office chairs around the house. You put a lot of work into that and seem to enjoy it so much.

Right now you are not much of an eater. I think it’s because of those molars that are ripping your gums apart. You do insist on trying everything that I eat, even buckwheat and barley. You still hate peas. Most days I have to bribe you with yogurt or cottage cheese; otherwise, you wouldn’t eat at all. Your plate usually has 85% cottage cheese or yogurt and then a little real food on the side which may or may not get eaten.

You surprise us every single day. Some of these surprises are great — like clapping your hands, giving high fives, waving bye-bye, bringing us a book you want read to you, giggling. Other surprises are not so great — stuffing your mouth with food, then stretching out your hands as though you want a hug and as soon as I lean in close for that hug, you spit all of your food into my face. I am still trying to figure that one out seeing how this wasn’t modeled for you at home, in public, on TV or anywhere else.

Lately you have been attempting to walk. You have taken as many as five steps completely unassisted. We can tell you really want to walk, but you are not quite there yet. I have a feeling that it will be very soon and that once you take off, you are going to skip walking and move into running and climbing. You seem to have a very sensitive spirit. You are very much in tune with everything around you; you pay a lot of attention to facial expressions, voice inflections, gestures, and you respond quite quickly. You have an amazing situational awareness.

Overall you are such a joy to be around. I can wholeheartedly say that all those sleepless nights and seventeen-feedings-every-twenty-four-hour kind of days were totally and completely worth it. You are totally and completely worth every single sacrifice we’ve had to make thus far and will have to make in the future. I so love you.