Month Twenty

What a month this has been! A lot of firsts for our little travel bug. He did well on our international nine-hour flight from Dallas to Frankfurt and all the other subsequent shorter flights. He adjusted to a new routine and a new time zone beautifully (took him only four days to stop waking up in the middle of the night). We are still working on his eating habits (his diet mostly consists of milk and yogurt, maybe a few Cheerios here and there), but all in all, he’s done incredibly well with all this travelling.

Hudson is saying a few new words this month:

Poka-poka (bye-bye)
Deda (grandpa)
Bubbles
Keys
Car

His language is still a mixture of Russian and English words, more English than Russian at this point. It’s funny to me that he speaks English to his Russian-speaking grandpa. They understand each other well, even though they speak different languages to each other. It’s a precious sight!

This month we have been able to visit several beautiful parks and even a few lakes and the Baltic Sea. Hudson had a blast. He’s never been to the beach, except for when we were in Boston a year ago and that wasn’t a swimming expedition. So this summer he swam in the sea and several lakes and absolutely loved it. It will be tough to return to our little kiddie swimming pool.

We also have visited several beautiful parks with hundred-year-old trees and it’s been so refreshing and beautiful and amazing. I am so thankful for this opportunity to travel with Hudson and for him to see so many new things and meet so many new people.

Speaking of new people — he is doing so much better socially. He is still very shy around new people, but not nearly as bad as he used to be. He now smiles at strangers a lot more and doesn’t mind being held by his great aunts and uncles and cousins and whoever else is inclined to entertain him at the moment. He’s open to hanging out with whoever these days and it’s a great break for me!

Hudson has fallen in love with cars. I think he always loved them, but he has now discovered a new side to them — sitting in the driver’s seat, turning on lights, windshield wipers, music, etc. First thing he does every morning is grab grandpa’s hand and say ‘car.’ Grandpa is now his best bud who just happens to own a big car.

Another first this month — cutting toenails without screaming fits. Hudson used to scream his head off as though I was cutting off his toes, not just toenails. Now he doesn’t even blink or care. Amazing. Also, he loves to climb up and down the stairs — we don’t really have a choice since my parents live on the second floor of an apartment building. He is a lot better at climbing up the stairs than down though.

Since our sleeping routines are completely off these days, I decided to try something new — giving Hudson water in his bottle before bed, rather than milk. So far he’s fine with it. I think it’s more of a psychological thing for him — taking a bottle before bed is a way to calm down, relax, and get ready for sleep; it’s not really for the sake of nutrition. So, I’ve done this for naps as well and it seems to work really well. Plus I don’t have to worry about his teeth rotting away. We’ll see if this lasts when we get back home.

This month has been an amazing time of exploration for Hudson. Almost every day he gets to go somewhere new or see something new or meet someone he has never met before. At night he is ready to go to bed and sleeps very well. I suspect it is because he gets so exhausted during the day. And he is also co-sleeping with me for now. Surprisingly, he loves it, so I hope we will be able to squeeze him back into his normal routine when we get home.

Some pictures documenting our amazing adventures can be found here.