Merry Christmas 2006

We have finally learned what everyone has been talking about when they say your life changes when you have a child. Hudson has been a blessing in our lives since arriving in October of 2005 and we have been surprised at how fast he has grown and how much he has learned this past year.

We have also learned that our training in Pediatrics was essentially a wash. We evidently had no idea about the finer details of raising a child…when to start solids, how much an average 6 month old eats, how dexterous kids are at opening child proof caps even this early (so far, only 1 call to Poison Control!)

Hudson really likes the stairs and this is currently his favorite pastime. He goes up and slides down for hours at a time. He likes water, probably a little too much. Turning off the bath water usually results in showers of tears and every time we go past a trickle of water, he feels he must put his hand in it.

Unfortunately, we have also had to deal with recurrent ear infections with Hudson since he turned 3 months old. He has had one in each ear and a couple bilateral ear infections. We thought that he was turning into the devil, until we learned that he was just sick. Once he is better, we cannot believe how sweet and playful and inquisitive he becomes and we feel sorry for him that he suffers with his ears. These infections unfortunately came around the time of his first birthday and Halloween so we did not get to enjoy those holidays this year with Hudson.

The biggest thing that has happened this year is that Angie resigned her primary care position and is now working full time as a hospitalist at St. John’s. With this new job, Angie hopes to have more time to start decorating our new house. We have made some progress…a lot of the rooms are now painted and we now have more than just a sleeper sofa in our furniture collection. We tried to hire a decorator but all she did was steal some accent pillows and not return our phone calls.

In October, Hudson also had his first birthday. Here is the cake and party pics.

Brian is beginning his third year also at St. John’s and has enjoyed developing and directing a Hospitalist teaching rotation for the medicine residents. Since we now work at the same place, we have the good fortune of now being able to spend more time together as a family since we can now carpool to work when we are on the same schedule.

The weather here has been interesting. We spent many nights in the basement while about a dozen tornadoes that moved through here, thankfully most of them passing to the north or south. We did have some water come in through the hearth room, a small dime sized area that the builder conveniently ignored long enough for us to eventually need the entire hearth room ceiling replaced. Needless to say, this put decorating on hold quite some time while contractors came and went trying to get it all put back correctly.

Next year, we are looking forward to a few more words from Hudson once he gets tubes in his ears to clear these infections. We are also hoping to finish decorating and getting settled in so that we can take some trips to fun places.

And here it is, in what I'm sure will be a Christmas tradition for years to come, the screaming baby in Santa's lap picture.

Merry Christmas