Hudson is 1!! (and a little bit)

Our sweet #4 successfully turned the big 1. The night before he was so excited, he could hardly sleep. He had visions of balloons, wrapping paper, and his own birthday cake with no competition from his siblings dancing around in his curly haired head. How glorious!

While I was up with my birthday boy in the wee hours of the morning, it got me thinking about his real birth day. Instantly he became my favorite, since he came on his own (without the aid of a pitocin drip), and 2 weeks early. I had yet to have the experience of the twilight husband nudge and the rush to the hospital, something I really hoped I would eventually have. My labor started at about 11:00 the night before and pushed me into a house cleaning, laundry doing, dish washing frenzy that had been about 9 months neglected. Then, at about 2:45 a.m. I nudged John-Erik (hooray!) and told him that we needed to go to the hospital. His reaction was a dramatic moving over in the bed. After more persuasion and a few more not-so-gentle shoulder prods, we grabbed the bag I had prepared and called my dad to get my sister over here pronto. My dad responded with "uh, um, uh, oh... labor?" I responded affirmative, and off we went. Less than 2 hours later, we were now a family of 6.

Hudson was born looking exactly like that guy in the Princess Bride who says "Inconceivable!!" all the time.

He blessed us with 2 teeth before he had turned 3 months old. He was an adventurer from the start!! When he grew out of his new baby cry, he developed his signature fuss, the "Forrest Gump". You know that scene in Forrest Gump, the part where the school principal tells Forrest that "your mama sure does care about your schooling, son". Hudson has Forrest's breathy "eee, eee, eee" reply down. And he has never even seen Forrest Gump!!! Amazing.

But when pushed into a further fit, he doesn't cry with an "aaaah" like other babies. His is more of an "ooooh" that makes his lips stick out in the most delicious pouty face I have ever seen. Sometimes I make him cry just to get his adorable pucker lips going.


He is so close to walking right now. He lets go of things just to test his balance all the time. That is when I swoop in and kick his legs out from under him. We have got to keep this one small for as long as possible. It's gone by too fast already.

Happy Birthday, my Buster Blue Eyes. Your goofy gap toothed smile and lack of a real laugh is such an immense blessing to this crazy circus family. We adore you.