Spotlight of the Month: Christian...

My Birthday Boy!

Christian decided to join our family in March of 2006. We had just bought our house in Erie, PA and I was working myself sick every day trying to fix it up. I was under a lot of stress (we all were) because I knew that we were going to have to move the following year so that Joel could complete his surgical internship year for his ENT residency. You see, Erie was a small enough city that it couldn't support a surgical internship so we were going to have to rent our house out for a year and live in Cleveland, Buffalo or Pittsburgh so Joel could finish. Yuck! I was so stressed. It was about time to think about having #3 and I had this timeline in my head of when it could actually work. The Lord knew I was serious about July being the last possible month to get prego because it finally happened after a few months of trying. I was excited and very nervous about how I was going to handle all of the upcoming changes. I mean we had just moved across the entire country the month before! Luckily, Joel switched fields to Anesthesia, but we were still going to have to move to Michigan in a year.

The pregnancy was difficult: I was sick for about 17 weeks and I was in a lot of pain the last 2 months. Joel broke his foot and had surgery on a Friday and I delivered Christian the following Wednesday. The delivery was miserable (I had no pain medicine and Joel was passed out next to me with enough pain medication for the both of us!). Once Christian was born the inept nurse passed him off with flying colors. Thank goodness there was a shift change because the new nurse noticed he was blue and took immediate control. After a scary first couple of hours, his lungs ended up working just fine.

Considering all of the stress that surrounded this little guy's entry into the world, you'd think he would be a little stinker. He was at first - he had a ton of "man gas" that Joel & I had to work out! For a long time, the only pacifier that calmed him was Mom's pinkie finger.




Now, 2 years later, Christian is such a joy in each of our lives. Once he was old enough to start interacting with JD & Camryn, he brought with him this ability to bring us all together in laughter and joy. I really felt like we were a full-fledged family with his arrival.

Before writing this post, I put the kids to bed and we had a special moment together. I felt bad that Joel couldn't be there (he had just received a page to go back to the hospital - so sad). Anyway, Christian finished his usual "goodnight wrestle" with JD and Camryn, but instead of pulling him off and wisking him to bed, I just kind of let things "happen" and kicked back to observe.

I loved it. JD jumped over to Camryn's bed and they all made a "Christian Sandwich." Christian just did his thing (pushing, smashing, tickling, hitting - you name it), and JD & Camryn ate it up. There was this great feeling of joy between the 3 of them. Things settled down and Christian nestled in with JD on his bed while Camryn and I snuggled together on her bed. We turned out the lights and there was this silence that was magical. We all relaxed together for quite a while before I snatched Christian up & put him in his crib.


That kind of stuff just happens with Christian around.



I love you birthday boy!