Note: As of 2006, we now use two sites for our on-line presence:
 - Hagen Family Blog
 - Teaching/Fantasy Football Blog

To be sure, it felt like the entire family was hanging on for dear life at the beginning of 2005. Jonathan was nearly sixth months old, but he was still getting no more than six hours of sleep per day - including naps! His longest sleep of the day was typically in the late evening, but even that was only two or three hours. Some nights, he got most of his sleep in his car seat (and in the car). When Jonathan started losing weight in January, we were finally able to get the attention of his doctors. Since we suspected GER, we first tried Zantec but saw no improvement. The doctors were reluctant to give us stronger GER medicine, but they finally relented to give us an GER "acid blocker" called Prilosec. Miraculously, the Prilosec worked and he went from sleeping 6 hours a day to 8-10 hours a day within a couple of weeks. Needless to say, Mommy and Daddy were thrilled to finally get some real sleep for the first time in six months. We're sure that Jonathan was thrilled as well.

By March, Daddy finally had a break from his work and Jonathan's sleeping habits had improved enough that we actually ventured on a trip to Disneyland. The weather was beautiful and it was fun to actually take a real "family vacation" as the four of us. When we flew out to Florida in early May, Jonathan was consistently sleeping 9-10 hours (including naps) and woke up "only" once or twice a night for up to two hours. Despite a fairly rainy week in Florida, we still snuck in a couple of beach days and had fun watching all of the children playing with each other. Although we saw plenty of strong thunderstorms, we somehow managed to spend an entire week in Florida without seeing even one hurricane!

In the summer, we took our third "vacation" up to Lake Tahoe in August to see a college friend get married. Magda's mom was able to come along and we visited several of Lake Tahoe's best beaches, parks and even pools. After a fairly quiet autumn, the family took one last vacation in November for John's high school reunion in New Jersey. While we were in New Jersey, we were also able to have a great time with all of John's relatives in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Alison was extremely patient during Jonathan's first tough year, and she actually became quite good at helping us to calm him down. Alison was also an extremely precocious reader, and she was already reading at a first grade level by her third birthday. Frustratingly, Alison was not potty-trained until May - and only after we promised not to clap when she finished! Alison's favorite activity is "playing princess" where she pretends to be one of the Disney princesses and asks anyone nearby to play other characters. Alison's creativity has continued to flourish this year, and she loves to make up songs in the car and she has discovered a fondness for many forms of art. Magda is very fond of Alison's "Alisonisms", and we've started making a list: one of them is "prettiful", and "yumicious". We're guessing that you can figure out what they mean!

Jonathan is very much a "boy's boy", and his biggest idiosyncrasy is that he absolutely loves wheels. One of his favorite activities is to push strollers back and forth, sometimes even when another baby is inside! Partially because of all the exercise that Jonathan got in his crib, he was an early crawler and was even walking by his ninth month. To nobody's surprise, Jonathan learned how to climb out of his crib in December so we're already getting his toddler bed prepared. We're sure that he is going to love all of the Thomas the Train toys that he'll be getting for Christmas!

Magda and John are happy that most of Jonathan's sleeping struggles are behind him, and we look forward to catching up with everything that has been put aside for the past eighteen months. In March, John started working  towards becoming a high school math teacher, and he will begin his first teaching job in January at Foothill High School in San Jose. Magda went back to work at the hospital in March, and she has also begun accepting some of her catering gigs again as well.

Note: We've joined an online photo sharing site called Snapfish, so feel free to click on our links at the top of the page to see all our latest photos. We're also starting a Hagen blog page at Blogger, where we hope to post updates and pictures more frequently than once a year!