Five years of our firstborn

As five years is a bit of a milestone, I've been looking through our photos of Jonathan's birth and birthday each year. And as he's been sickly and kept us all house-bound, I have a bit too much time at the computer to do posts like this: a snapshot of each birthday so far.
 

The photo above shows us the morning of March 9 five years ago (2010) in front of our house in Charagua, Bolivia - just before leaving for the hospital.

Jonathan was shockingly (to us) wrinkly and frog-like the first few days. We had no idea babies looked like this!

We were in the hospital for two nights and a day-and-a-half (thanks to the c-section) - much too long, at any rate.

The maternity ward, at that very moment blissfully empty of other folk.

If you look closely, you can see some of the mosquito welts from his nights in the hospital.

Elma Schroeder and Kathy Heppner, MCC colleagues from Santa Cruz, were waiting in our house when we finally got home. We were so very grateful to have experienced mothers with us for the first few hours (keep in mind, no internet).

Elma gave Jonathan his first bath and showed us how to cut those wee little finger nails.

And then we were on our own!

And then two weeks later Ramont's parents came, for which I am so very grateful to this day. What sweet assurance to inexperienced parents!

Our second family portrait, when Jonathan was two weeks old and we were young and trim.

And here we see some monster trucks for the first time...

FIRST BIRTHDAY

Our good fortune with grandparents coming to visit continued on, as my folks were with us on Jonathan's first birthday.

We also finally went to take a picture of the Charagua hospital, where Jonathan was born.

And here he is at one year old.

SECOND BIRTHDAY

At this point we were living in Santa Cruz, and so had a bit of a party under the hatata outside our apartment at MCC.

All his Harder cousins (at that point) were there, along with a few others.

The big excitement that year was the box of monster and other toy trucks cousin Reuben had deposited at our door that morning (only to be reclaimed later, but fun while it lasted!), and of course,

the tractor cake!

THIRD BIRTHDAY

For the first time, Jonathan celebrated a birthday in Minnesota.

 At this point he also had a walking sister,

and was fast becoming a prairie farmer (and less a chaqueño).

FOURTH BIRTHDAY

To me Jonathan looks very similar on his fourth and fifth birthday photos (just zippier at four, since he wasn't sick).

Just for comparison, here he is with his sister,

and sharing his birthday with Opa, just like every year save for the second.

FIFTH BIRTHDAY

And there it is, five eventful years stuffed into one blog post! When I look at that first photo of wrinkly Jonathan and then see how strong and lively he is now, I can hardly believe our good fortune.