quick update

so Otto had his 9 month check - up with the doctor today. You will be happy to know that he is very healthy. We were pretty sure of that, but it is nice to hear it from the doctor. He weighed 20.8 lbs. and is 29 inches tall. When we were asked if he was making mama, dada sounds he replied with an ear shattering rendition of "Dadadadada", at the top of his lungs, one of his favorite songs. That answered that question. If only we had two blocks with us so he could demonstrate just how good he is at banging them together. Another major milestone he has mastered. He is not waving bye-bye, but he sure thinks it is cool when you wave to him. He also got the second part of his flu shot and did not cry at all. We had a good nurse and he was in a good mood, a great combo. Well, it is almost bath time so I must run, but that is news from Otto today. Keep your eyes peeled for his holiday card, they will be going out in the mail after this weekend and they are WAY cute!

9 months

so today Otto in 9 months old. For this occasion he has decided to give up napping. Yesterday it took 1.5 hours of screaming to get a 45 minute nap out of him. This morning it took forever to get him to sleep and he slept for 40 minutes. This from the kid who finally for the past two weeks was taking consistent at LEAST hour long naps. With many days having one two hour nap. Oh yeah, and he still doesn't sleep at night. This is getting insane!!

Kitty

Let me just start by saying that I have the two best cats in the world. Schmelig lets me lay on him and pull his fur endlessly. He is always coming up to me and snuggling me despite my beatings and he doesn't care how much I drool on him. Grendel gets close enough for me to "pet" her which really is amazing and loves to play with my toys with me. She also plays the stair game better than anyone. Whenever she sees me climbing the stairs she goes two stairs ahead of me and rolls around on her back to get me to come get her. As I move up the stairs, she does as well. Really I am a lucky kid. Best of all though is the laser pointer. Not only do I belly laugh when they chase it, I am now learning how to get in on the game. It is so much fun!!! Since they are so good to me there really is no excuse for why we made Grendel wear one of my toys as a collar other than the fact that it was really funny to watch her walk around while wearing it.

cuteness

here are some great shots of me and uncle Ben. We really had a blast hanging out together. He was determined to teach me to walk while he was here. I am not up and about just yet, but I did stand all on my own for a while multiple times which I had never done before. This weekend we are going to New York and we will see him again. He said he is going to take my to FAO Schwartz!! I am really excited about that too!

Pasta!

So while uncle Ben was visiting he wanted to learn how to make homemade pasta. Friday afternoon while I took a nap, mom and uncle Ben turned the kitchen into a pasta factory. Sounds like they really had a lot of fun!

back from the weekend

Sorry about the lack of additional pictures. Since dad was home for the long weekend mom was taking advantage of her extra time to get stuff done and we were busy, busy, busy to quote Eloise. Here are some more pictures of the big feast. Including me playing with a WAY cool sword. Snuggling with uncle Ben and mom and grandmom stuck on the couch after they ate way too much.

Thanksgiving

My first Thanksgiving. I can see why mom goes on and on about how this is her favorite holiday. It really was a lot of fun. My Uncle Ben came up on Wednesday night, although I didn't see him until Thursday morning. That was a fun surprise, I climbed up the back stairs and he was at the top! Then we drove up to the cabin for a full feast. My great-grandmother Hope, great-grandfather Paul, grandmom, grandpa, mom, dad, uncle Ben and I all sat down for a big meal that afternoon. I had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes and apple sauce. It was delicious! Blogger just lost the other pictures I had to post and I don't have time to get them again right now since it is time for lunch, but I will get them up tonight!

Crawling . . .

wait a minute

So remember how last night I was saying that Otto was working on getting his top tooth. Well just now when I was holding him I saw a new tooth! Except it is on the bottom next to the two teeth he has! I totally missed that one. He still has swollen gums on the top with a tooth SO close to the surface, but the one on the bottom beat it out. I can't believe I totally missed it!

where does the time go?/

from mom:

So sorry it has been so long since I posted anything. We are moving at warp speed here. Otto is crawling all over everything and it is all I can do to keep up with him. Right now we are having one heck of a teething fest. He has a major runny nose, super drooly and generally fussy. Actually for how bad he must feel his spirits are pretty good. Today I noticed his gums are really swollen where his front teeth hopefully will be. With any luck they will break through any day now and this will all be a distant memory. Needless to say all this has not lead to good nights of sleep so I have taken to napping along with him, which cuts into my blogging time.
Now he is sounds hungry and losing patience with a milk free Dad so I must run, more soon

books and sleep

Notes from mom:

So one thing that has happened over the last month that both eric and i are really excited about is Otto is really getting into books. He has always liked them, but up until now he has really only wanted to eat them. He still loves a good book snack, but he now also enjoys helping turn pages and listening to you read them. It is so nice to sit and read stories for him. We are still in a mostly board book phase but I can't wait to start with the many piles of fantastic books we have that aren't board books.

On a side not I would like to mention that who ever came up with daylight savings time did not have an eight month old who gets up before 6 as is!! Needless to say this has been a fairly foggy week here. Otto has been bright eyed and bushy tailed starting at 4:45 in the morning. Today we actually got him back to sleep at 6 and he slept until a little after 8! It was so wonderful. I woke up because I had had enough sleep, before Otto. I even took a shower while he was still asleep. That has not happened since he was born. It won't happen again for a very long time, but it was glorious. Between that and the fact that yesterday I swept and mopped the whole downstairs and made dinner for not just last night but tonight as well, I feel like I am on top of the world! It is amazing the things that seem important to me now.

Halloween

So even though I can't eat candy yet, I still made the rounds on Halloween. We went and visited so of mom's friends in the stores downtown so they could check out my fierce tiger ways. Then we went to the park so I could check out the scene there.

During my amazing weekend of putting the final touches on my mad crawling skills, my grandmother Turner was visiting. We had a nice time hanging out and relaxing even though the weather was yucky while she was here and we didn't get to play outside much. She did take me shopping and got me some really adorable outfits which are sure to grace the blog pages soon.

8 Months

Greeting from Mom

So Otto was officially 8 months old this past Sunday. Take a second and look back at your last eight months. I would venture to guess that few of us have done as much as he has. (I know, I know, certain grandparents built a house, but this is REALLY big.) He has...
mastered holding his head up, and turning it at the same time
learned to burb, still working on doing it to the alphabet
gained the gift of both color and distance vision
learned how to grab onto things, then direct them into his head.
learned how to pick things up without directing them into his head
learned to smile and laugh, seriously saved him a few nights
mastered sitting up on his own
got eating with a spoon down
became helpful when getting dressed by putting his own arms in the sleeves
got going on the worm and downward dog as an alternative method of locomotion
mastered the "pincer grasp" and now LOVES cherrios!
figured out how to crawl, and how to catch cats!
this led to crawling away at breakneck speed while being dressed, cross off helpful in that department
starting not just pulling up on furniture, but cruising around on it
practices everyday on driving me crazy one second and melting my heart the next

In between there have been countless other milestones, too many to count. I both can't believe that he has been here for only 8 months and feel like he has always been around with his adorable giggle and mischievous shoelace eating. He really is amazing, even when he only takes a 25 minute morning nap and whines until he finally goes to sleep at 2:15 (like today).

It is just amazing watching him crawl all over the house, which he is really doing now, and take a minute to think how much he has changed since he was born. I love watching each new development, but I also miss just holding him so still while he slept. So tiny cuddled in my arms. He doesn't go for that too much now. Although now he crawls over to you and climbs into you lap which is pretty darn awesome.