Chicago!

We made it! The trip here was a long day, but we all made it just fine. We found a play space with lots of kids and excitement for Otto to play on at the Philadelphia Airport which made the fact that our flight was slightly delayed much better. Otto was not really big on napping during this whole day of excitement, but who could blame him, it was quite and exciting day. We drove from home to Philadelphia where we saw Nonna Jen and Sir, as he likes to be called. During the 2.5 hour drive he slept for 40 minutes at the most. On the way to the airport he might have squeezed in a mean 15 minutes which he was sure would hold him over for the day. After much coercing he closed his eyes for about 20 minutes more before we got on the plane. While on the plane we found that all the toys I had lugged around all day failed in comparison to the skymall catalog which he turned the pages on for 40 minutes. After about 20 minutes he supplemented straight page turning glee with page ripping, which also turned out to be a lot of fun. We managed to keep him happy for the rest of the flight with food, Signing Times video and finger puppets. He feel asleep in the car on the way to Northbrook and went down for a fairly good night of sleep considering he was in a new exciting place.
On Friday we did some visiting rounds with Rogers work and Otto visited with his uncles. Matt was here when we got here and Ben arrived that evening. We have since been hanging out around the house and seeing family in the area. Both Uncle Ben and Matt have been on a campaign to get Otto walking and today it started to look like they are getting somewhere. He took a solid three steps from Ben to Matt, or was it Matt to Ben, they were so excited they can't remember. He walked back and forth between the two of them a few more times in the hall and then came into the family room to show off for the rest of us. He did a few more steps to prove he still had it in him and did some really good standing while "reading" magazines and eating keys. Some of his favorite passtimes. I am surprised he did the walking today, he has not been feeling too well lately. I am not sure if it is a cold, or his second top tooth coming in but he has had a slight fever and it very snotty. Still he has been in good spirits if we keep him entertained which is never a problem here.
Tomorrow I am going to make our traditional Christmas Eve dinner for the Faden's which I am really looking forward to, standing rib roast, yorkshire pudding, the works. But more than that, I am looking forward to filling Otto's stocking after he goes to bed. I will be sure to capture all moments on film, well really an SD card and get the pictures up as soon as possible. Until then, I hope everyone is having a good holiday.

new tooth

So after much anticipation and drooling, I have finally cut my first top tooth. It broke through this past weekend. I am now enjoying chomping everything with it. I can't tell if the one next to it is going to come in soon or not. It looks close but sometimes it is hard to tell.
Tomorrow mom and dad and I are headed on our big adventure of the holiday season. We are flying to Chicago. It has been a while since I was on a plane and now I want to crawl everywhere so this may be interesting. I will get some posting done while I am there to keep you updated on how things are going in my world, but I just wanted to fill you in once more before we headed out.

so funny!

So for Christmas eric's mom sent Otto this car that you can use in many different ways. Otto only likes two modes:
1. He sits in it and either eric or I pushes him around the house at break neck speeds, preferably chasing a cat.
2. He stands behind it and pushes it on his own although this requires our help since it is not made for that and without any weight in the front it tips over backwards when he tries to push it.

Well we solved that problem yesterday. Otto's buddy Leo was over for a playdate. Megan put Leo in the car to see if he wanted a ride. Otto immediately came over and started pushing. At first he was on the side and it was hard trying to walk sideways, but he figured it out, went around to the back and the result was adorable. I only got two shots in because eric was home and quickly got out the video camera. He got some great footage of Otto pushing Leo all over the downstairs. It was hilarious! As soon as eric edits the footage I will get that posted, but here are some stills

7 hours

Well, as you may have guessed, Otto is not the greatest sleeper anyone has ever met. But I just tell myself that is because he is such an interesting person. That, and rest assured that when he is a teenager we are getting him a job on a farm that starts VERY early in the morning. Well last night he went a little over 7 hours without nursing. That is the longest ever. He nursed and went to sleep at 7:30, it took him a while to really fall asleep but he did it, then he woke up at 9:40 and nursed and went back to sleep. My new goal now that classes are over and Eric can stand to loose some sleep is that if Otto wakes up is that if it has been less than 4 hours after his first nursing of the night I am going to comfort him, but not nurse him until he goes back to sleep. I give him the first time even if it has only been 2 or 3 hours because sometimes he "tanks" up and sleeps longer after the first short stint. So anyway, at 9:40 he went back to sleep but woke up at 11:40, so I went in, and rubbed his back etc.. and he went back to sleep. Then he was up 20 minutes later, just whining. We let him try to work it out a bit but could tell that was not working so eric went in. He got him back to sleep and he slept for another 25 minutes at which point he was really whining and gnawing on his hand. That is the sign that his teeth are really bothering him. He had been showing signs all day of teething starting again so I was ready for this. Since he clearly was in pain and not able to sleep we decided to give him some Motrin. That worked, he fell right asleep and slept until 4:45. He made the smallest peep at 4:45 and I shot out of bed to nurse him. Forever now he has been getting up, for the day, at 5:15 and I was afraid if he woke up too much at 4:45 that would be it, he would not go back to sleep. So I rushed in and got him nursing ASAP, my strategy worked because he fell right back to sleep. It had been then over 7 hours since he had last nursed. I was so happy, I hoped he would maybe sleep until almost 6. He slept until 6:30!! and sang to himself until 7 when eric went in to get him up. It was glorious! There is a big difference between 5:15 and 6:30. Now today I think I see a white line where his left front tooth should be. But we all know what happened last time I thought he was getting a top tooth. I will have to keep an eye out on the bottom. I can only dream about the nights where I would only have to get up once or twice, in fact people have even said that at some point they sleep the whole night long. I am not sure I believe that though.

Blood Work

So at 9 months our family doctor recommends that babies have blood work done to test for lead and anemia. Both things that I think sound important so we got the paper work and planned a day to take Otto to have blood drawn at the hospital. In between the time when we knew we would have to do this, and when eric had some free time to go with us (I was not about to do this alone!) I talked to a friend who had just taken his 9 month old son in for the same thing. Now they went to the other area hospital but he told a horrible story about how the nurse could not find a vein and was jabbing all around while the baby screamed. In the end they left without having any blood drawn and have to go back a second time. Needless to say that did not make me feel any better about taking Otto in for this. Our doctor recommended that we take Otto in the mid-morning because that is when the best nurses are there. Well yesterday we did just that. All monday evening I was worrying about how this would all work. On tuesday when Otto woke up from his morning nap I called eric and we picked him up at work, then headed to the hospital. I was really nervous but eric kept saying how wonderful it would be. Right before we were called an adorable little girl probably about 18 mo. went in and you could hear her screaming in the waiting room, again, not making me feel better. When we finally took Otto back the nurse seemed really nice and it was looking better. Eric decided to hold Otto and I sat in front of him talking to him. The nurse showed eric just how to hold him so he could move his arms and quick as lightning she had the needle in and it was almost over. Otto cried, but not hysterically, and once the band-aid was on and I could hold him the crying stopped pretty much right away. So for what was days of worry on my part, there turned out to be very little drama for Otto. I am really glad it all worked out well. Now we just wait to hear about the test results, but I am not really worried about those.
that was this weeks drama here...

My first bubble bath

so mom and dad are always trying to keep me on my toes. Every night I get a bath and every night it is totally awesome with lots of splashing and me trying to walk around the tub. They keep trying to get toys that will hold my interest and keep me sitting down, but have you seen the amazing faucets on the wall, or the view from over the side of the tub? How could anything be as exciting as that. Two nights ago mom had a new idea, bubbles. No one told me about this ahead of time and let me tell you it was quite a shock to get into my normal tub only to discover that it had been taken over by white fluffy stuff. Both mom and dad seemed not to be worried, but I was still cautious. Then they were picking up the fluffy stuff and blowing it into the air. Once I realized that under it was the same old water I know and love, things were much better. In fact I even stayed on my butt for a while and played with my toys. But that didn't last too long, before long I was up and back to my old tricks. It was however quite the photo opp as you can see.

New York

So this past weekend Mom and Dad took me to New York city to see the Christmas Decorations. I keep trying to tell them that I am a city boy at heart, but we always go home after a few days. (-mom, otto is SO wonderful in the city. he naps, laughs, eats well, is generally an awesome traveler, even in the bitter cold.) We saw all of the good sights. Toys R Us in Times Square had lots of fun toys for me to play with, a giant Ferris Wheel inside which is lots of fun to watch and a GIANT dinosaur. I think Daddy liked it as much as I did, if not more. I really liked this helicopter thing someone was flying around more than the dinosaur, just don't tell Dad that. We also went to see the Tree in Rockefeller Center. That was interesting, but I really enjoyed watching everyone ice skating. We also went to FAO Schwartz. That was so cool. The whole ceiling was filled with colored lights, I loved that. Plus there are tons of big stuffed animals that I really enjoyed. Downstairs in the baby room they had some great toys for me to play with as well. (-mom, we found that taking Otto to toy stores was a great way to allow him to get out of the stroller and crawl around. Plus they have new toys that he can play with and the people working there actually like it that he is playing with them. He gets antsy all bundled up for too long so having a warm place where he could get out and move around made the day much nicer for all parties involved.) Whenever I got tired I just took a little nap in my stroller. One time I feel asleep in Times Square and while I slept Mom and Dad went into a hotel lobby and sipped cappuccinos trying to reverse the effects of my 5:30 am wake up time. It was quite civilized. We also went to MOMA which I quite enjoyed. I got to see Monet's Waterlilies which was cool, but the Mondrian's were my favorite. The Picasso's were good too. We were on a search for graphicly interesting paintings. The hallways at MOMA are also a great place to practice walking while pushing my stroller and just crawling around. Dad's friend David Francis was putting on a children's Magic Lantern show on Saturday at MOMA which we went to, the first half anyway. That was fun. Uncle Ben also met us in the city both Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. On Friday while Dad was at a meeting Uncle Ben, Mom and I went to dinner at a Greek restaurant near our hotel. I had my first taste of lamb, YiaYia would be proud, I really liked it. All in all it was a thrill packed weekend that I loved every minute of.