Learning to kiss

I have mastered the fine art of seduction, sort of...

New World Order

Hi all, this is mom here. I thought I should fill you in on our lifestyle altering past few days. As you already know, Otto figured out how to both climb out of and then back into his crib. The child is part monkey I am convinced. So after the amazing display of climbing skills we thought it would be a good idea to modify his crib so if he did decide to climb out, he wouldn't be hurling himself over the edge to such a drop. The front side of the crib comes off and it converts to a toddler bed. Since we didn't want him to roll out in the night we borrowed a bedrail to help keep him in. It is much lower than the side of the crib and if he decided to climb out he wouldn't hurt himself was our thought. So yesterday he took a nap in the new set-up and all went well. When I heard him making noise like he was waking up I went in and he was still in his bed, race car in hand of course. So last night we put him down to sleep and all went well. He slept the whole night and woke up around the normal time. I heard him starting to move around and begin to talk to himself so I got up and brushed my teeth etc.... I could still hear the monitor but there really wasn't much noise coming from his room other than a few wake up sounds. As I was walking out of the bathroom into our room, through our door busts Otto running full speed ahead laughing his head off. Eric was still in bed half asleep and it scared the crap out of him. In fact we were both totally caught off guard. Otto was so happy with himself he could hardly contain himself. He was literally jumping for joy.
So there you have it, our lives have changed forever. Otto can now get out of bed whenever he wants to. How did this happen? He is only 18 months old! I have friends with 3 year olds who are happily still sleeping in their cribs! One thing, we were planning on moving him to a big boy bed this fall so that we can use the crib for the new baby. I was worried that he would feel displaced by losing his crib, but he has clearly shown us that he is ready for the next step! Whether or not Eric and I are still stands to be seen. Needless to say when we go to bed tonight we will be closing all of the baby gates and sleeping on full alert!

Out of my cold dead hands

Yesterday was a great day, for many reasons. We had playgroup in the morning where I got to play with my friends and all of Noah's toys. Always a bonus. After playgroup I came home a took a great nap since there was no construction noise outside my window to keep me up. After my nap Isaac and his mom (Rachel) came over to play with me while Mom and Grandpa installed new backer board in the bathroom. In an attempt to keep me occupied and not so crabby while Rachel was here Mom gave me a new toy. A matchbox car of a red race car which she had been apparently been hiding from me for just this purpose!
My love for this new car cannot be explained. It has hardly left my hands since I laid eyes on it. It ate dinner with me, took a bath with me and when it was time for bed Dad finally had to hide it. This morning when Mom came in to get me I was half way out of my crib and proudly proclaimed "OUT, ALL DONE". I then started asking for my race car over and over again until Mom got it for me. Needless to say, I have a new favorite toy and Mom and Dad are talking about getting me a big boy bed sooner rather than later!

Catch Up

Hi there, so mom has been pretty busy these days and she hasn't had time to tell everyone what I have been up to lately. Finally she is getting around to the important task at hand. (it doesn't hurt that I am finally taking a good nap!) Yeah, so she has been moonlighting doing some catering where she worked years ago. She seems to like it quite a bit, but that means it has been me and Dad on our own for a few evenings. We have been having a blast. We go to the park where I chase ducks, and by chasing ducks, I mean crazy mad running all over the place yelling CHASE, CHASE, CHASE. It is fantastic.
Last night Dad explained to me that we live on Market Street so now if someone asks me where I live I tell them, "Markets Street" (adorable!)
My complete and total fascination with trains continues. I have quite the wooden train set going on in the living room and it is really great. I am also, much to my parents dismay, falling in love with the Thomas show on PBS. Mom does a great version of the theme song, you should ask her to sing it for you. I love it!
Today mom and I went downtown to the toy store so I could play with their GIANT train set for a while. It was so much fun. I was able to correctly identify a lot of the train cars, and many of the items in the near by doll house. The bunnies, chair and bed from the doll house were relocated to the draw bridge for a while.
All in all I have been keeping everyone busy here with all of my silly games. It a good life.

Recipe for a fun morning

1 Dirty kitchen floor
1 Mop and bucket
water and soap (non-toxic) to fill above bucket
1 18 month old (I have on you can borrow)

First give up on sweeping since that is far too much fun and clearly better left to the pros (18 month old). Second fill bucket with soap and warm water. NOTE: this will create bubbles which you forgot were so much fun. This is where the non-toxic part comes in, not only are they a lot of fun, they are also quite delicious. Now start mopping while the small one is busy with the bubbles. While you are scrubbing away take a glance in the direction of the bucket to notice that now the small one is belly surfing in bubbles and somehow making the floor muddy!
See, now that I am starting to feel better I am trying to catch up on the household chores I have been lagging in. I don't want to give up my rest time while Otto naps so I thought it would be good to get stuff done in the morning. So far it is going ok. The kitchen floor did look clean by the time we were done and Otto had a BLAST. We did have an orange juice and flour paste experiment while I tried to make salsa verde yesterday. Today we stuck to playing with toys. Maybe tomorrow I will tackle more chores. I did however find a copy of the movie The Love Bug in the attic which Otto now loves. His obsessed with Beetles and racing so it was not hard to see how it would be an instant hit!

Sidewalk versus The Dude. Sidewalk 1 : Dude 0

Otto here. I'm going incognito these days because I had a little altercation with the sidewalk (it was disrespecting me).


As you can see, the sidewalk won this time . . .

Flying . . .

Otto here. My dad just checked the rules and, technically speaking, there is NO MINIMUM AGE for learning to fly. There is, however, some stupid rule about having to be able to reach all the controls and seeing out the front window. There's always a catch.

Anyway, here's me enjoying Grandpa Faden's airplane . . .




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In the meantime, I'll just drive my Mini Cooper.



My language continues to expand daily, if not hourly. Among my favorite words right now are "CHASE," "Fast," "Go Go Go" (once is never enough), "Lemonade," "Milkshake," "Beetle" (as in the car), "Bus," "Blankie" (my affectionate term for blanket), "Outside," "Bubbles," and "Bumble Bee," and, if I really, REALLY want something, I'll even throw in a "Please."

Photo Update

Dad here. We've been busy with family visits (Grandma Turner and Grandpa Faden) and have fallen behind on Otto happenings. The dude's vocabulary continues to expand at a ferocious rate. He's even picking up words we haven't taught him ("house" and "castle"). And he's renamed our cat Grendel. She is now . . . drumroll . . . "Nurkel." He most enjoys finding her cat house in the morning, leaning down into the opening and screaming "N-U-R-K-E-L!" Grendel, ahem, Nurkel then comes shooting out at about 1,000 mph.

Anywhere here's some assorted photos:







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Croquet with Dad and Grandpa back at the Beach House



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Oh yeah, and I LOVE corn on the cob