O' Christmas Tree

O' Christmas Tree you are so beautiful!  Brave Gram put up a tree for Christmas even though we have a roaming 9 month old around.  It's been quite fun to see the magic of the lights in Otto's eyes.

As is often the case with little ones, we have moved some furniture around to make our rooms more child-friendly.  Although I have to say I never did this with my own children, I felt the need to do it with Otto so he wouldn't get any/or not as many bumps while at Grams.

The end table I once had in the living room was moved to the basement (corners) and the ottoman became our coffee table.  Now the ottoman has become the tree blocker and it has worked well.  Otto can just reach in the corners to touch the very tips of the tree branches with his pointer finger.  He just can't resist!  I get it, Christmas trees are just so awesome!

It's so much fun to have Christmas this year with a new little one.  The magic comes back just like when our own kids were little.  Another one of the many things I love about being a Gram!

A Little Boy

Tis the season to be busy, busy, busy…and Otti fits that description perfectly.  He is moving, climbing or crawling all the time.

Otto is in the stage of separation anxiety.  He likes to stick to his circle of "people."  Fortunately I'm one of his "every day people" so I have not had the tears when Momma leaves, but Auntie and a few others have had to experience this.  I'm sure there will come a time when I will get my turn for this also.  We have a break coming up from Gramma daycare with Momma not working over Christmas and Gram going to Mexico, so I expect  some tears when Mom leaves Otto here in January.

One of the highlights of taking care of Otto at this stage is watching his curiosity and determination to figure things out.  He now knows the hammer hits the ball and the ball goes down the path and comes out the hole.  He places the ball back on top and knows it will happen again.

He does a lot of peeking around corners with a big grin, which is just the cutest and also a lot of BANGING!  I don't remember this as much with my own girls, but boy does he like to hammer, bang and make noise.

Otto continues to chatter making loud new sounds and squeals.  He has 3 teeth and a 4th corner coming in.  No new ear infections yet, and let's hope I don't jinx that by typing this.

He continues to want to walk everywhere and just grabs one hand now instead of two for help.  He is standing for bits of time without realizing it and does a lot of squatting while playing.  Here is a conversation I overheard with Grandpa and Otto:

Grandpa:  "Well look at you squat, you are a good squatter…you will be a good catcher…a catcher is the best position… a catcher controls the whole game."

  I'm so grateful for the days I've been able to share with him, he is growing up so very fast.

The beginning…