Nothing is Safe!

Nothing is safe in this house anymore...Otis is on the move. Although is only army crawling, he is FAST! I absolutely can not assume he'll be safe anywhere unless he is in his high chair or crib. We knew it was coming and he is happier for it, but life is certainly different around here.

All the months of me warning Sam and Arlo that their toys would not be safe on the floor have come to fruition and Otis destroyed a balsa wood airplane yesterday. He can easily get to the Christmas tree and gravitates there first (I think we are taking it down on Friday!) My Dad brought Sam's old "Tot rider" (walker) and Otis loves it! He quickly figured out that he can move and while the bump in between the kitchen and dining room only kept him contained for a few minutes, he still only moves backwards!

Otis has three signs that he recognizably uses at this point, "all done", "more" and I am pretty sure he is using "poop/potty".

Otis' first Christmas was very sweet. My Grandma, Dad and sister were here and we sat by a fire and opened gifts, had a lovely and large Christmas dinner. We went sledding, we made candy...we did all the usual holiday celebrations and though I am usually feeling down about this time of year, I feel pretty good these days.

December was a busy month for us with parties every weekend and school events and I am just glad that it all went so smoothly! I feel like I was was orchestrating a huge holiday event called, "Family Life". It is a lot of work creating a month long experience for three kids! My office looked like Santa's workshop for weeks and now it looks like a department store that just had its going out of business sale, with strips of ribbon and little pieces of wrapping paper strewn on the floor and empty boxes haphazardly piled in the corner. I'll get down there and clean it all up once my motivation returns from its vacation. I think that will happen when Sam returns to school.

I did loose my mind momentarily when I signed Sam up for a swim class at the YMCA for Tuesday afternoons. As it works out I will be taking FOUR kids to the Y for swimming once a week for 6 weeks (Sam's friend from school will be joining us)! Yes, like I said, I lost my mind momentarily. By the time it returned, the damage had been done. I think it will probably be crazy, but worth it and I never really liked my life much when it wasn't crazy anyway, right?