And He's One.

Otis just a few hours old.

Otis on his 1st birthday.

At 10:35 a.m. this morning I woke for no reason other than, that exactly one year ago I was one minute away from birthing my third son. Strange, but sweet and the room was quiet with everyone else sleeping, so I sat and remembered my sweet Otis' birth.

We don't normally sleep in this late, in fact, it is a very rare occasion that I am able to sleep past 9 a.m. However, we are traveling and sleeping in a hotel suite...or rather I should write that we are not sleeping...so needless-to-say, we were getting the sleep when we could, even if it meant sleeping past the free breakfast our hotel provides.

Otis is a very darling little boy and everyone who passes by him stops and smiles and comments on how cute he is! I am not lying...it is true! He smiles and waves and has a handful of words, including "Ha", which is meant to be "Hi" as he waves. We were walking around Louisville yesterday and Otis was in the stroller waving at anyone that walked past the stroller (which was a lot of people in downtown Louisville)...very cute.


He is still crawling everywhere with no real interest in walking other than the occasional burst of want to walk while holding my fingers. It last only for a moment and then passes once he remembers crawling is much, much, much faster.
At one year Otis is about 28 pounds and wears size 18 months solidly, some 24 months. He sleeps 12 hours most nights, though he just cut his first molar and has been sleeping very poorly lately (who can blame him?) He is a bit attached to me and quite a "mama's boy", but I don't mind one bit! In fact, I quite like it. He's my baby and always will be....

We had a sweet little party for Otis on the 12th at home before we left for Louisville and then today we celebrated at a quaint little buffet style restaurant here in Louisville. Because we'd slept in so late we missed breakfast, and we were wandering the streets in search of some food. Cunningham's was the first place we found that looked kid friendly. They gave us our own little room and we had an array of foods to choose from including chocolate cake! We sang to Otis once again and he was able to dig in deep to the chocolate cake! Pictures to follow....

I am sad and happy at this mark in time. Things are getting easier as he gets older, but of course I am thinking about all these experiences being my last ones with a baby. Each one is so special...as it was with Sam and Arlo. I feel like I appreciate things so much more this time around...and so I don't mind when I am the only one he wants, when he needs me to carry him everywhere, when I rock him to sleep and it takes an hour (okay, when it takes half an hour)...

Finding Time

Whew! Finding time is so hard!!! My days are a constant juggle of priorities:

"If I drop off Sam at x-time and make the traffic lights just right, I might have time to get Arlo to school by xo-time and then I can squeeze in a quick trip to the library to return the 3 week overdue books" OR "ok, Otis is occupied for 5 seconds in the playroom, I'll just run to the bathroom and pee and if he's still happy when I am done I can quickly swish the water in the toilet and call it clean...oh, crap he's unhappy, I guess I'll pee with the baby on my lap and then clean the toilet after all the kids are in bed, no wait I have to finish Arlo's preschool quilt and bake bread...."

You get the idea.

Needlesstosay, I have been having trouble finding time to blog and as I write this minute I am holding Otis...which is proving to be a challenge as he really enjoys banging on the keyboard!

I have wanted to post about our recent wonderful week long trip to California to visit Pat and Jim and Presh; the exciting news that Arlo did start preschool this week and loves it so much that he gets sad when he sees me arriving to pick him up; Otis' recent words (speaking words, not just signing words) including "apple", "mama", "ah da" (all done), and "hi"; our struggle with a dairy elimination diet for Arlo, which may have shown us he is mildly allergic to milk; Otis' impending 1st birthday; and Matt's organic conference that he organized which begins tonight.

Not to mention I still need to find time to finish the appeal for our insurance company regarding reimbursement for Otis' birth and get our final insurance claim together for our homeowner's insurance regarding the house fire.

I know I am forgetting lots of other things I can't seem to find time for, like laundry, cooking cleaning and volunteering at Sam's school; planning this year's garden, making the playgroup schedule; finding a guest speaker for my monthly discussion group; knitting the baby gift for Michelle's baby girl due in April; and reading my book club books.

Yeah, this post is turning into a "to-do" list. Sorry about that. I hope to find time to post some photos soon....that is after I photograph the conference this weekend and volunteer at the birth center for "Info Night" next week, and, and, and....

Dear Mom,

I found an old email you wrote to me in November of 1997. It had been printed with an old dot matrix printer and was folded into fourths and tucked in a cook book I rarely use anymore. I had just moved to Montana and was attempting to cook my first Thanksgiving dinner. I asked you to send me specific details; recipes, ingredients and most importantly instructions on how to cook.
The list was long and the details were explicit. You were doing just as I had asked and every line of the letter was so very much from your heart. As I read it tonight it made me want to make a Thanksgiving dinner just as you had written it, even though it is nearly 6:00 in the evening and February.

I miss you. I miss you so much and I wish I could hear your voice right now. I wish you could know that Megan is here and we are a family together, even if Dad has a new partner and is so far away.

Anyway, all three boys are calling me. Arlo has been asking me to do a puzzle with him for the last 20 minutes and I should go be with them.

Send me an email sometime.

On a Lighter Note

Megan with Otis in December.

On a lighter note...my sister has moved to Lansing!

It all began back in late October or early November. Megan works for the American Cancer Society and organizes and executes Relay for Life events. After visiting here a handful of times over the last two years, she decided that she'd look into transferring to the East Lansing office. There was some communication with the office here and to our surprise, what we thought would take a couple years, happened very quickly.
A position came open and Megan applied for the transfer. Same job, larger salary...it seemed too good to be true. The interviews went very well and we had no reason to think she wouldn't get the job...and then she didn't.

I was devastated. It took me a week to get out of a funk that made me so sad. I had been dreaming about her being around for Otis' first birthday, Sam's soccer games, Arlo's first day of school, helping her move into a house, going for walks together....having my sister really in my life again.

Two weeks after she'd been turned down, she got a call from the ACS East Lansing office with news that the woman who had been hired for the position had resigned. She had not accounted for the job being so emotional and didn't want a job that was also a lifestyle. ACS had originally given the job to her because she lived here in the area and had connections here. She had no Relay for Life experience (unlike Megan, who has had the job for 2 years in Maine).
They did not offer Megan the job immediately, but said that they wanted to meet her when she visited for Christmas. Essentially they held the position for her.

Megan met with the woman that would be her boss during her holiday visit and after a casual lunch and a tour of the office, they officially offered her the position giving her 3 weeks to pack up and move here. She arrived on Thursday afternoon. Tomorrow is her first day of work.

We are thrilled. Each and every one of us. Megan is living with us until she finds an apartment or house and it is so wonderful having her here! The boys LOVE having her around and I love having her around. It still feels like she's here on a visit, but I know it won't take long for us all to settle in to a routine.

Megan and I were not extremely close when we lived at home. We had different groups of peers and being nearly 3 years apart in age, she was only 14 when I left home for college. We haven't lived in the same state since. As we've grown older we've grown closer and we've especially become very close since our mom died 3 years ago. Other than Matt, she is my best friend and it feels so complete that she'll be a regular part of our lives now.

An Era Has Ended

Otis at 1 month

I briefly mentioned this in a recent post, but as of about 10 days ago, Otis is weaned. The story is long and I am not sure I am ready to rewrite the whole thing now. I am feeling very torn by it all actually. It is hard for me to tell other people that he is weaned at 10 months and I wonder what they think. So many of the folks we know here, I feel, don't know me all that well beyond when we moved here and Arlo was 9 months then...my dedication to breastfeeding...I am still so submerged in the baby world with Otis being just 10 months. I see other mothers breastfeeding and I want to have those moments still. Like after Otis' naps, I want to nurse him. I want to nurse him first thing in the morning. My body still aches for those moments.
He is such a happy baby though and he seems to be very content with the milk he drinks (which is organic raw milk from a local dairy). In fact, he'll drink nealry 20 ounces of milk between 7 am and 12 noon. It is really amazing. He is sleeping all night and we rarely give him a bottle before 6 am, but during his waking hours, he packs it in!! We get 3 gallons of milk a week from the dairy and he consumes most of it!
I am mostly rambling about this. I wanted to document my feelings about it all and maybe I am just over-emotional about it because it is the end of an era! I will likely never breastfeed again. How can my child birthing years be done, when I feel like they just began?

Rediscovery

Matt took Sam and Arlo sledding this morning with another Dad friend and his three year old daughter.
I stayed behind with Otis. Besides the fact that he just had two immunizations on Thursday, he is also teething and that adds up a cranky baby...needless to say, I was hoping to get him to sleep and have some quiet time to fold laundry. Yes, you read that right, quiet time to fold laundry.

Things worked out as planned. Shower with baby. Give baby bottle (Otis hasn't nursed in 2 days. I think he has weaned. Not sure how I feel yet.) Put baby to sleep. Watch movie and fold laundry.

It was very nice...the quiet, that is. The quiet that lasted for 20 minutes when baby woke up and continued to be crabby.

Here is where the divine intervention occurred and I remembered our snow shoes in the basement.
I strapped them on and put Otis in his snow suit and into the backpacking kid pack and took off into Fenner Nature Center right out my front door.

The sun, cool air, exercise, quiet time in the woods did amazing things for me...and it put Otis to sleep.

I will be doing more snowshoeing. Pictures soon to follow.

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?