Six Months

Yep, it's true. Otis turned six months old yesterday! I probably say this in every post, and it's the total parent cliche, but time just seems to be flying by. From time to time (including the past half hour) I pathetically look at photos from the day he was born and blink away tears. He's growing up so fast, already!

Since my last post, Otis has been a very busy boy. Here's some of what he's been up to lately:

First Christmas in Ohio
Otis had his first plane ride in December, and he did a great job. An obnoxious woman eyed Otis as she was boarding and said, "Oh, great, a BABY." I wanted to push her down. Otis barely made a peep the whole way! So there! Otis also did great sleeping in strange places. Over the course of the week he slept in a hotel, in my parents' house and in our family house near Lake Erie. I was worried that we'd have sleepless nights due to all the new surroundings, but he pretty much kept on his schedule. Yay for Otis!

Here are some pictures of Otis with some of the very special people who love and miss him back in the Buckeye State.

Otis and his Grandma Bein.

Otis playing with Grandpa Bein.

Two cuties: Otis and Uncle Wade

Otis and Great Grandma Snyder.

With Great Grandpa Snyder on Christmas Eve.

With Great Grandma Lutterbein.

Happy about lovey relatives and new toys!

Great Grandma Lutterbein on Christmas with her first three great grandchildren--all born in 2009. Erin's daughter Ella was born in November and Marla's son Oliver was born in February.

California Christmas
The day after we got back from our Ohio Christmas adventures, we celebrated Christmas at Carie and David's new house Springville with Steve's side of the family. We had such a fun day watching all the kids (there are eight now!) open and play with their presents. And we discovered that Aunt Carie's walk-in closet doubles as a quiet spot for Otis's nap.

Otis has the coolest cousins! Johnathan is holding him, while Zachary and Harper keep him entertained.

With Uncle David and Aunt Carie

First Cold
A few days later, Otis got his first cold. Poor boy. Perhaps some gross airplane germs got to him. Otis and I are pretty tight, so I got it too. After a couple weeks of coughing, sneezing and large quantities of snot, we were both fine.


Sitting Up
Otis's newest skill is sitting up all by himself. He's really curious about the world around him, and I think he really likes having this new perspective. He does eventually topple, so if I step away I surround him with pillows. If not, he falls to the side and lands face-first! Yes, I let it happen once. Oops.

Playing is hard work!

Teething
Though he still has no pearly whites to show for it, Otis is definitely teething. He's rocking the telltale drool rash around his mouth and chin, and he wants to chew, chew, chew all the time. His favorite things to chew are his parents' fingers, but we're thankful that he has a couple of little teething toys that also suffice. For a while, he had a hard time figuring out how to get the best parts of the teething toys in his mouth for optimal chewing, but he's got it dialed in now.

Chewing on a favorite toy. Look at the determination! You can see some of his drool rash on his upper lip, too. Also notice how much hair he has now!

Foodie
We started feeding Otis some solid food last week. He's just eating a little bit per day, but so far he seems to like it. So far he has tried rice cereal, bananas, avocados and sweet potatoes. He loves the sweet potato best. I wonder why--because it's soooo sweet. I've been making little batches of baby food by steaming extra veggies from our dinners, pureeing them, and freezing them in ice cube trays. Then I pop them out and store them in Ziplocs. My friend Niki told me about this little technique and so far it's very manageable. I'm happy that Otis will be eating fresh and local fruits and veggies from the farmers market!


Stroller Walks
Steve has been taking Otis in long walks in his stroller in the afternoons while I'm at work. Otis loves being outdoors and looking at all the houses, cars and trees. He also likes to sit on the step with Steve and pet the kitties, but we have to be careful because he loves to pull their hair!

First Christmas

Otis had a lovely time celebrating his first Christmas in Ohio then California. For 400+ photos of the fun, go to tootlefam.shutterfly.com!

More updates soon.

Four Months and a Milestone (sort of)

There are new Otis photos at tootlefam.shutterfly.com.

Otis turned four months old on Thursday. Our healthy boy weighs 17 pounds already, and I'm starting to forget what it was like to hold him when he was only seven or eight pounds.

Otis used to hate "tummy time" with a passion. As soon as we would set him down on his tum he would cry, and as soon as we rolled him over he'd stop. When we asked the pediatrician about it, he said not to worry but to keep trying and one day he'd stop hating it. Well, it happened! Yeah! I had him on my lap on the floor last Sunday and he kept leaning forward, so I put him on his tummy and he happily hung out there for a few minutes.

Then he rolled over all by himself.

My heart SWELLED with pride. MY BABY, who I grew in my uterus, can now roll over independently. Our illustrious son did it three more times that day, and each time he seemed to really enjoy this new sense of mobility and control over his situation. Then he put this newly-learned skill in his back pocket for more than a week, refusing to do it again for us (and our video camera.) He rolled again this morning, though, so I think it's safe to record this as a milestone. Right?



I have succumbed to the mom haircut. It's only day three but I'm finding it so much easier to manage! My stylist says it's not a mom haircut, but a sexy mama haircut. I'm going to go ahead and agree with her, whether it's true or not. (Yes, I'm fishing for compliments here.)



I am counting down the days until our Christmas vacation to Ohio. While I'm a little nervous about Otis's first plane ride, I just can't wait for my parents, brother, grandparents, and the rest of my extended family to have time with Otis. Can't wait!

Do you see a resemblance?

The photo on the left is my dad as a baby, and the one on the right is Steve's four-month portrait. I think little Otis looks a lot like both of them!

Cuteness

First Trip to the Park and Other Fun Things

Last Thursday my new friend Jackie invited Otis and me, and several other moms and their kids, for a morning at the park. (It's weird--once you have a baby you are automatically welcomed into this whole new social network of other moms!) I went mostly to socialize since Otis can't really play at the park yet, but I decided to put him in the baby swing just to test it out. He really liked it, and hung out there for a few minutes, happy for his mama to stay close and swing him about three inches back and forth. Jackie was sweet to photograph this small milestone since I forgot my camera.



I emailed it to my parents, who of course shared it with their friends. One of my dad's Lutterbein Lumber colleagues said Otis is starting to look like a Lutterbein! Now I can see it too. He definitely looks like Steve, but now I think he might have Lutterbein eyes. (Yay, some of my genes got in there, too!) These are eyes I don't have, but my dad and his Uncle Dick and Uncle Ed have them. They're good looking eyes, deep-set.

Otis is growing SO fast. We are already starting to forget how it felt to hold him when he was a "bitty-tiny" newborn. At his last doctor visit, he was in the 80th percentile for height and 85th for weight. I'm happy to report that he's been getting 100% of his calories from breast milk for the past several weeks now--after some trouble with weight gain early on and the doc's recommendation to supplement with formula. The one good thing that came from that is that now Otis takes a bottle like a champ, and dad gives him one bottle of expressed breast milk while I'm away at work in the afternoons.

Steve is the cutest dad ever. He might not want me to share this information, but I will anyway: he sings the funniest song ever while he's changing Otis's diaper. The words are "Poopity doopity poopity doo, poopity doopity Robert Goulet...Poopity doopity poopity doo, poop, poop Robert Goulet," of course sung in Robert Goulet's voice. Otis loves it!

Otis is doing lots of cooing and laughing these days. His favorite sounds are "nnn-guh" and "ow-ooh." And his favorite joke is fart sounds. It makes him laugh really hard. We have this on video and will post it soon.

Just in the past couple of days, Otis has started tolerating us reading books to him. I asked Steve's sister Ruthie for advice on how to encourage Otis to fall into a regular nap schedule, and she recommended reading the same books before each naptime and before bedtime. It's fun to read to him. When we read "Pat the Bunny" he pats the bunny and likes the peek-a-boo page. We also have this sweet book called "Mommy Hugs" and it talks about ways other animals hug their babies. It's an opportunity for lots of cuddling, which I probably enjoy as much as, or more than, Otis.

We have stopped watching a lot of TV because whenever it's on, Otis becomes a zombie and stares at the screen. Scary!

I have been devouring a book on infant brain development. It's fascinating. Just learning about the biology of how the brain forms (Probably something I should've learned in high school biology at some point but didn't--way to go EHS.) is amazing and it reminds me how much of a miracle it is that Otis was even conceived and grew inside me and so forth.

That's all I can think of for this long-overdue update. This is so fun. We love him so much, and sometimes we just can't believe he's ours!

Happy Halloween!

Otis was not a big fan of Halloween. But that didn't stop us from parading him around the cul de sac! He looked really cute in his frog costume.


Our sad little froggy letting us know how he feels about this holiday. (Thanks, Granny, for giving Otis the cute costume!)


Pre-trick-or-treating on the porch with mom.


With dad and his candy. No, he didn't eat it, but mom did.


In his Halloween t-shirt from Grandma Bein.