Christmas 2010

I hope each of you who celebrated had a Christmas holiday as precious and joyful as ours --> 

Otto went from barely-walking-little-baby this time last year to a present-crazed, cookie-obsessed, very boogery-nosed little BOY this year. Watching my son get cracked out on Christmas over the course of the past five days has been a delight to my heart. His little almost-2-year-old brain (yeek, his bday looms in less than a week!) is now soaked and pickled in domino sugar and his eyes are dilated as visions of "new toys" "more toys" and "presents now" dance in his head. He totally had a spoiled rotten holiday.

So spoiled, in fact, that on our way home this afternoon I told my husband we need to institute a tradition of volunteering and giving back as soon as Otto is old enough to appreciate it. He has so much; I never did as a kid. I want him to learn compassion and generosity from his earliest memories. That's all - I don't want to get all heavy here or anything.

A Christmas Story, The Fireman With Two Right Arms...

As a little nuclear family, we're having a tough time financially this year. There's a light at the end of the tunnel in January, but for now we're like maxed maxed maxed on our credit cards and counting nickels. Still, we were able to cobble together a pretty magical "Nuclear Christmas" (just the 3 of us) Wednesday night before heading out of town for 2 major family Christmases this weekend. At home, Otto got to help himself to chocolate chip cookies & pizza, open a stocking full of goodies from the Target dollar bins (bless those bins) and a few presents including a pretty sweet fireman playset with an awesome fireman with two right arms! They're both flexed and ready for action, like so:

 I'm just proud of this determined, brave soul for making it on the squad. I bet a lot of people told him, "You'll never be a fireman! Righty Righty!" But he showed them. And now he even has a motorcycle. ::Raises glass to double-right-armed fireman::

Otto loves his misfit fireman and told us his favorite part of the night was "Cookie Presents!" then he did a little moonwalk booty shake dance around the living room for 2 minutes that were some of the best 2 minutes of my life.

We then traveled to our parents' homes for 2 more wonderful Christmases where Otto was juiced, and dined, and cookied, and gifted galore. I love how much our families love my son. I love how much he loves our families. And we have a little 6month-old nephew, Kingston, who is fast becoming Otto's great buddy. I loved being able to spend the day with that little dude.

Thanks for letting me share and Happy New Years! Did anyone get a cooler gift than our 2-right-armed fireman?

xo, Lindsey