a new look and some thoughts on having a fellow morning person in Otto

Ot & Et has a new, wonderful look that I can't stop drinking in with my eyes! All thanks to the most amazing urban folk artist Jenn Shepherd. I found Jenn while window shopping on Etsy one day and just instantly fell in total, hopeless love with the hand-drawn charm and cute-but-not-cutesy-ness of her illustrations. There is something uncanny in what she does that I connect with on such a gut and soul level. Isn't that the best thing about art? It can just get right to your soul in a way you can't even explain and express what you are all about without saying a single word. Jenn was kind enough to create the new custom header for this blog. I look forward to doing a whole feature on Jenn and her shop in the very near future, in the mean time you should head over to Etsy and check her stuff out. She and her shop items are all just super super cool.

Around here we are smack-dab in the middle of back-to-back visits from loved ones, so this blog isn't getting much attention, understandably I am tired yo. My best friend and her 5 year old were here for the weekend and we just relaxed and wore sweat pants and had beer and let the boys play and we all ate everything we ever wanted and just talked and wallowed in our perfect comfortableness. It was amazing. 

While everyone else slept til 7am like sane persons Otto was up bright and early every day right at 5 and shot out of a cannon. "Let's color and watch a show and have a snack and play legos! I have to poop! Where are my pants? See you downstairs!" Since he wakes up right next to me I got to wake up to the alarm clock of his morning requests and suggestions and every thought that came into his head. My job was to say, "Shhhh no one else wants to be up right now, let's silently go downstairs as silently as we can and don't forget to be quiet as you go silently and don't say a word." So he'd chit-chat his way downstairs and out of earshot. The house can sleep through this at 5am because it's 5am and who wakes up for anything at 5am? Nobody but a fellow morning person and I'm the only one in the house. 

Otto comes by his bright eyed and bushy tailed-ness honestly. I'm a morning person. Straight up I am. 5am on a vacation day feels nuts to me too but I can roll with it because I really love mornings. I remember being the second one up my entire childhood. See, my dad is the morningest person in the world and always beats everyone else up, makes coffee, and works a crossword. I love that Otto inherited this morning person trait from us. Wakes up with a smile. Wants to start the party with the rising sun. I love spending my mornings with him enjoying the quiet while everyone else slowly wakes up around us.

Coffee and hours of coloring with my favorite four year old made for some pretty great mornings this weekend... followed by the best days.