Food

Choosing what to feed your toddler is SO important.  When I am deciding what Otto will eat I ask the following very important questions:

1. Can it be picked up off the floor easily?

2. Will the dog eat it?

3. If the dog won't eat it, would I eat it after it touches the floor?

4. Is my computer out of Otto's throwing distance?

If the answer to any of these is yes, it's probably a green light.

A Case For the One Year Old Birthday Party

Jeff, you're still doing this thing?  Yes, apparently.

A few days ago, my little baby, Otto, the very reason I started writing these posts, turned one year old.  It's still hard for me to believe.  It really didn't feel like a whole year.

But it's not hard to believe that Otto is a year old when you look back at how much he has changed.  Otto seems older every day.  In fact, if you think about all of the thing's he has accomplished it's harder to believe that he's only been around for 12 months.  Interestingly, his dad seems to have aged a lot more than a year since September 2011, as well.

Change seems to be the theme of parenthood.  Occasionally it's dramatic, but more often it's just kind of a drift.  It's a trend towards something that is always different then the day before, yet so gradual that you can never really pin point the exact instant of metamorphosis.  The food is always getting a little more solid, the naps are always getting a little bit shorter, and the childproofing of the house is always a little less than it should be.

But it's not just the kid that changes.  I see it in me.  I see it in all my friends who have kids.  We're getting more conservative.  We talk more about yard work, or how much our joints hurt.  We are caring more about things we never thought we would.

For example, I used to think the 1st year birthday party was quintessential example of western wastefulness.  If only I had a time machine to invite younger Jeff to Otto's party.

My wife and I started talking about his party a month or two ago.  As soon as it came up I knew something inside me had changed.  I didn't hate the idea and I couldn't really sort out why.

Trisha wanted a theme.  I suggested a dog theme.  If you've read any of my previous posts you probably know we are dog people.  We already had dog "stuff" around the house.  My thought process was we would call that stuff decorations and that would be it.  No big deal.

My wife delegated me to making invitations.

"Hmmm...invitations?" I thought, "Like for you, me, our parents...I could probably just call them."

My wife insisted that we have invitations for all of Otto's 'friends.'

"You mean Ralph?" I wisely kept to myself.

I agreed, since I'm sort of a hobby artist.  In fact, looking back this may have been very strategic of my wife.  Trisha knows I love to design stuff for print and I always go way overboard.  To use a dated reference, I am the Tim Taylor of hobby graphic design.  Trisha knew that, if for no other reason than to try and create the penultimate invitation, I would be on board for this party.

She was right, but it worked on a whole other level.  To make this invitation I needed photos.  From new born to 10 months old, I sat and looked at almost every photo/video we have of this little, pudgy, wonderful boy.  I cried a lot (I'm sort of an emotional guy).

I relived him coming home from the hospital, his first laugh, when he learned to clap, his first Christmas, him sleeping on my chest while I studied, his first time at the family cabin, his first cold, his first time swimming in a pool, etc.  This invitation (and by association, this party) became the culmination of the most wonderful, exhausting, impossible year of my life and a symbol of what this little human being meant to me, regardless of his understanding of it.  It was and is completely irrational, but in that moment of photo induced nirvana I understood the stream of consciousness of every party mama.  Sentimentality overcame any rational thought.  I was in party mode...and I loved it.

I designed four different invitations.  Then I went on to bunting banners with a different breed of dog on each flag.  It was easy, I just googled each breed, clipped each dogs face, converted it to one-bit black and white, then imported them into a tracing program so I could reformat them into vectors, then exported them to a drawing program so I could edit the fine details, then printed them at staples on four different colours of card stock.  Then it was as simple as cutting out each flag and attaching them to twine.  Easy. The whole process realistically took me 15 hours.

That wasn't enough!  I scoured iTunes for children's music that was actually enjoyable to listen to and burned CD's for all our guests.  I designed labels for gift bags.  I printed off a "Pin-the-Tail on the Ralphie" game.  I caught myself before I had T-shirts printed.

My wife was simultaneously going even more crazy, sewing amazing cloth bunting, baking cookies and pretzel bones and Jell-o filled dog bowls and puppy chow and making all sorts of amazing decorations.  It actually became a huge bonding point for us.  It was our project.  And we made a pretty amazing team.  Maybe there's a market for planning one year old's canine-esque get-togethers?

The day of the party I actually had an overwhelming sense of embarrassment.  I was seriously afraid of what our friends would think of our dog-themed party gone dog-themed circus.  They were gracious.  And there-in is the final perk of the first year birthday party.  We saw friends.  We had people in our house that we have neglected for the last year.  We got to see their kids.  It was really fun.  I kind of wish we could do first year parties more often.

You're probably reading this and rolling your eyes.  And that's ok, because I completely understand.  But this party ended up being really, really great.  I'm proud of my amazing son.  I'm proud of my amazing family.  I'm proud of what we accomplished in our first year as a family.

The Aftermath

I have a secret.  You know those sunglasses that you mostly see on women in their 70s that are designed to fit over normal glasses?  The ones that have polarized tinted side panels?  The ones that look comically huge overtop of bifocals with pearl neck chains?

Those are the only sunglasses that fit on my face.  And no, I don't mean over my regular glasses.  I mean if I'm wearing contacts and need to put on sunglasses like any other normal person, those granny specs are the only ones I can manage to squeeze on my cranium.  So now you know a little more about the plight of having a  huge  massive head.

I mention this because I was wearing them when I started this post.  I was sitting in a beautiful screened in patio looking at the Gulf of Mexico.  Trisha, Otto, and I were there to celebrate.  We have made it.  I finished my exams and I passed.  Twenty-five years after starting kindergarten I am finally done school.

So what is a Royal College exam, you might be wondering. (Because it's over I can actually explain a little better without breaking into tears.)  It's two parts.  Part one is a written exam that is done in a total of six hours over two days.  All the questions are short answer and mostly consist of making lists.  For example:

1) List 14 things that make your toes turn red.
2) List 37 things you can do to treat morning hiccups.
3) List one thing more annoying than this exam (trick question).

The second part is the oral exam.  For this you fly all the way to Ottawa.  There are a list of recommended hotels given to you by the Royal College.  These include the Fairmont, the Hilton, etc.  But me and the other Manitoban residents decided to go Winnipeg style.  We went for something a little more...thrifty.

The Parliament Hill Hotel and Suites.  Every employee appears to be 15 years old, or 75 years old.  When we got off on our shared floor we discovered a very strong smell.  Imagine finding runners that were dirty and then put in a box.  And then buried.  For 4 years.  We wondered how that smell could be spread through the entire floor.  But we quickly learned it was focused in one spot.  My room.

The oral exam is not technically that hard.  At the same time, it's super hard.  It's like eating breakfast.  Eating breakfast is not hard at all.  But imagine eating breakfast in a suit that is worth more than your car.  Then imagine you're being watched by 4 people who have dedicated their lives to eating breakfast, and if they see you eat the fruit loops before the pop-tart, well then you'll never be allowed to eat breakfast again.

Because not every person can be examined at the same time, there is a process in which different people are sequestered for 1-2 hours at a time to ensure there is no cheating.  My group had the four prototypical pre-exam losers.

1) The Over-Talker: "Can-you-believe-we're-going-through-this-at-the-same-time-as-Grey's-Anatomy-I-watched-it-last-night-and-it-was-so-good-but-so-scary-HAHAHAHAHA-I-can't-wait-to-be-done-can-you-what-are-you-going-to-do-I'm-going-to-drink-HAHAHAHA-right?"

2) The Bobber: They don't talk much.  They bob up and down in their chair.  They occasionally make some sort of guttural sounds under their breath.  And they sweat.

3) The Over-Analyzer: They are still reeling over the answer they put on the third page of the second booklet of the written exam three weeks ago.  To take their mind off of it, they review flash cards.

4) The Blank Stare.

I won't tell you which one I was.

When it was finally my turn to take the exam, the volunteer judicator had a surprisingly difficult time pronouncing my name.

"Dr. Clay-..." furrowed brow, "Dr. Kleese...,"  Raised eyebrow, "Dr. Class..."

This was a bad start.  I rescued her.  "Klassen?"

"Yes, Klassen, proceed to door one."

The oral exams are held in the dormitory of a French Community College.  Most people are pretty surprised by that.  There is a long hallway with numbers posted above the doors on either side.  It was pretty easy to find number one.

The door opened to a small foyer that had two more doors, one clearly marked with a "Do Not Enter" sign.  I was expecting this.  I had heard horror stories about this part of the exam.  Numerous stories of fainting, vomiting.  There's even a story of a candidate being found 30 minutes after the exam started in the "Do Not Enter" room completely spaced.  I walked up to the right door and firmly planted my feet.  I concentrated on my breathing.  I did not want to become an anecdote.  Then a voice came from behind me, "You have to stay in the hallway until the buzzer!"  At least I was still conscious.

Most of the actual oral exam is a blur.  There was an hour of exam time in the morning and the afternoon.  For one hour before and after I was sequestered.  As soon as I was finished I jumped in a cab, went back to my hotel, took off all my clothes, ate chocolate and blueberries and watched Storage Wars for 2 and a half straight hours.  I forgot at least 47% of everything I had been studying for the last year.  It was great.

Now I just have to start working for real (gulp).  But that a story for another day.

Slowly I have become my normal self again.  Otto recognizes me again.  He's almost 10 months old!  He claps and babbles.  He has two teeth.  I'm so ecstatic to be spending more time with him.  Check him out.  He's the greatest.

How to Get Old in 6 Months

Otto turned 6 months yesterday.  It's pretty unbelievable that he is 6 months old already.  He's developing all sorts of new sounds and learning how to use his arms and hands more.  Of course, one of the new sounds he's learned is screaming and he's learned how to use his arms to flail.  It's okay.  I still love him.

It's also pretty amazing how much kids can change in 6 months (cliché alert!).   It's true, though.  He's got a personality now.  He has a voice.  He has very clear likes and dislikes.  He's got habits and quirks.  He's also over 20 pounds now.  He's twice the size he was 6 months ago (but then again, so am I).

The thing I find a lot of parents don't talk about is how much THEY change.  When Otto was born, I had freshly turned 30.  I made the transition pretty smoothly, I think.  I felt young.  I was in the best shape I had been in in years.  I was eating well and taking better care of myself than I ever had.  But 6 months can change everything.

Now, I'm old.  As the main character in Motherless Brooklyn puts it, I'm not fat, not muscular, just "bear like."  I am chronically tired and as a result I eat mostly sodium.  Sometimes I eat saturated fats with my sodium.  There's nothing better than deep fried sodium.  I lose my breath going up a flight of stairs at the library.  I also am so coffee dependant I'm almost to the point of waking myself at night for a coffee so I don't wake up with a headache in the morning.

This concept of rapid aging first came to me while we were in Hawaii.  This was the first time I didn't surf while I was there.  It was a little sad, because I love to surf, but sometimes things just don't work out.  I was already in a cycle of bad eating and pretty severe coffee dependance by that time.  I started boogie boarding while I was there and I used my boogie boarding to convince myself I'm not that old.  And that worked, for a while.  As long as I was boogie boarding, I was fine.  Then it donned on me.  My boogie boarding partner was my father-in-law.  Actually, he did more boogie boarding than I did.  The day I reached my epiphany we had happened to run into one of my uncles who was also boogie boarding with us.  That day, I was the only person boogie boarding on our beach under 50 (of about 6 or so people).  Well, that's not entirely true.  There was an 8 year old that I was trying very hard to keep up with.

My self observation of getting older continued after we got home.  I think I've found a pretty reliable measurement tool for evaluating if you're old or not.  It's based on what you are embarrassed to buy at the pharmacy.  When you're really young it's junk food, and if you're not that bright, maybe cigarettes.  When your young and in your prime, it's things like condoms and feminine hygiene products.  Then one day, you're hiding Propecia pills and Senekot under your arm as you pull your hat low and walk out the automatic doors.

My scenario is a little different than most parents, though.  My rapid aging process has much less to do with Otto, and much more to do with studying.  (Since my last post, by the way, I finished reading Rosen's.  Ever finished a book and realized you don't really remember how it started?).  In fact, Trisha pretty much does 95% of the parenting so I can get all my reading done (so if she asks, I was reviewing flash cards while I was typing this blog, okay?).

Trisha has been amazing through all of this.  She's been put through a lot while I've been studying.  She essentially has become the single mother of three problem children.  The cute one that doesn't sleep and has just learned how to have temper tantrums, the ugly and jealous one that insists on constant attention in the form of "fetch" (that's Ralph by the way), and the hulking, absent minded man-child that is currently completely unable to look after himself.  The third one can recite the diagnostic criteria for endocarditis verbatim, but can't remember to buy milk on the way home.

So if you read this blog and you know us, please remember my poor wife sometime.  I have a little over a month and a half until I'm done this exam completely.  At that time I can (hopefully) be a normal, adult parent/spouse.  In the mean time, my wife needs support.  Coffee date.  Phone call.  Text message.  Thanks.

Ralph.  Upside down.

Return of the Blog, Escape from Rosen's

You probably didn't notice, but I haven't written anything in a very long time.  I haven't been around.  I've been...lost.  Lost inside a very big book.  The book looks like this:



Rosen's Emergency Medicine.  203 chapters in this edition.  About 3000 pages.  I've read 180 chapters, and almost 3/4 of all of those chapters I have read after Christmas.  The best part...I don't remember any of it.

That's not entirely true.  I seem to remember completely useless, never-going-to-use-in-my-career sort of facts.  For instance, I can't seem to forget how African Sleeping Sickness presents.  Unfortunately, that information is taking up real estate where important information used to live (i.e. what to do if someone's heart stops beating).

For anyone who hasn't heard me complain about it, I've got an exam in May.  Most of it is based on this book.  I've made about 5000 flashcards so far.  Every so often I pick up a flash card from one of the many piles just to see if it sparks any sort of recognition at all.  I can usually identify the handwriting as mine...usually.

Trisha and I did actually manage to get away for a few weeks amidst all this studying.  We went to Maui...again.

In earlier posts I've commented on how I used to think I was a hipster.  In my pseudo-hipster phase, in keeping with delusional hipsterisms, I thought Hawaii was the lamest. So tacky (and not in a cool - thrift store kind of way).

Then I went there.  There's a reason that Hawaii is the prototypical North American cliche vacation spot.  It's perfect.  I'm not even going to go on about all the reasons why, it just is.  Go there.

Side note:
I think Hawaii falls into the same category as Volvos, being conservative, and architecture magazines.  Eventually, every white, middle class loser likes them.

It also FORCES you to break all your impractical hipster behaviours.  For instance, you would be insane to wear skinny jeans in Hawaii.  Overpriced retro sneakers don't work on the beach.  There are no college radio stations so unless you have satellite radio you have to listen to the oldies station and admit to yourself that popular music can also be good music. 

We can't stop going now.  This was our fourth trip.  We've been to Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island.  This time was Maui (again).

We were so excited to go.  We went with Trisha's parents (built in babysitters!), we had the perfect location booked, and we got great, cheap flights.  Everything was planned perfectly.  But Trisha could not relax.  For a month leading up to our trip, all she could think about was how terrible Otto was going to be on the plane.  It's something I never would have even thought of, but Trisha was so worried about it that she started to get me worried.  Trisha is very good at making the theoretical seem extremely inevitable.

"Wait...He's going to cry the whole time?!  That's over six hours!"
"Why doesn't he want to eat?  He loves to eat!"
"Can he really start teething at 10 000 feet?"

Well, as usual, all the worry was for nothing.  Otto slept 5/6 hours from Vancouver to Maui and 5/6.5 hours from Maui back to Calgary.  The only trouble he did cause was at a layover in Vancouver.

Otto is still young enough to fly free because he doesn't take a seat.  That being said, most airlines will shuffle seats around to make an extra seat between parents with a baby if there are empty seats on the plane.  If it's really obvious that there will be empty seats, they'll even let you bring a car seat on and buckle it in.  On our flight from Vancouver to Maui there were almost 30 empty seats.

As soon as there was an agent at the gate in Vancouver, Trisha pounced on her to ask about the car seat.  When she took Otto's ticket, however, she indicated that he had been flagged and that a security officer would be coming shortly.  She was serious.  Otto is four months old.

Sure enough, a border guard showed up.  And he asked the following question with a straight face:

"Does he have any belongings with him?"
"Did he see his baggage at the baggage identification terminal?"

Then he "patted down" Otto.  We actually had to wake Otto up, take him out of his car seat, and with four pats, the guard had effectively covered Otto's entire body.

He then expressed great distress as to how Otto was able to make it all the way to the gate.  Apparently this "flag" should have prevented him from getting through several check points before the gate.  This didn't seem like a oops-hope-that-doesn't-happen-again sort of thing.  It seemed more like an excuse-me-while-I-go-fire-someone sort of thing.

I don't know what Otto did to get such special treatment, but it looks like he got away with it.


There's a lot I could say about Hawaii, but maybe I'll save those for future posts.  After all, I don't know how many post I could make about reading Rosen's.

Road Trips

I love road trips, even when it is in less than ideal circumstances.

When I was a tree planter I once drove from Prince George to Winnipeg in one sitting.  My co-traveler was supposed to take over in Edmonton but she started puking around Jasper so I volunteered to captain the whole trip.  I started to get pretty tired by Saskatchewan but the retching really kept me going.  She fell asleep before Saskatoon so I had to rely on her bad music and smoking to get me through to the perimeter.  To this day Big Wreck and clove cigarettes give me flashbacks, but I still had a good time.  (Yes, I smoked a little when I was 18...give me a break).

A few years later I got to tour the North West US with some friends I was in a hardcore/metal band with.  It was July.  Due to a car breakdown of one of the members of another band, all five of us had to squeeze into a two door Honda Accord with no air conditioning.  I should mention, we were all pretty big people.  Davis, our drummer, is easily 6 foot 4.  When he was in the back seat he would have to put one foot out the driver window, so if you were driving and you went to shoulder check, you would get a face full of calf.  I remember being in Mile City one morning and hearing the forecast for the day being 110 degrees Fahrenheit.  We all grew up Metric, so we all looked at each other and said, "Is that hot?"

By 10:00am the sweat coming off of each of us had formed one continuous, disgusting film.  The windows were open, of course, but the air hitting our faces was hot.  We were living on peanut butter sandwiches and someone left the peanut butter in the back window.  That afternoon the peanut butter was the consistency of milk.  The best way I can illustrate what it felt like is this:

Imagine finishing the most intense track and field day of your high school career.  Now instead of a cool shower and a change of clothes at the end of the day, you are instead tied to four large friends who were also at track and field.  You are then placed directly between a giant hair drier aimed at your face and a giant magnifying glass that aims the sun at your back.

The weather stayed like that for almost two weeks.  It was one of the most fun trips I have ever been on.

Christmas entailed a couple of road trips with Otto.  We drove to each of our parents' houses (to Morris and Morden) and then over New Years we went to Minneapolis with Trisha's family.  Road trips with a baby and a dog are a whole different challenge.

First, you have to pack everything.  Swing. Chair. Clothes. Car Seat. Baby Toys. Play Pen. Presents. Kennel. Dog Bed. Dog Food. Dog Toys.  Somehow a giant station wagon that usually seems way too big starts to feel very, very small.  Interestingly, instead of cutting back on what you pack for your kid, you start to compromise what you pack for yourself.

"He needs that stuffed dog that sings Ba Ba Blacksheep.  I guess one pair of pants should last me about 6 days, right, hon?"
"These diapers take up this whole pocket on my suitcase.  What if I just didn't wear underwear a couple of days?"
"If I just crammed my clothes into a garbage bag instead of a suitcase I bet I could fit the formula next to the over packaged-going-to-break-tomorrow toys we got all our nieces and nephews."

The best is when you meticulously pack everything, Tetris style - every nook is utilized with precision.  After 45 minutes of arranging and planning you stand back to admire the densely packed mass of luggage.  As you do that, you trip over the vibrating chair your son needs if you ever want to put him down on his own for more than 15 seconds.  You forgot to pack it.

"Should I just leave it?" you think to yourself.  It's one of those questions you know the answer to but you hate the answer so much you still think about it for at least 20 seconds.  Then you unload and re-load the car 4 times trying to make it all fit again.  Each time it gets a little more disorganized until finally the whole car looks like it was packed by a tornado.  A grumpy tornado.

It's also super fun when you get to your destination, and despite all your efforts you realize you forgot something.  Especially something vital, like a stroller.  As you can imagine, getting around Minneapolis carrying a 12 pound car seat that contains a 17 pound child could be too much even for my amazing physique.  In our case, my in-laws came to Minneapolis the day after us and they were able to bring it for us.  Of course, the instant this solution presented itself my thought was, "How the * am I going to fit that in the car on the way home?!"
(* = heck, of course.  Come on, my mom reads this blog.)

Then after you're packed, you actually have to travel.  Traveling on an interstate with a baby is it's own challenge.  They start to cry as you pass a sign that says 'Next Rest Area 96 miles.'  Then it becomes a real battle of the psyche.  It goes something like this:

Just-Wants-to-Get-There self: He's just crying, that won't kill him.  It's just an excuse to go faster.
Over-Tired self: If we don't shut him up soon I'm going to drive this thing into the Water Park of America.
Paranoid-Parent self: What if it's an appendicitis?
Delusional self: Maybe I can block it out...we only have 3 more hours of driving.

All in all, though, the traveling was worth it.  We had a pretty great Christmas.  Otto got a bunch of toys he MIGHT be able to play with before next Christmas.  I got some nerdy coffee stuff.  Trisha got new boots.  Otto became really giggly this Christmas.  He's an easy smile now.  We got to spend a lot of time with family and, believe it or not, I even got some reading done.

Now I'm going to put up a bunch of really awesome Otto photos I wasn't allowed to put up before because they were presents for his grandmas.

Happy 2012, everyone.  By the way, if the world ends this year after I've done all this reading, I'm going to be steamed.

Roger Chartier put it best when he said, "It looks like they both filled their pants."

Otto and his girl friends from church.

Santa Klassen

Artur Neumann with Otto Artur Neumann (Klassen)

Otto and his Mama (he was smiling two seconds before this photo).

Christmas, Contraptions, and Concussions

The season of family gatherings is upon us again.  And I know, I already posted about family gatherings back at Thanksgiving, but we all know Christmas family gatherings are a whole other ball game.  Christmas is the big one.  And when you have a kid, it's an even bigger deal.  You want him to look cute, and to be good and you've got a stack of pictures of him to give to all of your aunts and uncles and cousins and so on...(remember that my extended family is so big we need to rent churches and community halls to get together).

Our Friesen family gathering was up first this year.  We met in a church in Winnipeg, which is really nice for us because we usually have to drive at least an hour and a half outside of Winnipeg to see our family.  Otto wasn't super happy but he did pretty good.  Our cousin, Mel Weins, had brought this slingy-wrappy baby holder thing that wraps around you and your child in such a way that they have no choice but to be still.  Once it's on, the parent looks like a python that swallowed a baby whole.  Otto loved it.

It's pretty amazing the simple yet ingenious things people have come up with for babies.  For instance, it's been cold and flu season around our house (Kindergarten Teacher + Emergency Doctor = Lots of cold and flu experience).  Babies have to breathe through their nose, but they aren't smart enough to use kleenex, so when they get stuffed up it's pretty frustrating.  So somebody invented something called an aspirator that is essentially a straw that you stick up their nose.  You then use it to suck all the mucous out.  There's got a built in filter so that your child's snot doesn't get in your own mouth.  Genius.  Also, a Bumbo.  I know it's old news already, but why hasn't this thing been around since the 1800's.  It's moulded foam that lets your baby sit up without falling over.  How hard was it to come up with that?

Then there was our Klassen gathering.  It was pretty nice, so I'm told.  I can't remember a lot of it.  Let me explain.

It was in a town called Sommerset.  The idea was to have a mini curling bonspiel.  I didn't want to play.  Lets say that sports and me are like oil and firecrackers.  But I did.  It's curling, after all, what could happen?  Well, I threw a rock and on getting up from throwing said rock I promptly slipped backwards and fell square on my head.  I then continued to curl, but seemed to forget what town I was in.  I went inside to take out my contacts, but kept trying to take out the left one.  I still have no idea where the right one is.  I found my wife and apparently asked her the same question three or four times.  My wife has experience with me and sports and immediately identified I had another concussion.  (Yeah...I said another concussion).  My wife tells me I was saying over and over again, "but I have to study."

The potential of not being able to study was a very real concern.  Concussions are not very conducive to learning.  I'm fortunate to have a very faithful and prayerful family who took very good care of me, including my wife who drove all the way home and let me rest in the passenger seat.  By the time we reached the perimeter I was able to recite all the reasons I did not need a CT scan.  I read a chapter the next day and remembered about as much as I would have expected to pre-concussion.  It looks like I will be ok (although I've got a decent goose egg and a sore back, but that's a small price to pay.)

For future sport consideration, though, I intend on wearing safety goggles when I play darts and a helmet when I go swimming.

As for Otto, he's doing OK.  Like I said, it's flu season and with all these new people holding and hugging and kissing him it was inevitable that he would catch something.  I'm comfortable with him getting sick and I understand that it is an important part of his development.  What I don't understand is how you can poop that much and still gain weight.  He's making more and more sounds every day and has now figured out how to rock himself in one of his chairs by kicking his legs.  He loves it.

So I guess this might be it until after Christmas (realistically).  I hope everyone has a really nice holiday.  Merry Christmas to you from Jeff, Trisha, Otto and of course, Ralph.  I promise all kinds of new Otto pictures after the holiday.

Otto and his new bud, Ben.