Picking up Pumpkins

This morning at about 4am Otto leaned over to me in his sleep and said in a whispered voice “it’s time to play hide and seek”. Without missing a beat I responded “no it’s not” and he rolled back over still asleep and continued on. You want to talk about something that will jolt you right awake? It’s a tiny human waking you up to play hide and seek in his sleep at 4am. Kids are full of surprises and Otto is no different. This kid is wild. This time is wild. This age is wild. And this is all going just way to fast for my liking.

I really enjoy the ability to be out and about right now back at work, drinking coffee and visiting select restaurants. It feels good to have some semblance of “normal” life. I do really miss though getting to watch Otto develop every day into the person he becomes. We have been more cognoscente of the commitments we say yes to, the time we spend working and select activities to keep close to us and routine.

One of those is heading to the farmers market early in the morning before we go to school and work for the day. I look forward to every Wednesday when me and my little man get a short hour of mom and otto time to just play. Otto loves Wednesdays too. He gets to go to “the berry store” (Farmers market) and then we go to readers world and check out the new arrivals and books.

Otto has become quite the regular at readers world. This past Wednesday he ordered two Veggie Tale books by himself with me standing behind him. The clerk was talking to me but Otto just kind of put his own order in. It is so fun to watch him learn and engage with everything around him. He knows what all the fruits and vegetables are, he knows certain farmers names and he knows where the blueberry donut stand is every week.

I feel like he has grown so much over the summer. Not just in height but in knowledge and retainment. He knows that things cost money. We can’t just take things. We have to make a “transaction”. Yea ok in a moment of desperation during a tantrum I finally said, Otto we have to pay for things. If we don’t pay, we don’t complete the transaction. If you don’t complete the transaction we go to jail. It might have been a little dramatic sure, but guess who now asks to complete the transaction? My three year old.

Every Wednesday this month we have been picking up a wagon full of pumpkins for out spooky halloween porch. Otto LOVES pumpkins and his favorites are these little baby pumpkins. Every time he grabs one he says “awe mom look! how cute this baby pumpkin!” it just makes me so dang happy inside that a 50 cent pumpkin can bring him that much joy. When we get home from school we unload the pumpkins and make our porch a bit spookier. Otto says it’s not scary enough yet though. I can’t wait to surprise him with the 7 foot spider I bought to hang from the entryway. That will be spooky for sure.

He has been super into the holidays lately (mostly birthdays) but he is stating to learn what Halloween is and has many opinions about what he is going to be and how we should decorate. I’m going to be honest, I love fall I am not a halloween gal. However, Ottos obsession with “Spooky Halloween” has made it super fun to decorate this year.

I can’t wait to show you all the front porch when it’s done. Hopefully just a giant spider and a few pumpkins more and we’ll be set!