A day with Otto

I started tweaking my creative processes again, remembering cues and journeys. I think one of the reasons I take care of my two year old grandson, Otto, is to stay on that journey, taking cues from his creativity, his innocence, his wonderful wacky sense of two and a quarter year old humor. Thursdays fly by. Most days don't. Most days I struggle to stay focused at the computer.

Yesterday was a brute of a drive. I didn't even want to know what the windchill was, and yet there was a man standing in a ditch near Jordan with no car about him or anyone else. Wasn't sure what that was about. Perhaps he lost something. Maybe he was froze to death. Don't know. Just kept driving. Different than the drive four days earlier on Sunday on a return trip from the Cities. It was the worst driving experience I can recall in a long long while, Le Seur to St. Peter, a mere ten miles or so. Rain turned into freezing slush turned into ice skating rink highways. My little Saturn did an ice dance, eyeing first the ditch on the right hand side of the road, I'm sure the SUVers behind me were taking bets on when I was going to slide in, then righting itself, only to start slipping towards the ditch. There were many cars that had slid off: some in fields, one resting on a fence, a whole family in a black SUV sitting in deep snow next to a barn, and some nose down in deep ditches. Others were dented and resting against the median fence.

Not yesterday. Just cold. And wind.

And then Otto waiting at the door for me. He has a ritual. He runs up to the door when he hears me, and smacks his face as close to the class as he can. Then he laughs and pounds on the door.

Otto. Two and a quarter, good-sized boy.

The day just flits by with Otto. Granted he takes a three hour nap in the afternoon, but I try to hold on to precious moments in the morning and during lunch.

Otto is learning new words every day, starting to easily phrase things. When I ask him if he needs a diaper change, he pats his butt and says, all good, all good. When his Dad tried to put him to bed, he hugs my leg in desperation: my Grandma, he says, my Grandma.