Then and now

Lazarus keeps changing -- I don't see it day to day, but going back over older photos of him, I realize that time passes by so quickly, even when I'm trying to pay close attention. I love this pair of pictures, taken 11 months apart, of Lazarus "reading" last December (just over six months old), and last weekend (nearly 18 months old):


His new favorite book is Where the Wild Things Are -- I've read it to him a few times, making the appropriate monster sounds (and making a few up as well), which he now imitates as he flips the pages. He seems able to handle paper-paged books now without shredding them, a good thing because he insists on turning the pages himself while we read.

Now that we're a bit settled in (and have had the same address for more than six months), I've started getting some great toy catalogs, with lots of sturdy bright wooden stuff rather than annoying noisy plastic stuff. So of course I'm getting toy fever. For the little guy, of course. Here's one I'd love to get him for Christmas... if I can wait that long. I love the pull-along toys, and Lazarus is just about walking, so of course it's a perfect match.

I've been wanting for a while now to start decorating the house for the holidays. We've decided to keep things really simple -- make or trade for presents rather than buying lots of useless stuff for people, and keep the celebrations here at home -- but I always have an urge to put up lots of lights and garlands and ornaments and all the other decorative stuff I've collected (and kept, but of course) over the years. Lights in particular make me happy. And even though the store isn't open, and won't be for months, I think I'll put up some lights and other stuff over there, too, just so it doesn't look like a depressing vacant storefront. Okay, and to give myself yet another space to play with.

Of course, before I am allowed to start decorating, I have two jobs to finish and more clutter to clear out of the house. Would be easy if I had any evergy, but I never seem to have gotten that second-trimester energy burst (though I'm not sick every day, either). So I guess I'll keep running on fumes till I get that third-trimester nesting energy, or whenever. I might just make it if Lazarus snaps out of this no-nap, late-to-bed-and-early-to-rise phase he's been in for the past two or so weeks... It is just a phase, right?