I am already a fan of 2009. The openness to this adjustment is rather surprising to me since 2008 was such a groundbreaking year of figuring out exactly how many rounds of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" it takes to get a toothing infant back to sleep AND WE MADE IT. I've been so focused on documenting each milestone (five and half months, slept through night; eight months, waved; nine months, pulled to standing) that the passage of one calendar into the next seems kind of negligible, irrelevant. I think this change in the way I perceive the passage of time makes me a little bit of a loser, but also little less daunted by the moments that keep on slipping away, like water in my sand ditch at the beach. But our calendar from Small Liberal Arts College on a Hill tells me it is indeed 2009 year of our Lord and so far I've been having a ball. Lovey Loverpants has had ample time off of work to chill and demo for Baby Girl the myriad batteries not included toys that now populate our WHAT WAS THAT I JUST PASTED TO THE FLOOR living room. Also, we've been wildly social. I mean playdate in the morning, a dinner at a restaurant with a waitstaff in the evening. Followed the next day by Itsy Bitsy yoga in the a.m. followed by a raucous toddler birthday (the second in a week!). Yoko Loco! We're pushing through a veritable hangover from the fun alone. In the meantime, I've been staying up to finish some final projects for class. I don't know how it all got done, but the files are uploaded and I feel happy for what I've learned, but even happier about what's to come, regardless of whose calendar we're consulting.

above: Baby Girl and I in front of the Talking Tree, Tower City, Cleveland