A few days ago, Nolan turned one year old.

Things have been rather hectic at Casa Rousselle lately. I had a major project due at work, and my resulting long hours at the office have created a time pinch at home. (Notice there've been no blog entries for a little while, as well.) At least one significant birthday at the end of March went completely unobserved, and Paulette had to work without any help from me to pull together a birthday celebration for Nolan this past Monday.

It's amazing how much more quickly time seems to be passing with Nolan than it did with Alexander. I'm sure that a big part of that is simply the issue of novelty: Alex was the first, so every new thing (and every new worry) was amplified by our inexperience. With Nolan, time is not slowing down for us to marvel at each new milestone.

This does not mean we are not marvelling. Quite the contrary. Nolan walks with more confidence each time I see him, his vocalization is increasingly distinct (I wonder what his first actual word will be!), and he becomes more beautiful every day.

His eyes remain a stunning blue, and his hair is slowly coming in fine and blond, just like dear old dad (and older brother). Funny thing about appearances: lately, whenever the four of us go somewhere together, the universal observation is that Alex mostly takes after his mom while Nolan looks more like his dad. I still think both kids take quite a bit of their appearance from both of us, but why quibble? They're both adorable.

(Translation: YOU MUST ADORE THEM NOW! ADORE THEM!)

Nolan's birthday started off with a trip to the doctor's office. It's important, I think, to start a kid's special day with Big Honking Shots in both legs that are painful, itchy, and full of disease.

After a day packed full of swimming and museums and some clandestine birthday prepping, Nolan was treated to seeing Dad come home sometime before bedtime. Dinner was followed by chocolate birthday cake -- Nolan's first exposure to chocolate... and I'm not so sure that he liked it -- and Alex helped him to blow out the candle.

Alex also helped his little brother open the Big Present for the day: a huuuge bag of a couple hundred colorful plastic balls. We opened up the bag in Alex's room (where we had the kid's pop-up tent set up) and the rest of the evening was spent smacking around the buckets o' balls.

For me, it remains great fun to watch the kids figure things out. The joy of discovery is contagious. One of the most beautiful things about the kids at their current ages is that discovery is almost always play. I must have had at least as much fun watching the kids play with Nolan's big birthday present(s) as they did playing with them.

When Alexander was born, Paulette and I had the situation (what we saw as a problem) of being equally underemployed and the two of us were handling our freelance work from out of the home. This meant that we shared about as equally as any two parents can in the child-rearing duties. As I believe I've commented elsewhere on this blog, that is no longer the case, nor has it been for a couple of years. I am now over-employed, which has resulted in Paulette assuming the bulk of the responsibility for taking care of the kids.

This is proving to be problematic for both of us. Paulette needs more time to work for her graphic design clients, and the constant attention that the children require can sometimes wear her out. I, on the other hand, miss having more quality time with both of my sons, and I'm further bummed that I'm missing quite a bit of Nolan's infancy and now toddlerhood.

Striking a good work/life balance is difficult, and it seems to be quite the rallying cry in the high-tech sector these days. I'm still not sure how I'm going to resolve it for myself. Gotta pay the bills, true. But I need to be a parent to my children, as well, not to mention a husband to my wife.

Which brings us back to Nolan's birthday, the joy of discovery, and trying to figure things out. Before I can show Nolan how to juggle all those balls, I'm going to have to practice getting a little bit better at it myself, first.