Our children continue to amaze me. At a little over a year and a half, Nolan is as mobile as mobile can be. He walks and runs and dances with amazing grace, and climbs with abandon up, onto, and over every piece of furniture in the house (including many pieces that simply can't support him, like a Lego table we were given by friends).

His smile (and yes, I know I've said this about Alex, as well, and its true for both of them), simply lights up the room. And while he is generally sweet-natured and even-tempered like Alex, his personality is nonetheless very different from older brother's.

He is not particularly talkative, but he is very good at letting you know what's on his mind. His favorite morning routine is to wake up before me, try to pull me out of bed (by the forefinger), point in the direction of the stairs, and say a word that sounds something like "Down!"

He loves to read, with his two favorites being the Sandra Boynton books and a couple of young readers we have about the space shuttle. (Shhh. Don't tell him, but he'll be getting a toy space shuttle for Christmas.) He can't get enough of these books. With the Boyton books, he loves to point at the animals and imitate the sounds they make. Likewise, he loves to carry around toy dinosaurs and roar. It's ridiculously cute. While he's not as talkative as Alex was at this age, he's sure to let us know that he can be vocal when he wants to be.

Now that he's over a year old, he seems to be getting more out of the holiday season. He appeared to enjoy his trick-or-treating with big brother and mom, and he's done an admirable job of not fussing with the decorations on the Christmas tree this year. (Last year, of course, he couldn't even walk yet during the holiday season, so we've done okay in that department.)

As the dust starts to settle with regard to my work situation (I've been putting in rather long hours for the past couple of years, but that should start to stabilize with the new year), I look forward to spending more one-on-one time with both of my kids. For the first year and a half of Alex's life, I was working from home, and so enjoyed the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with him when he was very young. I haven't had the same opportunities with Nolan, and I very much want to make sure that we both get the chance to spend that quality time together. Like his older brother, he's growing very quickly, and I don't want to miss it.