Giving Randy Quaid a run for his money

I have just had a devil of a time getting Liam down for his afternoon nap. Yesterday we had friends over for the inaugural Winter Nicholls Challenge. The Summer Challenge involves golf; the Winter Challenge involves golf on an X-Box, and it takes longer to get through 18 holes than you'd think. Liam is past the point of being able to sleep through anything and now when there is something going on, he is determined to be a part of it; and I think we are suffering the consequences today.

Of course, it may just be that there's a lot else going on in his life these days. He has another new tooth today, the second bottom middle tooth (that was supposed to arrive before any of the top 3 that he already has). That's 5 teeth in a matter of just a couple of weeks. Last night he slept through the night for the first time in months (and I could not stop kissing him in gratitude this morning when he finally woke up). I cut out his night feedings earlier this week, with no objection (for once) on his part; maybe he has just decided it's not worth it to wake up if there's no snacking in it for him. He is so close to crawling; he's not quite there on a flat floor, but put him on the bed, on some pillows, on your lap - anything with some varied terrain that he can tackle, and he is up and down and all over the place. Sniff, sniff - time keeps marching on.

Earlier today we took him out for a walk (one nice thing about the snow being melted now - it's good weather to get him outside). We went downtown to get me some new glasses - doing that end-of-year benefits assessment thing and making the appropriate purchases. I had some frames picked out but wanted a second opinion, and after Chad's input I came away with something very similar but slightly different than what I had picked out on my own. Chad is good that way at helping me whittle down the details and making the final decision. (But if you think they look funny when you see them on me, it is all Chad's fault.) We also got Liam a new sleeper (since he outgrows these footed things at a rate you wouldn't believe) and some cute windpants, courtesy of Boxing Week sales.

To answer your questions about yesterday's photo - I had the camera set up on the tripod and fired off multiple shots so that they all had the exact same background. Then I layered the photos together (I use PSE, but any imaging software will work) and erased the top layers so that the Liams underneath would show through. The easy thing of it is that because the backgrounds are identical, you can do this as a very rough cut; you don't need to precisely outline the image. I wish he had crept forward to the front of the frame a little more, but that's just another obsessive thing I will have to overcome!