Return of the Natives

Obviously, I've let myself get rather behind on the blog. I can't believe we haven't posted anything here since July.

Sorry.

It has indeed been a very busy time for us on many fronts, but that's not so much of an excuse. Tara has been posting some pictures to our Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/killeburns , but we haven't been posting text here.

While I realize that the readership here mainly wants to see all Niels all the time, it's worth mentioning that I changed jobs recently. I'm now working for a startup quantitative finance company that's based in New York. So I'm now working at home, spending my days in a 9'x9' office in the garage.

Actually, I haven't been at home all that much since I started; we spent the whole week of Thanksgiving in Santa Monica, and then I was in New York for the first two weeks of December. Tara and Niels then flew out and spent the weekend with me there before going on to North Carolina to see our brand new niece.

As for Niels himself, he's doing fantastic. Obviously, he's changed a lot in the past few months and is starting to become more boy than baby. He figured out the whole walking thing in early September, and is now working hard on talking. He currently has a good hit rate at pointing out birds, bears and ducks.

In October, he started going to day care two days a week, which has been a really good experience. Tara is getting a little bit of breathing room, and Niels is getting the chance to get to know some other kids and is learning to play and interact in new ways. In unrelated news, we spent much of October passing the (not-swine) flu back and forth between the three of us.

And now, after all the traveling of the past month, we're settling in to a nice quiet Christmas at home. Certainly, Niels is too young to understand what all the hoopla is about, but he is fascinated by the Christmas tree--and wants to pull all the ornaments off.

More posts with photos to follow.