Mr. Claus, I'm ready for my closeup.

I haven't had much luck getting Jonathan's one year portraits taken. First of all, I don't have many free days when I can haul him over to the studio. I did have a fantastic plan just before his birthday, but Jonathan got a cold and I couldn't see paying $40 for pictures that look like the "before" guy in the Nyquil ad. Then I had a long month on the transplant service, but was looking forward to my free weekend. However, the nanny paged me at work that Friday to tell me Jonathan had fallen and cracked his nose hard on the changing table. I came home to find him with a bruised nose and a cut right across the bridge. Once that healed, he started teething again, which means bright red cheeks and a whole lot of drool. So, no portraits.

Still, here I am on my first day of Christmas vacation. Jonathan and I trucked over to the mall to meet Santa. Santa sleeps better than moms with one year olds, though, and wasn't open until 10. So we took a detour to the play space at the other end of the mall. Jonathan had a great time running around and trying hard to keep up with all the other kids. He especially wanted the attention of one little boy, about six months older, and kept running over to give him hugs and pull his hair. Alex, it turns out, has two older brothers and was quite happy to have someone smaller around for a change - he was very patient with Jonathan's over-enthusiastic methods of making friends. I thought all the friendliness boded well for Santa, so after about twenty minutes we headed back to the photo shoot.

Santa was nice, and very low-key. Jonathan wasn't quite sure about the whole thing, but after a few minutes consented to sit on his lap. The flash was BRIGHT! The first series of pictures was hysterical, because his eyes kept getting smaller and smaller as he squinted against the lights. I wasn't thrilled with any of the shots, so we tickled and cooed and tossed Jonathan up in the air until he was smiling, then tossed him on Santa's lap and got a few more pictures.

Which I promise I will get Chris to post very, very soon.