So here it is, another new year. We rang it in with Susan, Heather, Carlos, and a lot of booze. Then Darren hung out with us and Carlos last night. It's been a party all weekend, and we've had a wonderful time. It's good to have good company.

And Susan and Heather presented me with one of the best gifts I've gotten all year - a coupon for a free evening of babysitting, coupled with a giftcard to Ted's Montana Grill! Whoo-hoo! I almost cried, I was so thrilled.

In the meantime, Veronica's room has been redone. Today we took out the crib and the changing table. Her toddler bed is set up, with a little wooden crate as a nightstand with a little lamp she can operate atop of it. Her diapers and related supplies are in a tiny 3-rack bookcase, which is fine since we've been changing her on the floor a lot recently anyway. (Plus she now steps into her pants and sits up for her shirts, making a changing table rather unnecessary.) So tonight she's sleeping her first time in a "big-girl bed." I'm so inexplicably nervous, although she seems to be taking to it like a fish to water thus far, climbing in without a moment's hesitation over a half hour ago and barely a peep since. (The only thing she's needed: a drink of water, and then for me to come fetch it once she was finished.) What's really amazing, though, is the transformation of the room. It no longer looks like a baby's room. It looks like a little kid's room. And to realize that it is, indeed, a little kid's room, makes me wonder exactly where the time has gone and how fast it's going to continue to move.