She lifts him into the carseat and begins to fasten the buckles over his little chest. Just as she pushes the clasps into place, he notices a bottle of water she had left in the cupholder. He immediately wants it, of course, but she's an old hand at distracting him.

"Look what I found!" she exclaims, producing a pair of toy cars as if by magic and placing them into his hands.

He studies them intently. "Those Nana's cars," he says at last.

She nods. "Yeah," she says, "you got those at Nana's house."

A funny look crosses his face. "I want to touch Nana's house," he declares, extending his arms out in front of him. He strains, stretching through his fingertips and grunting with the effort. Finally, he has to admit defeat, though. "I can't reach it," he says, not sad but perhaps a little surprised. After all, Nana's house is in Big Sur and he is in San Diego--it's only four hundred miles from that parking lot to her door. Why shouldn't he be able to reach?

We had planned to have a big end-of-summer playdate with a bunch of Jason's friends, but it turns out that when everybody involved a.) has toddlers, and b.) are busy people, it's hard to get everyone's calendar lined up. Thus, our end-of-summer playdate ended up happening in mid-September. Anyway, it was a rousing success and everyone had a good time. Or at least was polite enough to pretend.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 18-55mm DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Focal length 18mm, aperture f/5.6, shutter 1/60 sec, ISO 200. Post-processing in Aperture 3: Daylight WB preset, cropped to square, curve for contrast and highlight recovery, burned background.

Thoughts for improvement: Well, the booger in his nose is a little unsightly, but I was unfortunately not skillful enough to clone it out. It would also be nice if that bush weren't right behind his head on the left.

About midway through Sunday's trip to Mission Beach, Jason decided that he wanted to get out of the stroller and go look at the water. Can't say I blame him.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 55-200mm VR DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Focal length 100mm, aperture f/5.6, shutter 1/2000 sec, ISO 200. Post-processing in Aperture 3: Daylight WB and Yellow Filter BW presets. Dodged over the subjects and burned the backgrounds. Applied a medium-ish vignette.

Thoughts for improvement: I'm not totally pleased with the post-processing in this one; the burning and dodging feels kind of sloppy to me. I think I'd also like if I were able to get more of the reflection in the sand.

The first time we got The Question was probably shortly after Jason's birth. You know the one I'm talking about: "When are you going to have another baby?" Man, I thought to myself, give me a chance to get used to the first one first. Of course, now that Jason's second birthday has come and gone, it's pretty much open season for The Question, and the associated theories on optimal spacing.

Neither Juliette nor I have made any secret about the fact that we do plan on having more children--at least one, maybe two. And, yes, now that Jason is no longer an infant--or even a toddler, really--we've come to a point where we realistically could start thinking about it again. It's no surprise, then, that people are asking. It's what people do at times like this. Now, you might think that I'd find The Question annoying, and at times I do. Lately, though, I've been feeling more sad than irritated when I think about having more kids.

I mentioned this to Juliette, and she asked "Sad for Jason?" And, yes, that's certainly part of it. Right now, Jason gets nearly all of our love and attention (Cooper gets some, too, of course) but once he has a little brother or sister, he'll have to share us for the first time. He may have a hard time with that or he may not--at different stages he's been both very independent and very needy--but either way it will be a big change for him, and the thought of putting him through that change does make me feel sad for him. Still, he'll also be getting something back from it: a sibling. He may not appreciate it right away, but I know that while both Juliette and I fought with our sibs when we were younger, those relationships have grown to become among the most important in our lives.

So, yes, I am a little sad for Jason, but more than that I'm really sad for myself. Because as much as I can gripe about my job or how little sleep I get, and as frustrated as I can get sometimes with Jason or Juliette (or even Cooper), I'm actually really happy with my life right now. I'm happy with us, just the way we are right now, and having another child would mean that I wouldn't get to have this anymore. I'd have something else, something that I'm sure I would love, and that I would wonder how I could ever have gotten along without. But I wouldn't have this life anymore, and a part of me mourns the idea of that loss.

It's not enough to make me want to change our plans; we will have another child at some point. And, plans or no, change will come sooner or later--nothing in life stays the same. I guess I'm just surprised. I always knew that, at the least, I'd be a little daunted by the prospect of more sleepless nights, but sadness isn't a reaction I expected. Funny how life tends to sneak up on you like that.

*

P.S. Just in case it's not clear: no, Juliette is not pregnant. Trust me, I wouldn't beat around the bush about news of that magnitude.

Aside from the whole "seeing family" thing, I was excited to take a trip home last weekend because it would give me the opportunity to take pictures of stuff outside my normal routine. So, of course, I had to go and forget to bring the charger for my camera, which meant that by Sunday I had to use my iPhone if I wanted to take any pictures at all.

As usual for our trips to Big Sur, we ate at the River Inn several times. Jason was entranced by the umbrellas on the lower deck, and kept wanting to see them. Monday morning, his cousin--"Other Jason"--showed him how to throw pebbles into the river, which was hugely exciting for him. Seeing him delight in such a simple little game made me nostalgic for my own small-town youth. We don't have any rivers near our house, but the bright side is that I think Big Sur and the Monterey Peninsula will probably become a very special place for Jason as he grows up.

Technical info: Shot with an iPhone 3G. The EXIF data says the aperture was f/2.8, with nothing about shutter speed. Post-processing in Aperture 3: applied the Cloudy WB preset first. Then added edge sharpening and bumped vibrancy (0.2). I added a strong mid-tone curve, then a medium (0.4) burn to the river and background. Desaturated reds a little (-15). Finally, I added some vignetting (intensity 0.6, radius 0.9).

Thoughts for improvement: Tough to get a great technical shot out of an iPhone, but for what it is, I like this one. The main thing when using a cameraphone like this is to try to avoid high-contrast scenes and moving subjects.

One of the belated birthday presents Jason got this past weekend was a whole Potato Head family: a mom, a dad, and two kids. My aunt's friend Linda had a lot of fun showing him the ropes. Jason actually already knows all about Mr. Potato Head, but he was polite enough not to mention it.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/1.8, shutter 1/125, ISO 400. Post processing in Aperture 3 was relatively light: auto WB adjustment, a little bit of curves, and a light vignette.

Thoughts for improvement: I don't know, I'm pretty happy with it. I like the way Jason is framed by Linda's arm and body, and I think it's a decent capture. What do you think?

"It's nice to be called Mommy, don't you think?"

"Uh..."

"OK, whatever. Har har. Isn't it nice to have someone call you Daddy?"

"Well, yeah, it's nice, but it's also really weird. And in a lot of ways I kind of think it always will be."

"Yeah."

One of our main reasons for the trip home this past weekend was because some of Juliette's Canadian cousins were coming to visit her parents in Big Sur. Since they were in town, we decided to take the opportunity to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has the distinction of not only being my personal favorite aquarium but also the best place I ever worked.

This photo was taken next to the tide pool exhibit, over which a big artificial wave crashes every couple of minutes. I was lucky enough to have the camera up to my eye just as one hit, and caught not only Jason's reaction to the wave, but also everyone else's reaction to him. Moments like this are just wonderful for me, both as a photographer and as a parent.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 18-55mm DX lens, in aperture priority mode. Focal length 18mm, aperture f/3.5, shutter 1/125 sec, ISO 1400. Post-processing in Aperture 3 was fairly simple for this one: I applied the Daylight WB preset, then used a curve to recover the highlights and give a slight bump to midtones and increase contrast. Then I applied a medium-high burn (0.6) to everything but Jason's face.

Thoughts for improvement: There are a lot of technical things wrong with this image. Juliette's mom's face poking in on the left and her cousin's face cut off on the right are both awkward, compositionally, as is the fact that her other cousin's face is blocked by her mom's face. This image also really stretched the limits of my camera, as the relatively high ISO setting (a result of my auto ISO configuration) left a lot of digital noise throughout. And then there's a difference in both lighting and sharpness between Jason's face and Juliette's mom's, which is kind of jarring to look at. So, technically, this is a very imperfect image. In terms of storytelling and capture, though, I think it's right on the money. Sometimes what's important about a picture isn't the technique or even the artistic elements, but rather what story it's telling. I'm sure this would be a better picture if I'd nailed the technique and composition in addition to the storytelling side, but as it is, I'm still pretty happy with it.

We traveled home to visit family this weekend, and on Saturday we had a little get-together at my aunt's house. Jason was delighted to find that several people had brought belated birthday gifts for him, among them a "Superhero Starter Kit" that included a bright red cape. We couldn't get him to take it off for the whole rest of the afternoon.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/2.8, shutter 1/1600, ISO 400. Post-processing in Aperture 3: first, I applied the Daylight white balance preset. The shot was taken in the middle of a very bright day, though in the shade. I was trying to get the exposure right for his face, but I missed a bit, so he was a little dark, while the highlights were very bright. So I bumped exposure (+1) and recovery (+1.5), then used a curve to further recover the highlights and boost the midtones. I did a strong burn (0.6) around the outside, then a lighter burn (0.2) to just the shadows over his face and chest. Then I applied a very light dodge (0.05) to his eyes. Finally, I desaturated the reds (-15.0) and brushed that in just over the cape.

Thoughts for improvement: The main thing is to get the exposure right the first time. The focus is a little soft throughout, so I probably should have stopped down to f/4 or f/5.6, which would have been no problem since I had a very fast shutter. I should also have remembered to re-set the ISO back to 200 after I came outside, instead of leaving it at 400 from when I was indoors. Despite the fact that all that stuff meant I had to do a lot more work in post, though, I still think this may be one of the best portraits I've taken of him, at least in terms of matching the styles of the portrait & lifestyle pros that I've been studying.

"See that woman over there?"

"Yeah."

"The book she's reading--I've read it. And it was really good."

"Oh."

"Do you ever... No, you probably don't."

"What don't I ever?"

"Um, do you ever see someone reading a book that you really loved and get a little jealous of them that they're getting to read it for the first time and you never will again?"

"No."

"Yeah, see, that's what I thought."

* * *

"Daddy, I missed you!"

"You did? Wow, what a nice thing to say to me, Jason. Thank you."

"I have a poop!"

"Oh. OK, well that's nice, too."