New pictures on my desk

The pictures of my kids that I've had on my desk have been pretty dated for a while, showing them while they were younger and, in some very textbook sense: "cuter."  The other night Natalie was up here scrounging around one of the many plastic bins in which Mary houses our enormous collection of photographs (what do you expect from a photographer, anyway), and she had unearthed a very recent school picture of herself for some purpose.  I realized that I didn't have one of those, so I cut one of them out and stuck in into the most awesome picture display pencil holder she had made for me as a craft project for Father's Day or something.

And so, now I have a 12-year old Natalie staring at me on my desk, and somehow it changes the mood, brings it up to date.  It shows quickly how deeply nostalgic the older pictures are, somehow out of touch with the reality that they are, in fact, growing up. This child here will be going off to college soon, perhaps getting in trouble, causing me great heartache, and potentially getting grounded much sooner (though there are no actual hints of that).  Certainly, it points up the financial timeline:  we gotta pay for college for this one pretty soon.  Better keep that in mind.

I guess I need to get more of these recent pictures.