Mine include going through that stack of magazines on the desk and cleaning out my purse (down to the crumbs and gooey things I didn't know were in there.) I also make a list of New Year's resolutions that pertain to me (lose weight, be more cheerful, don't yell at kids) but these get sidetracked soon after the second encore presentation of the Rose Parade.

            Enter Robert Mahar, self-appointed grand poobah of the Junior Society, of which I am a proud member. The society is "dedicated to the proliferation and advancement of better than average kiddie culture and design," which means I get a weekly e-mail on everything from Halloween pumpkins to arts and crafts projects and sales on unique children's items. I love it. (www.juniorsociety.com)

            Mahar, of Los Angeles , is also proprietor of the online shop Mahar Drygoods which offers artisan-created goodies for children and grown-ups who like vintage stuff (count me in). Suffice to say, I'm a Mahar fan, so when he pointed the way recently to a unique campaign, I listened.

            He calls it "pay-it forward/random acts of kindness/secret Santa love."

            Last week marked the second annual World Wide Christmas Toy Drop organized by the Toy Society, am Australian-based group that makes handmade toys and leaves them in public places to be found and given homes by strangers. The project has attracted people from the Netherlands to Greece , Guatemala to Japan .

            Their blog is at www.thetoysociety.blogspot.com.

 "I've become a regular visitor, reading about the various 'toy drops' in places near and far and loving the accounts by those who have discovered and given homes to these toys," Mahar said. "It's such a simple act of kindness and some of the discovery stories are really moving."

Last year, more than 100 toys were made and dropped and the numbers for this year will be out next month. Mahar made his contribution by making a red and white sock elf featured in his shop.

"I left him hanging from the fencing that surrounds a child development center playground in my neighborhood," he said. "The Toy Society has downloadable labels that read simply, 'Take me home, I'm yours!'  and a letter that explains the project and encourage the finders to report back  and let them know the toy has been claimed."

Mahar said people are so ingenious and thoughtful, "not only in the creation of these handmade toys but in their drop locations - everywhere from the safety seat of a frozen shopping cart to the toy hanging out in the manger of a nativity diorama. I can't tell you how much I love this idea."

Me too.

Actually, the three little trees in the front yard have had lights on them all year, and Hubby will connect extension cords to them this week in hopes that not too many mini bulbs have died since last Christmas.

But I've had to say goodbye to my vision of those same trees festooned in lights (I like clear ones) because, 1) I'm not the one doing the light hanging and 2) Hubby says we never have enough lights for three trees. The choice boils down to lighting one tree well or all trees half-brightly.

Between you and me, I think the energy shortage lies with my erstwhile decor-hanger and not the light supply, but we love him anyway.

To all of you who decorate their homes to the rafters, those with motorized snow globes and lit-up Nativity scenes, candy cane lanes and reindeers on your rooftops, bless you. We who spend many a holiday evening cruising neighborhoods, stalking the best decorated streets, thank you.

Elementary parenting stuff made cool.

            After three kids, I know I don't have to have those pee-pee teepee covers to avert diaper changing geysers (a tissue or napkin will do just fine), nor do I need the $1,600 Louis Vuitton diaper bag. (My sister bought me a cute Petunia Pickle Bottom one at 75 percent off from a store that was closing. Otherwise, my old one still works.) And no, my little one will not be wearing a $190 checked Burberry dress.

            But every year, there are new products and baby items out there that make parenting easier and/or just more fun.

            The byword of all things baby these days is eco-friendly, so items boast about being green and free of chemicals, solvents, and other yucky stuff. Think hypoallergenic, all-natural, organic, and sustainable. Another byword (at least for me) is affordable. But if it works, I will pay more for it (Wonder Boy had sensitive skin as a newborn and the Mustela line of baby products was the only one that worked for him.)

            What are some of the newest products making waves these days?

            Not at me, but she smiled, a quick, sweet upturn of her mouth, bow-shaped little lips slightly open, lifting her chubby cheeks every so slightly, streaked with milky drool.

            Baby No. 3 is only six weeks old, but I swear she smiled at her Papa 21 days after her birth day. She had just been fed (by me) and changed (by me), when I handed her over to Hubby so I could wash my hands. Hubby had just launched into his patented up-down-bouncy-dance-of-sleep when I looked over and saw it.

            She was looking up at him adoringly with her wide, almond-shaped eyes as he spoke in singsong to her. Then she smiled, the look filling her face, her two hands clasped under her chin.

            Hubby and I saw it. And though I didn't run to get the baby book so I could document the milestone like I did with Firstborn Son, we remember. (Hubby reminds me both boys smiled at him first, too.)

            Now Baby smiles with increasing regularity (but never slow enough so I can catch it with the camera.) She does it most after a feeding, when she's just drifting off to sleep. She'll turn her head to one side, eyes drooping, eyes fluttering open, then closing again, then opening one more time before she sinks slowly into sleep, usually with one hand curled ladylike beside her cheek.

            The smile comes soon after that, like a door's been opened in her sleep and she's happy to enter it. Who's greeting her at the threshold? I always wonder. Sometimes, the smile is followed by a golden giggle, a sound so sweet I want to play it over and over should I ever get the chance to record it. What's so funny? Could I get in on the secret?

            You can read all about baby smiles during these earliest days being nothing more than an inborn behavior, just a reflex, or (you've heard this one before), "just gas." We're told babies don't really smile at you until they're at least two months old, if then.

            Never mind all that.

Both sides of the family would then go into Baby Mode, one aunt taking time off from work to stay with boys while Hubby and I were in the hospital, another taking over while everyone else took turns visiting us at the hospital where I would make them sign a proclamation that our baby was the cutest baby in the whole world.

            By the time my due date came and went, and I was still pregnant, I had a feeling this pregnancy was going to throw me for a loop. And how.