avery

She’s never far from the action.  A real people person in the making.  Try to give her some alone time – some peace & quiet – and she will inform you of her desire to the contrary at the top of her lungs.  Not interested.  Much happier amongst the noise.  So she’s a New York girl already then.  This could be a long childhood.

I thought for sure today might be the day I miss a post, yet here I am.  A full day of hanging out with my girls (including baking brownies, yessir) followed by a birthday gathering for Lee.  Happy birthday, Lee!  Business partners for years; dj/bartender rockstar team for years before that.  A creative team destined for greatness heaped on awesomeness (partnered with the indefatigable Matt Kennedy).  Working on set with Lee is a pleasure.  He has that instinctual sense for where the camera is looking…

Ahem.  You can never tell where a proper night out with Lee will go.  As it turns out, the six of us (Tom, Janice, Lauren, Anthony, Lee, myself) – by all accounts pretty awesome and fun people – talked about Avery for a surprisingly long time.  A dad knows how awesome his girl is, but it’s nice when everyone else knows it too.  =)  Of course we talked about our current projects as well – Lauren’s short needs a Kickstarter boost to get to the next stage, so even if you don’t have $10 to support our production, pass this link on to those who might be intrigued by the idea of helping produce a film: You Are Not Special.  Please do it now.  Thank you!

Anthony (Antny to us) tossed his steady job editing for the networks earlier this year to chuck his energy at developing independent work, and it’s certainly coming along.  Whenever we get together we come up with new ideas, and we always swear we’ll all shoot something together… just as soon as we have time.  The trick, obviously, is to just shoot.  Time will sort itself out, for the most part.  So it comes down to locations and talent.  We definitely have all the gear and the skills covered on the production side.  But  to our mind, actors deserve to get paid, so… tricky.  We’re working on it.  I believe I have mentioned that if you are a talented producer we can make you both busy and immeasurably wealthy.  Come on board.  You’ll mostly love how busy you will be.  Mostly.  Bring a great agent with you.

And in the interest of not being up writing all night, let me jump right to this:

Look at her!  My girl!  Completely present and alert, about 4 months ahead of schedule.  And not yelling through a diaper change!  I kid you not – this kid was all there, loving her mom and hanging out.  Briefly.  Marjorie practically dragged me over so I could share, and I’m sure Avery was nearly as happy to see me, but I didn’t get that same 100% happy focus that Mum did.  And that’s as it should be, I think.  I take every moment I can with our little girl, but I’m never going to have that same my-blood-is-your-blood connection.  They have hours every day when no one in the universe could get between them.  And I love that despite living in Americaland we work for a company that makes sure we don’t have to sacrifice that relationship.  In Canada Marjorie would have a year off with pay, or we’d each take six months, or however we wanted to break it down.  Don’t tell Harper I said that.  Guarantee that will be on the chopping block lickety split.  1940s living moron.  Hey, you voted for him.  Moving on…

My tired eyes are practically rolling back in my head – just like Avery trying to resist the inevitable – so I’ll keep plunging forward with my last revelation.  Despite little Peppermint and Marjorie having an unassailable bond, there are still ways she shows me that she is most definitely my little girl.

At every opportunity she will plongée dans la décolletage.  Is that accurate French?  Does it matter?  No.  My girl knows what she’s doing.

As I was running this image through PhotoToaster, I wondered how long this streak will last.  The baby-a-day thing.  The posting every day thing.  Back in the day, when I lived in Victoria, and blogging was new, I posted every day and sometimes twice a day.  I actually thought about bloggable things and made mental note to work it out in print later, and then I did it.  These days I don’t think like that – yet – but who knows.  Right now, it’s more that everyone has gone to bed and I’ve got a 26 hour clock.  So I write.  I like it.  It’s cathartic, it’s soothing, it’s a great way to keep family and friends in the loop without actually having to talk to them.  I am SO KIDDING.  Ha.  Ha ha.  Ha.  Such a kidder, this guy.  But seriously you should call more.  Let’s Skype.

The original trailblazing parent blogger, Dooce, is still going.  She got started really close to the same time I did, but managed to attract global attention when her boss fired her for posting about work.  Precedent setting case.  For a long while, “getting dooced” was a thing.  I don’t think she ever needed another job – her blog supports the family comfortably.  I’ve never been fired for blogging, though my words have certainly landed me in uncomfortable situations on multiple occasions.  You never know who might be reading.  I have IP tracking, so I know I have a nice steady following in Vancouver, and Qualicum (hi, Mom), and so forth, but unless you say hi back, I don’t know exactly who you are.  Who do I know in Philadelphia?  Or Bangalore?  Nope, that was a Google search for “baby milestones less than 1 month” – which takes you hilariously to here.  Awesome.  I rule the Internets.  Wearing a bit of a blindfold, of course.  I write, you read, and even though you may never say hello, I think it’s very neat that you’re here.

That said, if you are rich, I think you should give me some.

Couldn’t hurt to ask.

Is it weird to say I love how human Avery is?  Yes, Adrian, that is a weird thing to say about your daughter.  First, I’ve only had a daughter for a few weeks.  She’s still got that new car smell.  I mean baby.  I’m apparently still getting used to it on some level.  My mother will say that you never get used to it.  Fair enough.  Point proven.

I’m just saying that I’m endlessly fascinated by that slowly emerging personality.  She’s always had that solemn watchfulness – since her first few minutes of life.  But take tonight for example.  She loves a good yell before bed, and it takes a few dives before she stays down.  You have to try a few tricks.  I’ve read to her and that’s worked.  Walking around a dark apartment.  A firm snuggle.  It’s different all the time.  Tonight she wasn’t buying anything.  While popping the soother back in her mouth (again) I noticed that when I held her cheek her eyes rolled up.  So I let her lean her face into my hand and like magic she was down in less than a minute.  Like any of us she craves human contact.  The simplest of things.  Fascinating.

I guess as long as I’m fascinated I’ll keep writing about it.  Gotta do something about these late nights though.  The day starts around 6am whether I’m ready or not.  So far, mostly not.  Good thing Marjorie is frickin amazing.  Oh em gee.  A deep, warm well of love and patience.  For Avery as well.  Ha.

What do you get a none year old for Christmas?