(shot with the iPhone, then heavily toasted in PhotoToaster)

Hullo, reader.  Happy Sunday.  Monday, by the time you read this?  A few more days and American Thanksgiving will be behind us, and we’ll retire the colors of autumn for the color of money – I mean Christmas.  I’m not going to go all pious on you – I love Christmas.  Love it love it.  Family, food, festivities, and gifts.  Giving and receiving.  It’s a way to show people that you’re thinking about them, and you thought they might enjoy this little doodad.  Do you need a particular time of year to do that?  Of course not.  But it’s most fun when everyone’s in the same groove.

And this will be little Peppermint’s first Christmas.  That’s super fun.  For her it will probably mean a lot of people and excitement, probably getting passed around, probably getting her entire schedule messed up.  But it’s super fun for us parent folk.  I remember meeting my youngest nephew Wyatt when he was just three months old not so many Christmasses ago (time frickin flies).  We had a good moment of communion.  This year it’s Avery’s turn to make that magic happen with the fam.

Today she decided to tease me by saying quite clearly, “daddy”.  You know I had that moment – just a moment – where I knew with certainty that she is that smart, and by Christmas she’d be singing carols.  Then I came back down to Earth and cursed the million monkeys and the million typewriters.  <- does anyone get that reference?  Did that joke land?  It’s a play on randomness.  Never mind.  I won’t quit my day job for a standup career quite yet.

Anyway, Marjorie doesn’t want to decorate until December 1.  And that would totally be me, ordinarily.  But I am a little sillier than usual this year.  For some reason.  And my excuse is that we’ll be gone for half of it, so if we want to get the most value out of our decorating effort here then it stands to reason we should do it sooner, right?  Amiright?  I may have to lead this charge under cover of night.  Then blame the elves.

That reminds me – hey Robyn – can you send me a pic of your Xmas Elf?  I’ve never met the fellow, but I love his moxie.  I think we will have a similar manifestation.  Maybe starting next year.  That’s not too soon, is it?  For a Christmas Elf to start staking out a place on Santa’s behalf, to make sure children are behaving?

See?  Christmas is so fun.  And now I have a daughter!  Double fun times five!

Someone will point out that it’s only mid-November.  Possibly they will say I have been suckered by the commercial holiday rotation schedule.  Well… boo.  If I’ve got enough spirit for six weeks, then lemme spirit my face off.  Interesting visual.  Did you go to 1) booze, 2) wrathful ghosts, or 3) amazing magical illusion?

Ok, first we do 2nd Thanksgiving (we get to do that as Canadians in Americaland).  After that, we can negotiate when to put the lights up.  Maybe I can speed things along with promises of mistletoe.  Healthful benefits and such.  Rowr.

Happy Monday, indeed.

There.  Peppermint spaz.  That’s just to prove she’s not always a perfect Norman Rockwell poster child.  She burbles and flails with the best of them.  Of course, she’s adorable doing that too.  But hey, now there’s a picture here for which she can hate me in her teen years.  Just… making… the appropriate tags… so she can find it… in 2025.

Wow.  2025.  Dang.  13 years old in 2025.  Wow.

Brain jarred off rails… moving on.

That’s better.  She’s factory certified adorable again, and definitely still a baby, and perched on her dada’s prodigious belly so she can have her brain melted by television at the tender age of two months old.  (Weird that she can be two days shy of nine weeks old, yet she’s two months old.  Don’t tell me we don’t need a metric calendar.)

She does love the big moving lights though.  Walking Dead will have to wait til after bedtime.  Don’t want her getting any ideas about what to do with her dada if he’s slow to wake up one morning.

Gainfully employed already!  Probably you can make loads of cash as a shopping cart, right?  What are they, 25 cents a pop?  And by the look of it, no worries about messing with the nap schedule.

In other news, the Super Secret script is just about there.  There’s a musical number that needs a second verse, and we’re postponing that effort until we can get together over a couple beer.  Because that’s how we roll.  Hilarious styles.  And doing our part for the local economy.

Did I mention that Marjorie was given a sparkling clean bill of health by the midwife?  Hot baths are now legal?  And such?  It’s been a lovely Saturday.  We had cookies!  That part’s not midwife related.  But it is delicious.  There should be more cookies around here.

The only downside all day wasn’t until tonight – poor Avery was having trouble with a stuffed nose.  Poor little thing couldn’t even nurse.  So we tried out, I kid you not, the Snotsucker.  I’m having a hard time coming up with a worse name to highlight how bad a name it is.  How they arrived at that particular decision is beyond me.  Nevertheless, it’s safe, and with a quick spritz of saline a minute beforehand, it works like a charm.  Brilliant.  If… gooey.  I’ll qualify that by saying that Avery is not a fan.  Too strange.  But she got over it quickly enough, so… win.  And recovery the second time only took a minute.  Being able to breath beats the trauma of however you got there, I guess.

And now she’s sleeping like the baby she is.  2025 is way down the road.  Pretty sure I won’t let that keep me up tonight.  Pretty sure…

There’s your baby pic!  What a doll.  She wouldn’t let you down.  I wonder, could there ever be too many pictures of Avery Peppermint Taverner?  No.  No there could not.  She’s got something new for us every day.  Today she loved hanging out – didn’t want to be put down.  Just wanted to be with us and chat.  And she’s discovering TV (it’s hard to miss 40+ inches), so we’ll have to pay a little more attention to our programming choices.  Fewer fountains of blood and more fountains of chocolate, maybe.  More ponies and rainbows and fewer Bourne fight scenes.

So you’ve probably been suffering from an itchy trigger finger waiting for me to post my Movember donation link.  I have felt horrible denying you for so long.  It’s just not fair.  To you, or to the fight against testicular cancer and other men’s health issues.  For me, it came down to this: Hurricane Sandy became a more immediate concern, and I really felt that over the short term, money wanting a new home should be going to the Red Cross, or to any of the many worthy projects focussed on the recovery effort.  Thousands of people are still without power, many without even homes, which, right here at the epicenter of America, is a testament to just how bad the damage is.  FEMA and services at the state and city levels will go a long way in helping rebuild, but right now a lot of people need warm clothes and hot meals.  Our own unique fundraising effort has stalled – our silk-screener seems to have evaporated.  I guess nothing beats good ol’ cash anyway.

That’s not to say that Movember is any less a worthy project.  Last year, 854,288 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas raised over $126 million USD worldwide.  This is a huge deal, despite its furry face.  If you’d like to find out more, check out my Mo Bro Jason’s page on the Movember site here, and give some serious consideration to making a healthy donation.  If not for your nuts, do it for the nuts of someone you love.

I should probably get a proper doctor one of these days, myself.

Happy Friday, people.  May your weekend be super great.