The Dark Knight and his Toddler Sidekick

Enjoy this video of Jacob showing off our Batman-themed pumpkin, and Colin adding his own unique color commentary.

!Prospero Ano y Felicidad!

Well, another year come and gone. We are truly entering fogey territory by the fact that we were in bed at 11:45 p.m. last night after a long day and an excellent, nearly child-free dinner with the Inmans and Tipper-Simkinses. See FoodontheFood for a better writeup — including allusions to the shameful Millennium Party of 46A Belmont Street and its blood, sweat and tears — than I could ever write. You really can’t beat a dinner wherein 2/3 of the contributors have graduated culinary  school, and the third is an excellent cook (and I’m married to her).

Notable were two areas of discussion at the party — 1) For people with cognitive disabilities, what is the minimum criteria for being skilled enough at something (such as playing Ray Stevens’ "Everything is Beautiful" on the piano) to be considered a "savant" (I guess the use of the term "idiot" at the start has finally been declared offensive)?  (We never answered that one, really). 2) Is it wrong to dispose of a stale gingerbread house simply by flinging it out your back door into the bushes, given that its (the gingerbread house) biodegradable? (Wrong, debatable; odd, yes).

All the other kids went to sleep except our son! Huzzah! He declared his participation in the sleepover over and came downstairs during the end of dinner, and we departed by 11. Amazingly, there is no traffic at 11 on New Year’s Eve.

Speaking of Jacob, yesterday we told him that he is going to be a big brother come May. He, of course, has no concept of time and we had hoped to hold off some, but given the conflicting advice we’ve gotten decided to roll the dice. He enjoys going up to Juliet’s burgeoning belly and "talking" to the baby, and already plans to teach the baby about "Tom Brady and Antowain Smith" (his words … unfortunately, all of his Patriots references are from the 2001 season given that he watches the DVD a *lot* … we haven’t had the heart to tell him Adam Vinatieri is a Colt).

Other odds and sods:

• We threw out the Christmas tree today. The most fun part is chucking it over the balcony from our living room in order to drag it out to the curb (thus avoiding the need to vacuum the stairs, foyer, etc.) … just so I don’t inadvertently clobber Terri or Ezra with it, I did yell "Heads up!" before doing so. Not that one would expect a tree to fall from the sky with just the simple warning of "heads up."
• I got to watch 10 minutes of the Rose Bowl and around 10 minutes of something called the "Capital One Bowl" today. I love that they’ve now completely dispensed with the nouns within bowl names and have gone right to sponsors only. Right now, as I am also finishing up a press release for a pitch this week, I’m keeping my eye on the Fiesta Bowl — go Boise State and your quirky blue home-field turf.
• Just started Dave Eggers’ new novel What is the What.
• My annual bout of post-holiday depression should be starting … now. Go!