All's quiet on the cold front

I'm up a bit early. Bubbles is sick and I'm waiting for Monkeyspawn to wake up so we can watch Survivorman together. It's a Saturday morning ritual. In case you're curious, Monkey, Bubbles and Spawn aren't our real names. That should be obvious, but in the modern world, one encounters all sorts of silly names. These online handles developed after I addicted Bubbles to an online game we play with friends (no, it's not World of Warcraft), and we find them amusing, so we tend to use them on the web. While Spawn doesn't do any online gaming, she needed a name like Mommy and Daddy's and is quite pleased with the one she got.

Much of this blog will probably be about her doings, because she's the most fascinating of us in my humble opinion. Little is more interesting than the development of a new human mind and its exploration of the world.

As a hugely biased parent, I can tell you Monkeyspawn is a very smart and funny little girl with an incredible stubborn streak she comes by very naturally, as Bubbles and I each share the trait.

An example of what she will come up with comes from about this time last year, when she was 4.

As we left church today, Spawn decided she could walk along the curb--it's one of those stand alone raised curbs, like a balance beam. As she walked along perfectly well, Mommy complimented, "Great balancing, Spawn."

"Thanks," replied my tiny daughter. "It's a gift."

She can be just as surprising and random as her Daddy.