Based on the sheer number of fireworks that have gone off in my neighborhood tonight, I'm guessing we've gone right through New Year's Eve and it's now the Fourth of July, 2013.

If you were looking for a sign that my neighbors are rednecks -- and the plaid vests or the lawn furniture in the front yard didn't already tip you off -- that was it.

Sed had to work Christmas Eve. On the bright side, nobody wants to go to the hospital then, so she had some free time and I got to see my baby again.

This time, the sonogram was much clearer. I don't know whether to credit the newer machine or the chief resident operating it. Either way, we had a great view of Margarita totally refusing to comply.



The kid's camera shy. She kept her hands up the entire fifteen minutes we were watching, and no amount of prodding from the doctor would get her to move them. If anything, she pulled them in tighter. Apparently, this isn't a one-time offense -- Sed mentioned that every time they've checked her, Margarita hides her face.

I shouldn't be surprised, really. She's not a girl who aims to please; just the opposite, I'd argue. She also stops kicking as soon as I lay my hands on the belly, trying to feel it for myself.

At least we know the Moya stubbornness gene has carried across. Not that it's surprising either. That part of our family is so pervasive and insistent that I think even Sed has it now.

In the spirit of the season, I decided to make some cookies. And it wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't make bizcochitos. Those of you so inclined to click that kitchen link over there will find my recipe. Who says I never gave you anything?

As you look over my recipe notes, you'll see mention of using a stand mixer. Unfortunately, I don't have one. So yes, the comment about cursing my ancestors comes from direct experience. As I wrestled my hand mixer through the dense mass of dough, willing it to incorporate the last half-cup of flour, the pong of burning electrics assaulted my nostrils. This wasn't a new experience with this mixer, but the orange and yellow sparks shooting from the vent holes in the front definitely was.

It also wouldn't be Christmas without total denial. So I plugged onward, forcing the ever-slowing beaters through the thickening wad of fat, sugar and flour until they ground to a complete halt, wires fizzling in protest. But on the bright side, I got my dough mixed.

Maybe twenty minutes later, I turned the dough out to roll it. As you may know, though, when you work with that much lard it will be loath to exit its mixing bowl. So I flipped the sucker over and begin pounding it on the counter.

The second pound, however, was punctuated by a pair of explosions that vibrated the entire house.

"What the hell did I do?" I screamed, cowering back from the inverted bowl. After all, cookies make humans blow up in a very different sense, and I was fairly sure I hadn't been storing plastic explosive in the cabinet underneath. Going outside didn't solve the conundrum, but a quick Google News search did -- apparently, the space shuttle's landing causes twin sonic booms, and it chose to land at Kennedy just as I dropped the bowl onto the counter.

So maybe that's not the fault of my bizcochitos. Nor, exactly, is the death of my mixer -- it was a five-year-old, ten-dollar impulse purchase that I'd put through hell on previous occasions. Still, I think I'm going to let someone else try them first.

When babies start crying during a church service, do you think it's because they know something on a fundamental level that most of us, for the sake of politeness and civility, have repressed?

Last Saturday we were settling into watch our first ever episode of Heroes when a news crew interrupted, talking about the space shuttle launch.

Our house is in far east Orlando, barely still inside Orange County. Cape Canaveral is maybe forty miles away. It's not quite optimal viewing for a launch, but you get a pretty good view. I'd seen two shuttles go up since we moved here, but neither was at night. It was quite a spectacle -- the entire eastern horizon lit up like daybreak, then the shuttle blazed a path through the woods into the sky until, breaking the atmosphere, the yellow of the rockets winked off and it became another giant star.



But that wasn't really the amazing part. It was seeing my neighbors all standing in their driveways, watching this overgrown airplane make its way away from Mother Earth. After forty years, manned space flights are still news, they're still events, and they're still bringing a note of awe and respect to anyone who watches them.

After that, who needs Heroes?

The minivan is festooned with the types of bumper stickers one associates with strong priority of family values, touting the Christian radio station, Republican candidates, honor roll accomplishments and so on.

It is backing into a parking space in front of Target, the passenger door wide open, a pre-teen boy dangling his feet inches above the asphalt.

I listen to the university radio station -- not because I work there, nor because I feel any need to establish indie cred, but because it's the only station I've ever found that plays real jazz all day. None of this pap you hear on stations with names like The Horizon or Mellow 102 or Less Talk Because We're Fellating Kenny G All Day, just pure straight-ahead jazz, the kind Satchmo and Bird and Miles and Trane wanted us to listen to.

But it's an NPR affiliate. The politics aren't a problem; I may find myself leaning further right these days, but I'm not so far over that my finger is in my left ear. What make me feel like maybe I tuned into the wrong band are the donation requests. I know, public broadcasting doesn't survive without listener support, but the amounts they want border on absoludicrous -- and sometimes they cross that border.

For example, the other day as I was on my way to work, the morning host interrupted his usual between-songs drivel with this request: "Do you have a driveable vehicle you'd like to donate to the station?"

It's times like that when I feel too poor to even be listening to NPR.

After only four weeks of my begging, Sed finally consented to let me photograph the growth of little Margarita from the outside.



This is about eighteen and a half weeks. Some of you guys are saying, "Whoa, maternity pants before week nineteen?" Bear in mind, please, that my wife is four feet, ten inches tall. There's only so much vertical space for the baby to grow into before it must begin growing out.

When she agreed to the photo, she said, "So you're going to document the growth and make a post about it once a month?"

"No way," I said. "Once a week."

We'll see if she lets me get away with that.

Dooce readers are familiar with the myriad items her dog will balance on his head given the appropriate promised reward. It's not an unusual urge -- most of us with pets have, at one time or another, thought it cute to decorate them. In my experience, though, Chuck is extremely unusual in how well he tolerates it.

When we opened our seasonal decor boxes on Saturday, nestled atop the North Pole Village set were two pairs of antlers, a Santa hat with a tie, a ridiculous plush of the man himself with chin strap, and four jingle-bell ankle cuffs. Kucha and Angel were interested in the contents of the boxes, but they almost certainly recognized these. There's no other way to explain the sudden distance the girls put between the living room and themselves.

Being evil pet parents, we of course had to make them model for us. Kucha didn't mind the hat or the antlers, actually ... she probably figures if she could put up with a muzzle for six months she can do a hat, which after all does not impede her bread-ingesting ability. It was in slipping the bracelets on her that she became nervous. With ultimate trepidation she tiptoed around the room, her eyes clearly conveying the sentiment "What the hell did I do?" They might as well have been shackles.

Angel didn't want any part of any dress-up games. Sometimes we can get her to wear the hat, but when Sed strapped on Old Man Claus to Angel's head, that was another story. It took my little girl no time at all to pull that thing into her mouth and start gnawing. Unfortunately, she neglected to remove the strap first, creating a sort of perpetual, undroppable chew toy.

Here's how you can tell we're going to be great parents: Our immediate response to the fear, the anger, the struggles against the clothes? Laughter. We're so getting coal in our stockings.