Life has been so very good to me over these last few years. Living in a world with Carolyn is amazing. I never quite know what’s going to happen next (she is perhaps a little crazy), but I never feel like we’re out of control. We have a great little family in our home. We have all that we could require. Life is about as perfect as it could be.

Today marks the passing of a short time in what I hope to be a long and happy life with Carolyn and our awesome little family. Carolyn, I’m so glad that fate brought us together; I love you more than words can express.

He continues to do well, and has no problems demanding food and cuddles. When those little eyes stare into yours, it is impossible to refuse. I may, however, have to be restrained from just eating those gorgeous cheeks.

He weighed 3.775kg, and is a lovely 51.5cm long. He has the most adorable eyes, and tiny but long fingers and toes. Elysha and Romilly are very proud big sisters.

I know this is a day late, but after two days with basically no sleep and a total of two meals, I needed to crash. I have been informed that it may be the last good sleep I get for a long time, but I don’t care. I have a beautiful baby boy, and Carolyn is doing OK. All is well with the world.

Of course, with the colder weather coming, it may just want to stay in there and keep warm.

We’re completely prepared for the big day; we just don’t know when it will be. Until then, we’ll just end each day with the thought of being one day closer to whenever The Penguin is going to arrive.

If nothing else, it means that Elysha will get to keep April as her month. Carolyn has indicated that Romilly’s claim on September is quite safe.

The Penguin seems, so far, to be very laid back and not in any hurry to arrive. One can only guess that this means it has a fair share of Carolyn’s genes. This can only be a good thing.

Everything is prepared. Everything is ready. Carolyn has has enough of being pregnant.

Whenever you’re ready, Penguin. Whenever you’re ready.

Have you noticed that I haven’t been around much recently? Of course you have; you’re smart. Well I can’t really apologise and tell you how busy I’ve been, because I haven’t been all that busy. I took a nice holiday over Christmas, but didn’t go anywhere. I painted Romilly’s new bedroom (pink!), finishing at 4am on Christmas Eve. I then spent the next week recovering and promising myself never to leave anything to the last minute ever again. Other than that, I have found myself enjoying family time, playing computer games, and slowly organising things for the arrival of The Penguin. For example, this afternoon was spent convincing Carolyn that a $4000 pram is not a viable option, even if you can get it on special for $200 less.

I’m actually only writing all of this as Carolyn insisted that I thank my ex-wife for pointing out that the PenguinCount® on the website here was stuck at 101 days. Carolyn really didn’t like the idea of being perpetually pregnant. The idea of a baby making its way out through your nether regions is apparently bad enough, let alone giving it additional time to grow.

Carolyn has, in fact, decided that The Penguin is going to emerge no larger than a peanut. Not liking the idea of a peanut-sized baby, it was decided that said peanut would immediately turn into a proper baby after making its easy exit. Now I can only imagine the birthing process as passing a small Poké Ball, with the midwife then screaming something along the lines of “Penguimon, I choose you!”

It is this incredibly realistic view of birth that is probably going to backfire on us at some point in the future, most probably during “news time” at school.

Last year, we made kids dunk their hands in cat-gut stew. I dressed as a rather loud pirate, and my brother came over to help out, dressed as a zombie. He rode his unicycle up and down the street, juggling severed arms. If you’ve never seen a zombie with his face half-torn off making balloon animals, you haven’t lived. We went out of our way to find nice pumpkins to carve (not so early in this hemisphere). It was more fun, and even more people dropped by. Some people visited, then came back with friends. One or two families even drove from nearby suburbs to see what all the fuss was about.

This year, we were inspired to do something a bit bigger, as we might not be in the mood for a big Hallowe’en after The Penguin arrives. So we made a few plans.

We enjoyed some pumpkin carving and started to get some scary background sounds together (thanks Joel). We came up with some ideas of what to do to make this year different. You know that things are going to get interesting when you look out your back door and see mummy rags hanging on your washing line.

Based on our theme, and I made a few jars of experiments for my “laboratory”.

Along with a fizzling science experiment or two, I had several jars, including a giant spider, an octopus, a shrunken skeleton (he’d made a mess in my lab, so I shrunk him and his skin came off), and, for those who were not running away after looking through those, a jar of pickled spiders to offer for tasting. I also had some rather disgusting ectoplasm, which actually tasted pretty good. Not many wanted to try it with me, though.

There were also plenty of unusual pumpkins.

Then, the centrepiece of this year’s production: the werewolf autopsy. My assistant had turned into a werewolf, stolen the car, run someone over and made quite a mess. Luckily, I have comprehensive werewolf insurance.

I was forced to shoot him (six times with silver bullets).

Elysha dressed as witch, with Romilly as her cat-familiar. We also had a visiting helper mummy (though later in the evening he somehow transformed into a vampire lab-asssistant).

And so, with everything prepared for the evening, Dr Humbolt was ready (crazy accent and all).

As the children (and adults) came in, Dr Humbolt happily lead them into his laboratory. For the brave, a quick glimpse under the sheet proved that werewolves were out and about.

Using very scientific experiments, Dr Humbolt sucked blood right out of the chest of the werewolf corpse and into a cup. With the addition of the special ingredient (which has taken much research) this renders the werewolf blood into an antidote (unless it explodes) to protect against werewolf bites. Most, but not all, were convinced to drink this protective elixir.

After investigating the remainder of the laboratory, they were then sent off to have some werewolf poo biscuits (werewolves poop a lot, it seems), and to try to find some lollies in the buckets of worms and various sludges.

As dark fell, the laboratory’s blacklight left everyone glowing weirdly and contemplating the 50–60 people who had visited during the evening. Families had come back from last year (in one case, even after moving house), and many told us that they hoped we’d be here next year. One father proudly told Dr Humbolt that this was his son’s first Hallowe’en. He was ever so proud when his Spider-Man-son downed the werewolf antidote.

It had certainly been a strange and wonderful evening, and I don’t believe that it will be our last.

Unless the pumpkins eat us.

Thank you so much for all of your support and comments. The tremendous amount of feedback i've gotten from this picture blows my mind! Thank you so much everyone, I'm glad you like this shot. :)

See the blog post for more info: Laughing Squid Photo by Brian McCarty

copyright 2006 Brian McCarty

This one was fairly co-operative. taken at 1.5:1 body length about 4mm

i co-admin a group on flickr (deleteme uncensored) and while i was on vacation i had a stop in newcastle where one of the other co-admins live. well while we were there were these 2 random pink office chairs on the side of the river... weird right? well the sales guys (they were showing the chairs to a client in a nearby office) were really alot of fun and good natured and raced the chairs down the pedestrian bridge (see other newcastle image in set if you are interested).

Flickr Blogged

Published in Germany's Max Magazine - April 2006 issue

byron bay sun shower

August 2003, photo by Ray Zimmerman
that's me 9 months pregnant