Yesterday was awesome. A day off with my kid, and we did our grocery shopping first thing in the morning -- the store was dead empty, which surprised me, but the clerk told me it's been really slow, as everyone is broke.

Then home, and the baby took his first nap of the day while I zipped through my freelancing (it was one of those days when the writing comes easily). When he got up I hung out with him, playing whenever he wanted, and sitting on the floor near him and reading or writing some fiction longhand while he played on his own. We listened to Christmas music, and had lunch, and generally enjoyed each other's company. He's a great kid. Sounds like "kitty" is going to be his first word (besides "mama" "dada" and "baba" of course); he's working on it, and getting close. In the afternoon he took another nap, and I typed up what I'd written, which amounted to another couple thousand words of the Troublesolver story, which is coming along beautifully. He woke up, and we played some more! Time with my son, getting paid work finished, doing some creative work... a beautifully balanced day. I wish every day were like that.

As of yesterday I've written a quarter of a million words for the year, slightly less than last year, slightly more than the year before (the first year I kept a daily work diary), but all within a few thousand words of each other. That seems to be my natural output, and I'm glad to see my numbers didn't decline precipitously during the first full year I had a baby in the house! (About 90,000 words of that total is my paid non-fiction work; the rest is fiction. I don't count blog posts, e-mails, tweets, etc.)

And now it's Pooksmas Eve. Tonight we will wear reindeer antlers and drink hot cider and listen to Christmas songs and watch The Grinch (with Karloff, not Carrey). Very disappointed that the Twilight Zone ep "Night of the Meek," one of my favorite Xmas shows, doesn't appear to be playing on Sci-Fi Channel this year, or else I already missed it. Maybe YouTube will come to my rescue. Anyway, there will be cups of cheer all around! And also mashing potatoes. Festiveness, is what I'm saying. Hope you all have as much fun as I expect to!