LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: This week’s contest answer is an adjective that describes my son, Tilghman, who turned eight years old yesterday.

Answer: CHEERFUL, found by 420 solvers, 395 of which were solo solves

LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE:

Week 1 of 5 easy, but still with a small amount of “crunch” (hate that term but I don’t know a better one!). We’ve got a mini 13×13 grid, but with T’s 8th birthday mentioned and eight 8’s being our longest entries in the grid, it would behoove us to check those out first! They are, in clockwise order:

12-A: [“Moving right along…”] = NEW TOPIC
15-A: [Height comparison usually involving a grasshopper] = KNEE-HIGH
9-D: [Emulate Alysa Liu] = ICE SKATE. New U.S. champion.
10-D: [Valhalla figure] = VALKYRIE
50-A: [Sneaky way in or out] = TRAP DOOR
54-A: [Replacing] = IN LIEU OF
28-D: [Make both parties happy] = CUT A DEAL
27-D: [Words on candy hearts] = I LOVE YOU

Eight is the number of the day, so take the eight letters of those to spell out, in grid order, contest answer CHEERFUL.

Here’s a picture of the 8-year-old, minus one tooth:

And one of 4.5-year-old Ada, because she’ll get mad if I don’t (!!):

docison writes:

Great way for an 8-year old to be!

Meg says:

Seems like he was a baby just a short time ago!

Tell me about it…

[Redacted] says:

Good to hear it. My son turns 18 on Sunday – probably SULLEN is closer …

Hey, no spoiler alerts!

And finally, Joe says:

Made me smile on a rough day. Thank you!

Maybe the best kind of email to get…

Moving on to Week 2 of 5…good luck!

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This puzzle’s contest answer is a two-word phrase.

Good luck!

–Matt