Whoo. Nice to finally be public about the impending baby. We wanted to wait until we got out of the first trimester, when the chance of miscarriage plummets, before we made it public, though we told family and some friends a few weeks ago. I am, like most typical fathers-to-be, panicking about finances, but I think we'll be okay... I've got novel money coming around the time the baby's due, and it is, coincidentally, exactly the right amount to cover the reduced income from Heather's maternity leave, so that immediate financial hurdle should be cleared without too much trouble. As for the longer term -- paying for child care, buying a kid-friendly car, getting money to send a kid to space-college or whatever in the year 2025, etc. -- umm, I dunno. I guess y'all had better buy my books!

We're very excited and also terrified. We started trying to get pregnant late last year, though we didn't tell many people about it, because, you know, why get people's hopes up? But it worked out okay. It just felt like the right time to expand our family. We talked about it a lot before deciding to try. It's a momentous, life-changing thing, but change is often good.

Anyway. Y'all have six months or so before this becomes a full-on baby-journal. In the meantime I'll be talking about writing a lot, probably, since I want to write a couple of novels before the kid is born. That way, if I lose a year of productivity to sleeplessness after Pixel is born, I'll still have books to sell! That's the plan, anyway. Though as we all know, "plan" is a four letter word for something that goes wrong at some point...