Heather's asleep, and the kid's asleep, and I should be sleeping, but I tried to nap on the couch and couldn't sleep, so here I am.

Thanksgiving was great, if a trifle tiring. We went to Holly's place (how I envy her big kitchen!), and I made turkey and stuffing and gravy and brought along the mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce I'd made the night before at home. Holly contributed salad and corn casserole and some wine, mmm. Before dinner I broke out the bottle of champagne I'd been saving to celebrate River's birth (Heather was finally off heavy painkillers and able to drink). Very tasty. The kid was totally chill and very mellow all afternoon... and woke up fussy just as we sat down to dinner. Ah, well. Heather and I just took turns eating. We headed home pretty early, as everyone was tired, and we've feasted on leftovers for the past two days. (I gave the cats a little of the leftover gravy with their food tonight, a decision I may regret when I'm cleaning up their vomit at 4 a.m.)

I'm still managing to squeeze in a little work here and there, in the interstices of new parenthood. I finished reading my page proofs for Poison Sleep, five or ten pages at a time, and sent off the corrections this afternoon. I managed to get a short story in the mail this weekend. I'm keeping more-or-less on top of my freelance writing responsibilities. I'm still a bit anxious about writing a novel in the next five months, but, hell, I've got a deadline, so it's going to get done one way or another, even if it's written in snatches of 500 words at a time on my lunch breaks. I'm giving myself another week to think about it and take notes, and planning to get serious (in a slow and steady way) as of December 1.

River is still being a very good baby, mostly only complaining when he has a reason to complain, and being pretty easy to chill out when he's fussy for no obvious reason (being a newborn involves a lot of existential crises, it seems). He likes it when we sing to him, and read to him, and he likes hanging out on my belly. I like those things too. We're off to a good start.