It's nearly 4 a.m. and the baby's sleeping, so I really ought to be sleeping too, but I've got a chest cold (developed in, oh, the past two hours), which is very effective at keeping me awake, at least until the meds kick in... and by the time I've got the cough under control, River will surely be hungry and awake again. Ah, well. He's got a cold, too, poor kid, or at least a persistent case of the sniffles. He's not coughing like I am, at least.

Tonight my mom babysat while Heather and I went to get sushi with my brother and sister (mom doesn't eat sushi, so she didn't feel left out). It was a fantastic meal, and a really fun evening all together. We went for a little drive afterward, to look at some choice Christmas lights, and to show them a nice view-from-the-hills of Oakland and San Francisco all lit up at night. Magical, as always.

The family visit has been good, though I feel bad about how sleep-deprived we are (River is growth-spurting, and getting us up every 90 minutes or so to eat). We are, shall we say, not terribly attentive hosts. We also can't really gallivant around in public yet, at least not with the kid in tow, since he hasn't gotten his shots and has to avoid public places. Still, we're managing to have some fun, and to eat some good food, and so forth. My brother leaves on Xmas eve, so tomorrow -- or, rather, later today, sometime after the sun comes up -- we'll do a gift exchange with him, which will be fun.

I got word that my story "The Frozen One" will appear in a future issue of Eric Marin's cool online magazine Lone Star Stories.(If you've come to one of my readings in the past couple of years, you might have heard me read "The Frozen One." I wrote it as a spoken-word piece, but I think it works well on the page too, so I'm glad it found a home.) Otherwise, I'm still plinking away at the novel formerly known as Grift Sense (I am changing the title, though I don't know what it'll be called yet. My editor assures me I have plenty of time to figure it out. I assure her that I'm obsessive and that it'll bug me until I figure out a new title.)

Apart from the cough, and worrying about my poor sniffly kid, life is pretty grand!