Yet Another Holiday Newsletter 1999

November 18, 1999

Dear Ones:

I’ve always been pretty broad-minded about what a “holiday newsletter” means. So long as I managed to send my newsletter out in time for some holiday (like Memorial Day), I was pretty satisfied. This year, however, I have vowed that this newsletter will be mailed before Christmas. Why? Well, Andy and I are up against a little deadline. When we wrote our first holiday newsletter (about two and a half years ago) it was to tell everyone that we were going to get married. This time, we want you all to know that we are having a baby.

As I write this, I am eight and a half months pregnant. The baby is due December 31st. (No, we do not plan on having “the millennium baby”. I’m hoping that the baby will honor us with a 1999 tax deduction instead. Still, when it happens, it happens. So long as the baby is healthy, her arrival date is immaterial.)

Are we excited? You bet. Having this baby is a dream come true for both of us. But we’re also scared witless. In just a few weeks, we will be responsible for nurturing a wonderful new person who will be completely dependent upon us. It’s the biggest life change we have ever faced, and change is scary.

I find myself daydreaming about the future a lot. What will the baby be like? What kind of personality will she have? (You may have noticed the “she” that I’ve casually dropped into this narrative. The last ultrasound we had indicated that our baby has a good chance of being a girl. Still, we plan to keep a boy’s name in reserve, just in case…) One thing we know for certain: she really, really likes music. Anytime we’re around music with a strong beat, she kicks in time to it. Andy has threatened to buy a drum set for our budding percussionist to play in the hospital, but I told him that he could probably wait a bit. It’s all a little disconcerting, but also very cool. It amazes me to think that our unborn child is already reacting to life outside the womb.

That’s probably enough baby stuff for now. There have been a lot of job related changes for both Andy and myself. Andy no longer yells at insurance companies for a living. Now he is a system analyst, and he tells me that he spends much of his time translating “gobbledy gook into English” and back again.

He is still working at the same company, though in the last two years it has had three different names. The current name is eBenX (What does it mean? We have no idea…) I’m not sure of the reasons behind this corporate identity crisis. My personal theory is that it is all part of a nefarious plot to keep the staff buying new company shirts and mugs.

I still work for Minneapolis Public Library, but have gone through a number of job shifts myself. I went from working on the Bookmobile to being a Youth Services Librarian, which I enjoyed very much. Then several months later I got promoted to working as a Librarian II in the Technology & Science Department. Working in the Technology & Science Department was fun: I got lots of challenging reference questions and helped inventors with patent research. But I felt a need for a change and so I’ve switched jobs again and am coordinating a two year grant that provides outreach to immigrant students and their families. The job is stressful, but it is also rewarding. It’s given me a lot of freedom to chart my own path and I feel like I’m contributing something of great value.

Andy has again started putting in a lot of volunteer time with the Boy Scouts of America. He took a new position as a Unit Commissioner; kind of an Old Fart’s Club in the Boy Scouts. Commissioners help teach new parents and Scout Leaders what Scouting is all about. And so every other week or so, he puts on his fancy uniform, and goes off to play with the boys. He is also working on all sorts of home improvement projects, including a new office for me in the basement and a nursery for the baby next to our bedroom.

I’m still writing, though it has been harder to find time with my new job. This year has been one where I made a number of writing-related breakthroughs. The biggest one was that I got the opportunity to attend the prestigious Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop for six weeks this summer. I was very excited to be accepted by Clarion, where I got to work with some of my favorite authors. In addition, one of my fiction stories was a semi-finalist in the Writers of the Future contest and I made two non-fiction sales to small markets. --Warning: shameless plug ahead-- I also wrote the rulebook for a game called Tile Chess™, designed by my friend Jason Wittman and ultimately published by Steve Jackson Games. If you like chess, it’s a cool game. If you buy a copy, Jason and I will autograph it for you.

December 17, 1999

Well, this form letter got held up by other developments on the baby front. We discovered at the end of November that our baby is perfectly healthy, but breech in a position that makes vaginal delivery hazardous. We tried to get her turned, but the first time she refused to budge at all. The second time, the doctor and midwife managed to turn her, but the moment they let go she flipped back immediately to her preferred position… So now we know that she is not only a non-conformist, but strong-willed and a gymnast to boot. The next eighteen years should prove to be interesting ones!

The end result of this is that we have scheduled a cesarean birth for December 21st. By the time you receive this letter, Andy and I will have already become proud (and sleep-deprived) parents. Please stay in touch. Give us a call, send us e-mail, or even write a giant form letter like this one. We want to know what is going on in your lives, and we’ve been way too busy and tired to ask you ourselves.

We hope you all have a joyous holiday season and the happiest of New Years.

Hugs,

Hmm