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"So, let's have a baby today," was how the doctor's appointment began the morning of Nov. 7. "Wanna have a baby right now?"

Just four hours later, our second daughter, Sara Frances, was born, weighing in at 6 pounds 13 ounces and stretching out to just a hair under 20 inches, for those of you that keep track of such things. She's absolutely perfect, though for the life of us we still can't figure out what color her hair's going to be (so long as it's not purple -- at least not for another 14 years or so).

I was going to start writing about what an amazing thing the birth of a child is, about how no matter how many times you hold a newborn in your arms, it's an entirely new experience. But then I remembered where I'm writing these things and decided to share a moronic, vaguely irrelevant anecdote instead.

With recent events, it's a strange, almost bittersweet time to bring a child into the world. But I take strange comfort in the fact that the big news event of the day that got the most coverage on MSNCNNAOLTBSTNNFOXSPICE Nov. 7 was not anthrax, not Afghanistan, not another idiot waved through airport security carrying more cutlery than a Ginsu salesman trying to make quota at the end of the month. No, it was a nationally televised, low-speed, hour-and-a-half car chase featuring a flaming 18-wheeler, complete with helicopters, police cars and a random deputy trying to shoot at the truck with what appeared to be a varmit rifle.

Sadly, we missed all the fun because we were, um, otherwise occupied. But I take this as a good sign -- if a televised car chase isn't a sign that the country's going back to normal, I don't know what is.