As I wrote two years ago when my son Gabriel was born, I generally avoid posting about my personal life — with the exception of childbirth. So I can now once again violate my own self-imposed limits, because on Dec. 15, at 3:00 pm, my wife Emily gave birth to our second son: Zev Toby Thompson! That’s him above. On the left. He’s happy, healthy, and makes some really weird noises.

Zev’s impending arrival is the reason why this blog has experienced a simply lunar form of desolation in the last two months. I was frantically working 24/7 to try and get two major features and a half-dozen columns written before I went on a six-week paternity leave, which began this week. Now that I’m on leave, I can actually blog again, and my goodness do I have a backlog!