The quietest period in Dodger Thoughts history was after the birth of my daughter in September 2002. I had only started the site three months earlier, had fewer than 10 readers daily and was experiencing a life change like no other. I didn’t post for the remainder of the year.

I can’t remember what it was like. That is, I can remember my infant daughter, but I can’t remember what I thought about the absence of blogging. I can’t remember if I intended to restart, or if my mind had just gone blank. I can’t remember if I even thought about it during those black-of-night winter moments with my girl.

I remember those bleary nights now so fondly. I was so tired, a tired I haven’t shed in the years since, but I’m not sure my mind has been so clear, so uncorrupted, as it was during those three months.

She was a good baby, too. She kept us up, but she was a good baby. There were times as a baby she would wake up in the morning at 7 and just sing to herself in her crib. A lullaby for her sleepy parents.

In early January the next year, shortly after my girl had slept through the night for the first time on a holiday vacation to Carmel, I remember sitting in my cubicle at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and thinking that I might be ready to start Dodger Thoughts again. And I did. And I haven’t stopped since, for nine years and two more kids. Not for nine years has there been a day that I haven’t thought about this site. I can’t say that about anything else except my wife and children.