It's a girl

But then again, most of HickoryWind's regular readers already knew that. Here's the official announcement: Harper Rosine Moores was born at 8:45 Friday night. She weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces.

We chose Harper because it didn't sound as overused as a lot of the names we considered. It didn't hurt that the first person we think of when we hear it is Harper Lee, who wrote one of the greatest novels ever. Since this child was born to parents who are writers and editors, it just seemed to fit.

We picked Rosine as a middle name because it's a reference to Rosine, Ky., the birthplace of Bill Monroe. It also reminds us of a pretty excellent Tim Easton song titled "Hey Rosine." And, even though there's nothing wrong with Tom T. Hall, we just couldn't see sending a child out into the world with "Valley PTA" as a middle name.

So there you have it, folks. Thanks for putting up with my constant mentioning of the baby over the past several months (don't count on it stopping). Sharon and I also would like to thank you for your many words of support and wishes of good luck.

Talk to you Thursday,
Sean