I also have a short, 5.5 mile one way, commute. As mentioned above the good news is it can be as short as 5.5 miles or as long as I care to make it.

I have fun with the short distance and my Garmin. I'll run the Avg Speed up to about 18 MPH, the game is to keep current speed above average speed for the trip. Of course average speed is constantly going up so you work harder. Another one, probably not very smart, is my driveway to driveway challenge. No warm up, just see what's the highest average speed I can do from driveway to driveway.

Congratulations on the baby! Life is about to get amazing.