Meet Grace.

When I was a kid my dad used to joke that whenever we went on a trip-family vacation, visiting relatives,etc- that we would always return home with more stuff than we left with. This was never more true for me than this past Tuesday when I slowly pulled away from the hospital with my most precious cargo ever-my beautiful newborn daughter, Grace Catherine. That's right, she decided to bless us with her arrival about three weeks earlier than the docs predicted. This has made for an exciting, unpredictable week to say the least. I'm pleased to announce that Amanda was a delivery all-star and that she and baby are healthy and happy.

Grace weighed in at a healthy 6 lbs, 6 oz and 19.5 inches. She does, however, have one small issue. She was born with a partially cleft palate; there is a small gap in the soft palate/roof of her mouth. This will require a surgical correction down the road but, fortunately, at this time it causes no major problems. We feel that if this is the worst thing that happened, we are in great shape. Otherwise, we are settling in to the happy transition at home complete with lack of sleep and dirty diapers. I wouldn't change it for anything.

Some of you may be interested in how we finally settled, after months of indecision, on the name Grace Catherine. We had narrowed the list to three-Grace Catherine(Amanda's grandmother's name), Sydney Grace (probably our favorite throughout the pregnancy) and Phoebe Grace(a late entry that didn't even make it on the baby shower Wheel O' Names). For me the tie was broken by our awesome labor and delivery nurse. She was knowledgable, helpful, caring and had a great bedside manner. She refused to take her lunch break even when they offered to cover her late in her shift. She was a blessing who we could not have done without. Her name? Catherine, of course.

A few other observations from my first week as a new dad:

*Before becoming a father I would have never guessed that I would be so happy/relieved to receive a text message that read, "We have poo and pee!".
*There may be nothing sweeter in this world than the soft sigh your daughter emits as she passes out after a breast milk bender.
*If NASA used that tarry, meconium poo to attach the Space Shuttle's heat shield they would never have to worry about tiles flying off during takeoff.
*My wife's Medela breast pump is either the coolest or scariest device I've ever seen, I can't decide which. I'm convinced Medela is Latin for "robot farmer".
*When trying to sing my daughter to sleep I realized how few songs to which I actually know the words. I'm not a huge music fan and it shows. I'm happy to report that Grace was soothed by my outstanding rendition of "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers. Good thing I know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.