This web log is not a diary, and I do not normally discuss my personal life in this space, but sometimes the news is so momentous that I cannot help wanting to shout it from the rooftops. I have some happy news, and I think the time has come to let it out lest I injure myself by the effort to contain it.
Yesterday my wife and I went to a clinic. They put a wand-like contraption up against her torso. Lo, and behold:
Wee babe sleeping soundly, and safely tucked away.
She is the most beautiful little baby I have ever seen, and that’s not just fatherly prejudice talking. Do you see how she rests her head on one arm, and tucks the other hand up under her cheek? That is just plain adorable.
At the present time she weighs about 3 lbs., and is nearly 11″ long not including her legs. Her legs, by the way, are strong and getting stronger, as her mother testifies daily. She is extremely fond of burritos and taramosalata, and she likes to take her daily jog right around the time when the rest of us are going to bed. As far as we know she is in excellent health, and if all proceeds as expected she will first open her eyes on the wide world in April, during Holy Week.
We are richly blessed indeed. Please join us in giving thanks!
All Manner of Thing 
January 27, 2009 at 10:11 am
She looks like you, Craig! That is definitely the second-cutest baby I’ve ever seen, no fatherly prejudice, of course :).
January 27, 2009 at 10:27 am
That is so great! Congratulations!
The first ultrasound I had ( in 1978 ) looked like this O
Of course, it was two days before she was born and it was very early ultrasound. That was the top of her head. Now she has hair and is gorgeous.
AMDG,
Janet
January 27, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Thanks so much! I was feeling a little depressed yesterday when nobody seemed to care about my little baby. But thank you both for your kind words.
My goodness, Janet, technology really has improved! 8) We were astonished by how good the pictures came out. We also got a ~30 min. video of the baby, in which we can see her moving around. It’s really amazing. I’d post “highlights”, but I can’t figure out how to edit the video file.
Daniel, it seems that you would be willing to concede that she is the cutest girl baby, yes? That would be satisfactory.
January 27, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Congratulations again! And remember, that’s 50 camels if you want her to marry Munchie.
January 27, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Camel cigarettes?
January 29, 2009 at 12:04 am
Congratulations!!! She’s lovely!!!
January 29, 2009 at 6:15 am
Incredibly precise photo!
January 30, 2009 at 11:59 am
I still can’t get used to people knowing so early whether the baby is a boy or a girl.
We talk, justly, of the miracle of life, but my contemplation of it usually gets snagged on the question of what it must feel like to be the mother at this point, having that little gal thrashing around inside you. I mean…*inside you*?!? Incomprehensible.
Mmm…burritos…I’m overdue for a trip to the Mexican restaurant, and alas it’s Friday.
January 30, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I think this is a basic impediment for men. My wife is astonished enough to find that there’s a real live baby in there, with her own arms and legs (and appetite). It’s not surprising that we men, at one remove, have an even harder time coming to grips with it. Ultrasound is a great help in this respect. I count it an amazing privilege to have the opportunity to look in on the baby at such an early stage. And she’s so beautiful!
As for your craving, I have just two words: fish taco.
January 30, 2009 at 12:44 pm
cnb, I am very happy for the three of you. Hearty congratulations. It’s a wonderful thing, being a dad.
January 30, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Oh, I was thinking bean burritos. I think a fish tace might possibly be good, but I just can’t get past the name.
Before I was ever pregnant, I just couldn’t believe that it could ever happen to me. It was totally incomprehensible. However, I never had any difficutly with the notion of the baby being inside me. I do find it hard to imagine, though, that I was inside someone else.
AMDG,
Janet
January 30, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I don’t really think she’s recalcitrant and obstinate, btw.
January 30, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Thanks very much, Dave. I’m enjoying fatherhood so far, although I must admit that it has not been too difficult. It is wonderful to imagine what our little girl will be like as she grows up. Will she write in cursive or not? What will her singing voice sound like? Which of my jokes, if any, will she find funny? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I am looking forward to finding out.
Janet, now whenever you say something that I don’t understand, I think really hard to figure it out. Even so, I cannot decide who you mean by “she” in the previous comment.
January 30, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I think you must not have read my comments on lodw.
I’m sorry to write in such a dark and impenetrable fashion.
AMDG,
Janet
January 30, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Ah! I’m having trouble seeing comments over there right now. I secretly suspect that Mac must be running his site on one of those Morrow Micro Decision systems.
January 30, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I think you may be on to something.
AMDG,
Janet
January 31, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Wonderful! Congratulations!
February 1, 2009 at 1:41 am
Congratulations. That’s awesome.
February 1, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Thanks, everyone!
February 1, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Though you know that my household rejoices at the news of the coming nativity of your darling, I thought it would be good to comment here just so that this eventually becomes one of the most popular posts in the history of your blog.
Funny how the personal item gets the biggest billing on a site that was meant not to contain many personal details…:-)
February 2, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Thanks, Christina. The response to this personal news has been very heart-warming. Your congratulations, and your prayers for the well-being of our little one, are much appreciated.
April 9, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Ok, this is an official commandeering of Craig’s site, which I hope he will forgive me for, but for which news I hope the loyal readership will rejoice to hear…
I hear on the grapevine that Craig and Althea’s little darling girl was born earlier this week and that all went well for mom and baby! I’ll leave the name as a surprise for Craig to reveal himself…
For a photo of Craig preparing for his new daddy-sized role, see: http://picasaweb.google.com/binozplygrnd/AltheaSShower#5308759202285220354
Sending my own congratulations and blessings to you, Craig and Althea!!
April 9, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Many congratulations!
April 9, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Thanks so much. It’s true, we have a beautiful baby girl. We’ve only just returned from hospital this evening, so it’s going to take some time to get ourselves together. I’ll post a picture when I get a chance. Never have I had so little sleep.
In the meantime, join us in giving thanks!
April 10, 2009 at 1:00 am
THE NATIVITY
By. G.K. Chesterton (c. 1893)
“For unto us a child is born.” – Isaiah
The thatch of the roof was as golden,
Though dusty the straw was and old,
The wind was a peal as of trumpets,
Though barren and blowing and cold:
The mother’s hair was a glory,
Though loosened and torn,
For under the eaves in the gloaming–
A child was born.
O, if a man sought a sign in the inmost
That God shaketh broadest his best,
That things fairest are oldest and simplest,
In the first days created and blest:
Far flush all the tufts of the clover,
Thick mellows the corn,
A cloud shapes, a daisy is opened–
A child is born.
With raw mists of the earth-rise about them,
Risen red from the ribs of the earth,
Wild and huddled, the man and the woman,
Bent dumb o’er the earliest birth;
Ere the first roof was hammered above them.
The first skin was worn,
Before code, before creed, before conscience–
A child was born.
What know we of aeons behind us,
Dim dynasties lost long ago,
Huge empires like dreams unremembered,
Dread epics of glory and woe?
This we know, that with blight and with blessing,
With flower and with thorn,
Love was there, and his cry was among them–
“A child is born.”
And to us, though we pore and unravel
Black dogmas that crush us and mar,
Through parched lips pessimistic dare mutter
Hoarse fates of a frost-bitten star;
Though coarse strains and heredities soil it,
Bleak reasoners scorn,
To us too, as of old, to us also–
A child is born.
Though the darkness be noisy with systems,
Dark fancies that fret and disprove;
Still the plumes stir around us, above us,
The tings of the shadow of love.
Still the fountains of life are unbroken,
Their splendour unshorn;
The secret, the symbol, the promise–
A child is born.
Have a myriad children been quickened,
Have a myriad children grown old,
Grown gross and unloved and embittered,
Grown cunning and savage and cold?
God abides in a terrible patience,
Unangered, unworn,
And again for the child that was squandered–
A child is born.
In the time of dead things it is living,
In the moonless grey night is a gleam,
Still the babe that is quickened may conquer,
The life that is new may redeem.
Ho, princes and priests, have you heard it?
Grow pale through your scorn.
Huge dawns sleep before us, stern changes–
A child is born.
More than legions that toss and that trample,
More than choirs that bend Godward and sing,
Than the blast of the lips of the prophet,
Than the sword in the hands of the King,
More strong against Evil than judges
That smite and that scorn,
The greatest, the last, and the sternest–
A child is born.
And the rafters of toil still are gilded
With the dawn of the star of the heart,
And the Wise Men draw near in the twilight,
Who are weary of learning and art,
And the face of the tyrant is darkened,
His spirit is torn,
For a new King is throned of a nation–
A child is born.
And the mother still joys for the whispered
First stir of unspeakable things;
Still feels that high moment unfurling,
Red glories of Gabriel’s wings.
Still the babe of an hour is a master
Whom angels adorn,
Emmanuel, prophet, annointed–
A child is born.
To the rusty barred doors of the hungry,
To the struggle for life and the din,
Still, with brush of bright plumes and with knocking,
The Kingdom of God enters in.
To the daughters of patience that labour
That weep and are worn,
One moment of love and of laughter–
A child is born.
To the last dizzy circles of pleasure,
Of fashion and song-swimming nights,
Comes yet hope’s obscure crucifixion,
The birth fire that quickens and bites,
To the daughters of fame that are idle,
That smile and that scorn,
One moment of darkness and travail–
A child is born.
And till man and his riddle be answered,
While earth shall remain and desire,
While the flesh of a man is as grass is,
The soul of a man as a fire,
While the daybreak shall come with its banner,
The moon with its horn,
It shall rest with us that which is written–
“A child is born.”
And for him that shall dream that the martyr
Is banished, and love but a toy,
That life lives not through pain and surrender,
Living only through self and its joy,
Shall the Lord God erase from the body
The oath he has sworn?
Bend back to thy work, saying only–
“A child is born.”
And Thou that art still in the cradle,
The sun being crown for Thy brow,
Make answer, our flesh, make an answer.
Say whence art Thou come? Who art Thou?
Art Thou come back on earth for our teaching,
To train or to warn?
Hush! How may we know, knowing only–
A child is born?
April 10, 2009 at 1:01 am
And congratulations! May your family enjoy its much-deserved rest.
April 10, 2009 at 9:24 am
Congratulations! I’m so glad they are both well and, of course, beautiful!
AMDG, Janet
April 10, 2009 at 10:03 am
Congratulations! You have just entered another dimension. Stay cool–you’ll adjust. And be especially good to your wife. I look forward to the pictures.
April 11, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Yay!!! Congrats!!! God bless y’all. And a Blessed Easter too!!!