9:28 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 8 POUNDS 11 OUNCES

He's here! The delivery was, well, pretty bad. He's healthy and everything looks great; he scored 9s on his APGAR rankings (10 is the highest, but they like anything over 7). For those who don't know (as I sure didn't until recently) the nurses check newborns at 1 minute and 5 minutes in respect to various characteristics to see how they are doing.

As you can tell by the delay in my posting, we've been super busy and, frankly, a little overwhelmed.

Marci's water broke, or began to break, at 7:30am Saturday, and we were relatively calm about it. Our bags were pre-packed and in the trunk, the camera was juiced up and had extra batteries and a new charger. The birthing center is about 25 minutes from us, so we assumed we had plenty of time. I even stopped for coffee. The clerk asked what I had planned for the weekend, and I casually told her that my wife's water had just broken, so our weekend plans were pretty much set. She began frantically returning my change and started throwing big happy waves and thumbs-up to Marci in the car.

We made it in plenty of time, though the rest of Marci's water poured out onto her shoes at the reception desk.

***At this moment, I'm teaching Marci's English Compostion class at Big State University near Major Urban Center. It's lab day, so while the students work on their argument assignments (a letter of complaint, an apology to a significant other, and a pitch for a new invention) I'm trying to catch up a bit. More soon...