Look at Her!

This is one of the best pictures that shows her face. With all of the swaddling, and the fact that she doesn't poke her head up much, it's hard to get a picture of the face, especially the eyes. But her eyes are dark brown, and her hair is wavy and dark.



Daddy's girl. Josh was able to be in the room the whole time with Marla and the doctors. When I first arrived at the hospital, I found my mom, Josh's mom and his sister Jenny looking at her through the glass where Josh was watching the nurses give her her first bath, diaper, and burrito-style swaddling wrap. See below.




My first time to hold her . . . .

I must say, she is quite easy to hold. Still being just under 7 pounds, she does not get heavy very quickly. Also, she does not fuss, and she doesn't wiggle yet. She had the hiccups part of the time I held her, so every few moments I'd just feel her back and ribs just jump a little.

Here are my parents with their first grandchild. Marla and Josh haven't decided what they're going to teach Kate to call either set of grandparents, so for now I'll just tag them as Grandpa and Grandma.

Despite such a long and rough day, Marla felt good and seemed completely like herself. The plan will be for her and Kate to both go home from the hospital on Friday.

I wanted to bring some kind of gift to the hospital. I'd thought about stuffed animal or Mozart CD, but by this morning I still hadn't decided or gotten anything (I'll give her her REAL gift at Christmas, this was just to be something small). Then as soon as I got the call that it was okay to visit, I headed to the hospital and realized I should buy Katelyn the newspaper from the day she was born. So, in case she's curious someday: Katelyn, on the day you were born, the rest of the world was talking about Iraqi insurgency, who will Obama's running mate be, Beijing olympics, Russia's aggression, and Georgia's victims of Russia's aggression. But as for our family, well, we didn't much talk about anything else.

Welcome, Kate!

Katelyn Elizabeth Morris was born to parents Joshua and Marla Morris this morning at 10:23 AM. She weighs 6 lbs 10 oz. and measures 18 inches in length. She has a little bit of dark wavy hair, and according to her father, looks just like her mother. Both Mom and the baby are resting in the hospital, and the family will be there later this afternoon/evening to visit them after some much needed rest.
We will have our cameras with us, and pictures will be posted right away.
To borrow some words from my friend Joe Hays, slightly changed, "Today, God has given life to Kate".

The Aftermath of Edouard

Quick update since the last post:
The show went really well. Some nights better than others, and we had a pretty good run the night they videotaped. The move went very smoothly. Marla and Josh's Sunday School friends made the most difference by arriving early and engerized to get everything on the truck, moved, and off the truck at the new house. Settling and arranging things, along with deciding what to get rid of and what to keep will continue for some time.
One week ago tomorrow I had my tonsils removed. If you and I have ever been bored enough together to exchange medical histories, you're familiar with the ear, nose and throat stuff I've been through in my life. By age 22, it was time to admit that I would never grow into these tonsils, and the infections were escalating in frequency and severity. We decided to do it as soon as the show was over, leaving me plenty of recovery time before school starts in the fall. The recovery has gone about as well as could be expected. The medicines play games with my energy level. I've spent alot of time really feeling quite good, and some times also thinking that everything is terribly wrong and it couldn't be going worse. Funny thing is, I can't see a correlation between the medicine and the pain. At various times, it's been nearly impossible to even swallow a few drops of water, while sometimes I have enough energy to cook and eat an entire meal of solid food. I understand that patience is called for, and I'm trying be patient, but the having to sit still all the time and never knowing how I'll feel in an hour thing, it's old.
As you all know by now, Hurricane Edouard did not do any damage here, as had been feared. The threat of the hurricane was enough for Jordan to have to cancel her visit this week. She would have come Monday morning and left about an hour ago, but come Monday morning it still looked as if a storm were coming, so we called it off.
Instead, tomorrow I'm flying to Dallas, and I'll spend some time with her between then and Tuesday. No telling how I'll do. Perhaps I will continue to get progressively better, and be nearly normal by Tuesday. There's also the chance that taking a trip and being away from home will drain so much energy that I'll pretty much be good only for sitting and not much else.
Marla and Kate both continue to be healthy, and we give God thanks for that everyday. It shouldn't be long now before baby Kate comes along and everything changes. I suppose the race I'm watching to see is if my parents can get their house kind of settled and in working order before the grandkid comes along to distract.
I'm blogging from the library, because Comcast is incompetent. My parents transferred their phone, internet, cable bundle from the old house to the new. The TV has worked since day one, they go the phone going today, putting them just under two weeks' time, and we'll let you know when the internet comes along behind. Any half witted comcast marketting employee, right now, knows better than to ask my parents for any kind of reference or endorsement. Comcast, you people are lazy, dishonest, unhelpful people running a shoddy business. If it weren't for the fact that we still intend for you people to come back and fix damage they've done to our walls, I can't imagine we'd still be dealing with you at this poing.