Happy Birthday to You!

In honor of my daughter's first birthday (yesterday, March 3), here is the e-mail I sent out to family and friends announcing the birth of Makenna Josephine Book. I'll post pictures after the party.

We’d like everyone (well, family and friends, anyway) to share in our excitement in welcoming a daughter to our family. We were really tempted to choose a name like Rita or Paige (pause for laughter) but we couldn’t willingly destine such a tiny, beautiful creation such grief as she would experience throughout her lifetime. She has, nevertheless, inherited some of my genes, which, according to popular opinion, is cause for greater affliction in her days ahead. For those of you who don’t know me that well, that was an attempt at humor.

As you are praying for the sanity of my new child, here are the details you were probably looking for (complete with footnotes)…

Name: Makenna Josephine Book (1)

Birth date: March 3, 2003 (03/03/03) @ 2:29 PM (2)

Weight: 7 lbs. (3)

Length: 19 1/4 inches

Visit the web page with some pictures.... http://www.bookfamily.net/makenna.htm

By the way, the labor and delivery went quick and without much pain or any complications. Her brother, Ryan, is very excited about having a sister.

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1. McKenna means "son of Ken". Since I am neither Ken nor is she a son, that name wouldn’t be appropriate. However, Makenna is a girl’s name which means "happiness." We have de-capitalized the "K" because we are not advertising for Kmart. By the way, if you did not understand my first joke in the introductory paragraph, say the name "Rita Book" about 10 times consecutively and you’ll get the joke. Paige Book is pretty self-explanatory. Also, we do not have any nicknames planned for her, like: MJ, Mac, Kenna, Kenny, MacJo, M. Jo, Josie, Jo, or Booklette (notice the feminine spelling).

2. We realize that her birth date happens to be 03/03/03. In light of this, we considered naming her Trinity. Our only option in this case would be to drop the use of the middle and last names since "Trinity" with anything else doesn't sound as cool.

Actually, the nurse said she was born at 14:29. She must have had some of Stephanie's medicine because my watch doesn't go up to 14 and especially 29 minutes past 14. Someone said something about military time but the only uniforms I saw were either solid blue pajamas or smocks with flowers on them. Unless the doctors and nurses were part of a "slumber-party-flower-power" military, I'll go by my watch that said 2:29 PM.

3. I think this is the size of the turkey Stephanie and I ate for our first Thanksgiving together. It's hard to compare the two since that was so long ago and they are two completely different shapes. Other things that weigh seven pounds:

- the average weight each person gains during the holidays
- 7 lbs. of marbles
- one of Donna Imel's chocolate chip cookies